The Rock and the kids. Photo Credit: Ted Chen.
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Racing Karts. Photo Credit: Kent Smith.
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Brandon Warren. Photo Credit: Wolfgang Held. .
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Annabeth Barnes with her father Darren Barnes. Photo Credit: Kent Smith.
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Josh Hobson. Photo Credit: Bruce Walls.
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Director Marshall Curry. Photo Credit: Bill Gallagher.
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Director Marshall Curry. Photo Credit: Trujillo Paumier.
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Racing Dreams Poster.
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by S.T. VanAirsdale

THE UNDERDOG: I can’t really put my thoughts about the kart-racing documentary Racing Dreams any better than Michelle put her own in this week’s review: “The difference between [director Marshall] Curry and an impatient roomful of critics is that he took several years out of his life to reckon with those ideas, and the result is a spectacularly rich, fully realized portrait of youth on the point of adolescence, and ambition in the face of desperate odds. At the end of the film’s 93 minutes Curry could have invited me to a frog-sexing competition and I’d have happily signed on.” In other words: Don’t let the “NASCAR Little League” subject matter scare off the auto-sports-o-phobe in you. This is just great storytelling about three cool kids who drive really, really fast — period. It deserves to be seen.