Friday Night Lights - DVD

Tombanjo · Post by **Tombanjo** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 7:57 am

Nothing esle to do in the blizzard, so we popped in Friday Night Lights. It's a very well done "true" story about a high school football team in Texas, where they seem to take H.S. football very seriously. They reaaly capture the mood of it all down there. It's a far cry for me, having played H.S, football in NYC where NOBODY cares! The football sequences were extremely realistic, maybe even too much so, as the players almost seemed to be of NFL caliber. Billy Bob Thorton is quietly building quite a body of quality work for a guy that hit the scene as some kind of freak act. The guy can act!

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 4:48 pm

Just bought it - didn't see it at the theater. Can't wait!

H.S. Football is HUGE in GA.

raff · Post by **raff** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:32 am

Interesting, I thought this movie was average at best. Philly is like NYC, no one really cares about High School FB

akirby · Post by **akirby** » Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:33 pm

Raff wrote:Interesting, I thought this movie was average at best. Philly is like NYC, no one really cares about High School FB

Saw it Saturday night. I thought it was excellent and really captured the essence of high school football in the South. Yeah, some of the tackles and hits seemed a bit out of place for a high school game, but I thought it was very well done.

I thought the kid playing the quarterback was over-acting until I watched the documentary - he nailed the kid's speech and personality 100%.

High School football is so big down here that teams back in the 60s and 70s (and maybe the 80s) used to get local businessmen to hire out of town fathers just so their kids could play football. And they'd fail them or hold them back in the 8th grade so they'd be a year older and bigger. Valdosta, GA was the most famous example but I imagine it was just as bad in Texas.