LoLL - Basketball Diaries

Basketball Diaries 1995

The Basketball Diaries is a harrowing growing-up story, based on the true-life exploits of poet and musician Jim Carroll.
Jim (Leonardo DiCaprio) begins as a high school basketball star at New York's St. Vitus High, where one priest-teacher gets a charge out of spanking errant students and the basketball team experiments with drugs during off-hours. Jim, whose coach (Bruno Kirby) makes a pass at him, launches a dark descent into the hell of drug abuse: he passes out during a game, jumps off a cliff into the Harlem River, gets thrown out of the house by his mother (Lorraine Bracco), and eventually turns tricks for drug money as he gets hooked on heroin. Jim's poetry is the one thing he has left when he is found, literally on the street, by a tough ex-junkie (Ernie Hudson) who undertakes his rehabilitation. Unrelentingly grim, The Basketball Diaries focuses primarily on Jim's fall, making his redemption almost an afterthought.

Cast
Leonardo DiCaprio - Jim Carroll
Bruce "Bruno" Kirby, Jr. - Swifty
Lorraine Bracco - Jim's Mother
Ernie Hudson - Reggie Porter
Patrick Mc Gaw - Neutron
Juliette Lewis - Diane Moody
Manny Alfaro - Manny
Toby Huss - Kenny
Michael Imperioli - Bobby
Roy Cooper - Father McNulty
Barton Heyman - Confessional Priest
James Madio - Pedro
Doc Dougherty - Policeman
Josh Mostel - Counterman
Michael Rapaport - Skinhead
Marilyn Sokol - Chanting Woman
John Vennema - Mr Rubin
Mark Wahlberg - Mickey
William Webb - Juju Johnson

Scott Kalvert - Director
Liz Heller - Producer
Paul Hellerman - Producer
Kathie Hersch - Producer
John Bard Manulis - Producer
Bryan Goluboff - Screenwriter
David Phillips - Cinematographer
Graeme Revell - Composer (Music Score)
Dana Congdon - Editor
Christopher Nowak - Production Designer
Chris Blackwell - Executive Producer
Dan Genetti - Executive Producer
Harriet Zucker - Set Decoration/Design
David C. Robinson - Costumes/Costume Designer
Diane Hammond - Makeup
Karyn Rachtman - Supervisor/Manager
Paul Clay - Sound/Sound Designer
William Sarokin - Sound/Sound Designer
Avy Kaufman - Casting

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