Scratching your head because you don’t know why David Duchovny provides narration for Rick Greenwald’s Quantum Hoops? Hint: the truth is out there. Star of the geekiest show in television history, Duchovny sounds lobotomized going over the history of Caltech—whose motto is “The truth shall set you free”—on and off the basketball court. Even if you don’t have a degree in chemical engineering—scratch that, especially if you have a degree in chemical engineering—you’ll probably wish Scully had taken the reins from Mulder, but Duchovny’s sleepy-time conviction to Greenwald’s script is the least of the documentary’s problems. The Caltech basketball team has lost more games than any other team in Division III history, but rather than embrace human interest and illuminate the inspirational road that led to the 2006 team ending a 207-game losing streak in January 2007, Greenwald just pours over the achievements of Caltech’s alumni, offering their contributions to science and humanity as a justification for why they suck on the court. This means that Quantum Hoops often has nothing to do with basketball in the slightest, but rather how Caltech’s nerds shunned Vietnam protesting, how they aspired to help the U.S. land on the moon before Russia (the connection to sports: Sputnik resembled a basketball!), how Eisenstein visited their campus in the 1930s, and for the cinephilles in the house, how the school counts Frank Capra as one of its graduates. For sure, Greenwald’s dull historical timeline will make you regret having signed up for it.
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