Something To Cheer About

When most of today's basketball superstars are African-American, it's hard to conceive of a time when to be black and play the game was considered a novelty. This heartfelt but only intermittently interesting documentary from writer-director Betsy Blankenbaker tells the story of the Crispus Attucks Tigers, the Indianapolis, Indiana, high-school basketball team that became the very first all-black lineup ever to win a state championship. Told primarily through the reminiscences of the surviving players — and one or two cheerleaders — the film begins by recalling the dark, segregated days of the pre-Civil Rights era, when blacks in many U.S. towns and cities ...