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Topic: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Lights' (Read 293 times)

Rhune
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Review: Football film filled with bright 'Lights'
« on: Oct 7^th, 2004, 8:08pm »

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Review: Football film filled with bright 'Lights'
A tale of a tough team and spirited people
By Paul Clinton
For CNN.com
Thursday, October 7, 2004 Posted: 4:30 PM EDT (2030 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- "Friday Night Lights" is set in the town of Odessa, Texas, located on the flat, windswept plains of the state.

Odessa is a hard-scrabble oil industry hub best known for one thing: a championship high school football team, the Permian Panthers. Every young man in Odessa who can possibly play ball carries the expectation of being part of that legendary team.

They have to have those hopes. Being on the Permian Panthers is not only a ticket to winning, but often a ticket out to the wider world.

"Friday Night Lights" tries to capture not only the ground-level football, but the hopes and dreams of its characters, the school and the town. It's about the importance of giving yourself over to something greater than yourself as an individual, being part of a group striving for a common dream.

It mostly succeeds.

Billy Bob Thornton, one of the movies' most accomplished character actors, plays real-life coach Gary Gaines. The coach is a dedicated family man under mind-shattering pressure, by both the school board and the entire town of Odessa, to bring home Permian's fifth state championship in its 30-year history. He'd better; he failed to do so in his first two seasons as coach, and Permian expects winners.

Thornton -- whose father, in real life, was a baseball coach -- carries the role with style and grace. His character is the emotional core of the team.

Star players
But "Friday Night Lights" is a true ensemble piece and Thornton's star wattage doesn't overpower the film. The real stars of this story are the players themselves, and to a great extent the town of Odessa.

Lucas Black plays Mike Winchell, the quiet, uncertain quarterback upon whose shoulders so many expectations rides. He has worked with Thornton two times before; first in the Oscar-winning film "Sling Blade," later in the Thornton-directed "All the Pretty Horses." He's grown both as a man and as an actor.

Also of note is Garrett Hedlund, who plays Don Billingsley, the son of a man who lives his life through his son, trying to recapture his own memories of his former glory days playing for the Panthers. Billinglsey's father is played with great authority by country singer Tim McGraw in his first starring role.

To call football an obsession for the folks of Odessa would be a mighty understatement. For these people the game and what it represents isn't just a sport; it symbolizes the American dream.

Authenticity
The 1990 H. G. "Buzz" Bissinger book on which the movie is based caused a minor scandal in Odessa. Many townsfolk believed the book criticized the town's obsession with the game of football to the detriment of its academic standards.

Director Peter Berg -- who happens to be a second cousin of Bissinger -- has carefully avoided those pitfalls with an outstanding screenplay, written along with David Aaron Cohen. Though a lot of the dodging was done by concentrating on what happens at the line of scrimmage, the film still offers a knowing look at the town and its culture.

Berg's use of a hand-held camera and the gritty look of the film also add greatly to the authenticity of the action.

"Friday Night Lights" will be classified as a sports film, but it has none of the glossy sheen given most of that genre. It's better that that -- better than a simple ride to what's often a foregone conclusion. "Lights" feels real, honest and -- most of all -- heartfelt, and it's filled with good performances and a fine spirit.

"Friday Night Lights" opens nationwide on Friday and is rated PG-13.

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avsfanbuck
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Re: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Ligh
« Reply #1 on: Oct 8^th, 2004, 8:43am »

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I really want to go see this movie

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luci
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Re: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Ligh
« Reply #2 on: Oct 8^th, 2004, 9:21am »

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We're seeing it this afternoon. Peter Berg went to the townpeople and told them how he was going to film the movie and they were OK with it, for he did want their appproval. Berg is from Texas and an actor you would recognize if not his name, his face. He's been in several movies.
From the reviews we're heard, it is the best sports movie ever made, we'll see!
We relate to this West Texas town, since the town we're from is so into Football as well. We hope to get there for the 2 P.M. showing!

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Rhune
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Re: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Ligh
« Reply #3 on: Oct 8^th, 2004, 12:14pm »

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I'm not a football fan, so I probably won't see this, but I understand it's a well made film.

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Rhune
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Re: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Ligh
« Reply #4 on: Oct 8^th, 2004, 6:21pm »

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'Friday Night Lights' A Winner

By Christy Lemire
AP Entertainment Writer

The rhapsodic hyperbole, the media scrutiny, the fan obsession.

No, we're not talking about the Boston Red Sox at playoff time. This is Texas high school football, and exaggeration is impossible.

From the big cities to the smallest wind-swept towns, it really is a way of life. H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger captured it with eloquence and evocative detail in his 1990 best seller "Friday Night Lights" — and director Peter Berg does it again in his film of the same name.

It's easy to overdramatize the heroism and heartache of a sports movie, but Berg, who adapted Bissinger's book with screenwriter David Aaron Cohen, resists the urge and goes in the opposite direction.

The focus is on Permian High School football in the West Texas city of Odessa, both on the field and in the locker room.

The look is stripped down and bleached out, making the already parched landscape of oil fields and scrub brush seem even bleaker, though in a strikingly beautiful way. And the soundtrack is an eclectic mix of old-school rap, rock and punk, including the truly inspired use of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" during the Permian Panthers gutsy second half in the 1988 state championship.

There is an awful lot of action, though — the football scenes have a bone-jarring realism thanks to stunt coordinator Allan Graf, a former USC offensive lineman who also choreographed the plays in "Any Given Sunday" and "Jerry Maguire" — but sometimes at the expense of character development.

For example, the book focused more on Brian Chavez, Permian's star tight end who went on to Harvard and is now a lawyer in Odessa. Here, he's a barely fleshed-out supporting character played by "crazy/beautiful" co-star Jay Hernandez.

Bissinger, who happens to be Berg's second cousin, also spent more time exploring the racial and socio-economic rifts that existed both within Odessa in the late 1980s and between Odessa and rival Midland, a wealthier, whiter town 20 miles east.

But Berg does faithfully depict the be-all, end-all element of high school football in places like this, where literally every store shuts down on Friday nights and the 20,000 people packing the stadium all have some opinion on how the coach should run the team.

As the under-pressure Coach Gaines, Billy Bob Thornton continues to show he can bring nuance to any role. Thornton doesn't turn the character into a cliche, barking out orders like a drill sergeant. Instead, he shows the seething anxiety of living under the constant possibility of being fired (after a huge Permian loss, Gaines comes home to a sea of "for sale" signs sprouting from his front lawn) as well as the genuine desire to develop strong players and even stronger men.

Among the stars of his squad are shy quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black, who played opposite Thornton as a boy in "Sling Blade"), who's not really sure why he's playing football, and party-boy tailback Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund), who's living in the shadow of his alcoholic father (Tim McGraw), who was a star at Permian 20 years earlier. McGraw, the country music stud, gives a surprisingly convincing performance in his film debut, one that's reminiscent of Dwight Yoakam's turn in "Sling Blade."

The showiest role of all, and the one that offers the greatest range, is that of Boobie Miles (Derek Luke), the showboating running back who helps the Panthers light up the scoreboard in their first game, only to suffer a serious injury at the end that sidelines him for the rest of the season. Luke, the "Antwone Fisher" star, is magnetic at the character's high point, then furious and fearful as he realizes his dreams of playing college and pro football have been destroyed.

His performance vividly conveys how high school football can be more than a religion — it can represent life itself, for better or worse. Berg, as Bissinger did before him, lets us decide for ourselves.

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luci
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Re: Review: Football film filled with bright 'Ligh
« Reply #5 on: Oct 10^th, 2004, 6:31pm »

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Wonderful movie Cool

If you like football you'll love this movie!
If not, don't waste your time seeing it!

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