Rewatchables Reference

• Shep showing up for the final game in quarter-length shorts, going 13 for 13 with mid-range jumpers.
• Birdie recruiting Kyle at the club – Tupac's seduction scene ('Everything costs in here').
• The 'bum game' where Kyle plays Flip, with Bernie Mac throwing verbal heat, leading to Shep's line 'They can't erase what we were, man. Champions.'
• Kyle's Georgetown-winning shot right into 'Regulate.'
• Marlon Wayans' ab-flexing introduction scene ('That's without baby oil').

• Tupac at his peak – great to see him perform.
• Wood Harris and the Avon Barksdale / Wire lineage.
• Eric Nies / Montross as the ultimate 90s casting (Real World + MTV's The Grind).
• Shep's 13-for-13 game in quarter-length shorts.
• Tonya Pinkins' performance as the mother – 'perfect in almost every scene.'
• The depiction of New York streetball culture.
• The poster.

• Winner: 'Big Pimpin'' by Tha Dogg Pound – they lament it gets cut off too soon.
• The soundtrack won Soundtrack of the Year at the 1995 Source Awards.

• Above the Rim's Wikipedia page – 'fucking unacceptable,' barely any information.
• Kyle Lee Watson as a character – ball-dominant, high-dribble, unlikeable protagonist.
• The nine-and-a-half-foot rims (Duane Martin clearly can't dunk at regulation height but does windmill dunks).
• Birdie's enormous cell phone.
• Nutso's death scene – wall appears and disappears, backboard breaks from a slap, hooping in Letterman jackets on a rooftop.

• Wosny's take: Montross is a much better basketball player than Kyle; his prequel movie 'Below the Rim' about a white kid from Bensonhurst would be a better movie.
• Bill's take: Kyle scoring the winning basket with John Thompson celebrating is the official beginning of the end of the Big East era.
• Van's take: This is the best basketball movie of all time.

• Allen Payne (G-Money from 'New Jack City') was the original choice to play Kyle Lee Watson.
• Leon claimed the role of Shep was originally offered to Denzel Washington, who turned it down (hosts found this hard to believe since Malcolm X had just come out).

• Winner: Duane Martin – dialed it up in multiple scenes, especially with his mother ('You're fucking Barney Fife!').
• Wood Harris screaming 'I'm a motherfucking soldier!'

• Byron Minns – the other security guard; played Ray Ray in South Central (100% on Rotten Tomatoes).
• Duane Martin himself as a cultural figure.

• Winner: Bernie Mac – his 2.5 scenes are unstoppable. Also wins the 'Teddy KGB' award for clearly doing his own thing in the movie.
• Marlon Wayans also considered.

• Considered Danny Aiello for the coach but concluded he was too big a star for this budget.
• 2022 remake: Kyle = Anthony Edwards (NBA player), Montross = Tyler Herro, Birdie = 21 Savage.

• Pee Wee Kirkland was the basis/inspiration for the story.
• Tonya Pinkins is only 3 years older than Duane Martin.
• Duane Martin played at NYU, first team all-association 1988-89.
• Leon got a Loyola Marymount basketball scholarship but dropped it for acting.
• Speedy Williams was the basketball technical consultant for the movie.

• 90s basketball movies – yes.
• 90s New York basketball – yes (same year Knicks made the Finals).
• Duane Martin – yes, without doubt.
• Eric Nies – yes.
• Tha Dogg Pound – yes.
• Leon – debated (Five Heartbeats, 'Cliffhanger', The Temptations all contenders).
• Bernie Mac – no (had his own show, Players Club).

Sam Jackson – the hosts are shocked he wasn't in this movie. 'The fact that Sam isn't in this movie is a miracle.'

• Nutso's death: basketball court on a roof in front of giant glass windows, backboard breaks from a slap, wall appears/disappears.
• Kyle only has one college offer (Georgetown) despite being the best player in the city.
• Georgetown scout comes to watch Kyle after they've already offered him.
• Outdoor streetball tournament during high school season with weather inconsistencies (March in NYC but people in shorts/t-shirts).
• The high school name 'Monarch High School Panthers' – not how NYC public schools are named.
• Motaw has the ball with 15 seconds left in the final game despite being the enforcer, not the point guard.

Van says Tupac gets it.

• Van: Hoop Dreams first, then 'Above the Rim'.
• Wosny: The Sixth Man (another Marlon Wayans movie).
• Bill: 'Above the Rim' + 'Blue Chips' (came out a month apart in 1994).

• Bill: Tommy's game-used quarter-length shorts or Motaw's 'Bulldogs' jersey.
• Wosny: A background poster that says 'Grip it, Feel it' for a power tool.
• Van: Birdie's razor blade.

• 'Folks need to move past the stuff that happens to them, or they stop moving at all.'
• Don't be a runner.
• If you're playing basketball outdoors by yourself with no basketball, you probably need to be in a mental institution.

• Did the mom and Shep get married? (Bill thinks yes – he finally stopped running.)
• Does Marlon Wayans' character make it out of the club alive? (Consensus: absolutely not.)
• How does Nutso get his name?
• Which coach would be scarier to interview at halftime – Popovich or Birdie?

The soundtrack (if eligible), then Tupac as the individual performer.