Brooklyn Castle: The Agonies and Ecstasies of the Nation's Top Junior High Chess Team

Courtesy of PDA

Location Info

Map

O Cinema Miami Shores

9806 NE 2nd Ave.
Miami Shores, FL 33138

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: Upper Eastside/Miami Shores/Biscayne Park

0 user reviews	Write A Review

Details

Directed by Katie Dellamaggiore. 101 minutes. Rated PG.

Related Content

• Anthony Bourdain No Reservations: Last Stop, Brooklyn
  November 6, 2012
• Khong River House Hosts Top Chef's Dale Talde For Chef's Table
  May 29, 2013
• Shake Shack Launches Mast Brothers Chocolate Bar
  December 27, 2012
• Rapper Kenneth "Nu Money" Casilla Shot and Killed in Miami
  April 2, 2013
• Lucali in SoBe: Miami's Best Pizza
  March 7, 2013

More About

• Katie Dellamaggiore
• Brooklyn Castle
• Brooklyn (New York City)
• Bobby Fischer
• Chess

He's glimpsed only briefly in Brooklyn Castle, Katie Dellamaggiore's magnanimous look into the agonies and ecstasies of the country's top-rated junior high chess team, but the specter of Bobby Fischer underlines a central point: Why not Brooklyn? At Midwood's I.S. 318, where up is down, and the geeks have inherited the earth, Dellamaggiore follows several kids — including a garrulous junior politician, a sober prodigy, a spiky upstart, and an ambivalent girls' champ (play is segregated for unspecified reasons) — as they prepare to uphold the school's reputation. Like most kid competition docs, Brooklyn Castle explores the question of how and why certain kids succeed. A focus on the school's dedicated teachers and administrators and the endangered funding they depend upon offers two strong suggestions. We also gain a keen sense of how chess in particular helps otherwise academically challenged kids find a way into their own brains. And yet a premium on a more conventional form of success emerges; struggling families mean pressure to lock into a high-earning career track. In the meantime, there is always the next game and its lessons; it seems both natural and a little sad that most of these kids smile only with a trophy in their hands.