"friday Night Lights"

[pineda]

We saw this movie last weekend. The place was absolutely packed with teenagers and adults. People actually clapped at the end of the movie! It was THAT GOOD! Billy Bob Thornton and Lucas Black were fantastic together again. The next day, I heard a Houston D.J. comment on the movie saying how hokey he thought it all was, that nobody cares about high school football THAT MUCH and that the accents were all wrong. Then he said he, of course, had never been to Midland/Odessa, though. That made us all laugh, because the accents were dead-on perfect and people do care that much for high school football there and other places. This year, Klein Oak was re-districted into 4-A football. That means we've played teams out of our normal district, which used to include Klein Collins, Klein and Klein Forest as well as the Woodlands. Instead we've been playing teams out of Montgomery, New Caney, Willis and tomorrow night, the Mighty Bulldogs out of Livingston. When we've travelled to the games, it is amazing, the towns DO seem to all but shut-down and it feels like the entire town is there in the stadium with you. It's been a fantastic experience for us all, and we will miss this aspect when we're once again relegated to 5-A ball, where only some students and their parents show up for games. The energy and enthusiasm and excitement at these small-town games is something everyone should get a chance to experience.

[Montrose1100]

Go Klein Collins!

[pineda]

Montrose-Are you a Klein Collins high school student or a parent of one? How are they doing in their district this year? They're the Tigers & Tigerbelles, right?

[H-Town Man]

Montrose has a friend at Klein Collins, if I remember correctly.

I didn't like the directing style of the movie. I don't think a single shot lasted longer than 3 seconds. Sometimes I felt like I was sitting in a chair with electrodes attached to me, being constantly jolted by different stimuli, and never asked to think. It was made for a society that has lost its attention span. I can't really tell whether it was good or bad, because I already knew the story from the book, and was constantly thinking about how it matched up. I imagine that somebody who hasn't read the book saw a totally different movie than I did. Oh, and the music they played during the football games was TERRIBLE. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I can't stand that crap. And then, to suddenly switch to conventional classical music for the last play at the end - what was that? Be consistent, at least. What they should have done for the last play was just mute the sound and show it in silence - that would have made for much better dramatic effect than the Karate Kid crap.

Other stuff... they should have played up the difference between Odessa and Midland more. For example, Midland has this incredible skyline while Odessa has one crummy skyscraper, even though the two towns are the same size. Show the rich kids in contrast to the poor kids. Or with Dallas Carter... mention how the players on this team were frequently handed answer sheets with their tests in class. But I guess then the movie would be too intellectual. I think my tastes must be different from the average movie-goer.

[pineda]

I think the style was used intentionally to show the excitement of the game, the fast-paced action fit in very well. I think it correctly captured the spirit and feeling of how it must have felt to be juniors and seniors on a winning high school football team, and I loved the ending. Life does go on after football. I also thought Tim McGraw did a stand-up perfect job for a newcomer to acting. Then again, I did not read the book first. Most of the times when I have "read the book" before seeing the film, I am also perhaps watching a little studiously to see if it follows the book just the way I think it should, and I've usually been disappointed that it does not, but the film was Peter Berg's interpretation of the book, not mine.