Random Thoughts: Friday Night Lights, Home at the End of the World, Shall We Dance

Friday Night Lights - 8.5/10

A deeply moving, very intense, sometimes disturbing, but completely American story is brought to like in a gripping, matter of fact documentary style. You know me and know that I know almost nothing about football, so imagine my surprise when I was sucked into this completely new to me world. In Texas, football is life. The entire dream of a town is put in the hands of a group of young men so that they, unlike the residents in the town who drown in their own mediocrity, can actually get the hell out of there. Football is the only way. (Well, so they think. This is Bush country after all.) Women are secondary characters, support beams for the men. I suspect this is not the film's choice, but rather the way of life. Businesses close whenever games are. Football players get free meals from local restaraunts. There's enough reporters on the field during pre-season you'd suspect there was a film press conference occuring.

Billy Bob Thornton is their coach, who doesn't yell "God damn it!" every second, swear at the cheerleaders or flip over benches. In fact, he's rather restrained. He makes a salary of $60k a year, which as we learn is more than the principal of the school. Yet, he's like a local celebrity. His name is on the radio all the time. Everyone in town knows who he is. They don't just hope he's going to take the team all the way to victory, they tell him he is. No or else. In a great visual scene, he comes home after losing a game to find his wife sitting on their front porch surrounded by stolen real estate signs scattered all over their lawn. See how important this is?

In a Traffic-esque approach (though not completely, that would have allowed the film to fully cross from very good to greatness where the film occasionally resides,) director Peter Berg focuses on a few of the players jumping back and forth between the storylines. One's mother takes the game so seriously she has practically gone insane quizzing her son every morning before school. Another has offers from almost every school in the country because he is the star of the team. And he knows it. Yet another's own father was once a state champion who likes to get drunk after the games and make his son's life a living hell. Tim McGraw is quite the surprise thespian as the father. Derek Luke plays the egotistical player whose story turns tragic after an injury and the realization that any hope he had of escaping his life is now over. Lucas Black, who appeared 8 years ago opposite Thornton in Sling Blade and since in films like Cold Mountain and The X-Files: Fight the Future, is a breakthrough as the player who doesn't even seem to like football or be all that interested in its world yet uses it as the only means to make something of themselves. If he can sidestep his thick Southern accent, he has a chance to become a real actor.

Berg, leaving behind the stylized concept of Very Bad Things and the too-mainstream The Rundown, proves that every director should get a chance with a small story. Only once throughout the film does he rely on sports cliches to drive the story. There is a "big game" after all. Friday Night Lights is yet another film this year to blur the line between mainsteam and independent. He takes what could have been any sports movie and goes for the indie approach of character and realism, cramming as much dramatic intensity into a PG-13 film as you can imagine. The score, made up of the typical indie guitar riffs, adds another dimension.

(SPOILERS HERE ON IN)

Now, I must comment on the film's ending. Which is to say had the team won the game, I would have been very pissed off. Thankfully, they did not. The town realized the world did not end. At the end, the typical "what happened to.." is displayed over the main characters. Guess what! Most of them went to college yet still live in Texas. The film reveals that next year Thornton's character Coach Gaines finally got his team to win State. Most people would think that that would be the story to tell: where the team wins, everyone goes off on their happy way and Thornton goes back to being respected. I'm glad it wasn't.



A Home at the End of the World - 5/10

I'm glad the tagline for this movie is "Family Can Be Whatever You Want It To Be" because had that not been there, I would have had no clue what the point of this film was. At one point, it might have been to see Colin Farrell nude, but those scenes were supposedly cut due to test audiences being too distracted by the size. Right. Sounds like something made up by Farrell's camp. Farrell, Robin Wright Penn, Dallas Roberts and Sissy Spacek are all good, though entirely wasted in this story of two friends and occasional fuck buddies who move in with a free spirit (she's free spirited because her hair is wild, not much else) in early 1980's Manhattan. She eventually gets pregnant and the three set up their own quirkly little family somewhere else in New York in a home...at the end of the world. Or something. Well, it has a great title. Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, wrote the book from which this based on and the screenplay. That may have been a mistake. The story isn't strong enough and things just happen without any buildup and little payoff. The only satisfying aspects are the scenes where the characters are young, and in the context of the entire film, those probably should have been deleted. The cast might have been drawn in by the promise of The Hours, but nothing ever amounts and after its over the audience is left with an empty feeling..in a home..at the end of the world.



Shall We Dance - 5/10

A great soundtrack does not make a great movie. Mismarketed as a story about a man finding a passion to dance, the story is actually about the dance world and the eccentrics involved. The cast, which seems to be made up of what I will call "demographic stunt casting," all try and waltz and tango to their best, but it doesn't elevate the film. Not helping matters is that they seem to play the same song over and over again. Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon play Bored Married Couple until he discovers a passion for ballroom dancing without telling her. After setting his sights on a beautiful instructor (Jennifer Lopez, not used enough, yes I said NOT used ENOUGH) staring out the dancehall windows very God-like, he signs up. You would think there would be an interesting dynamic over whether he would cheat on Louise with Selena, but the film mentions it in a mili-second before moving on to the diverse cast. Yeah, the supporting players are all really, really annoying. But don't worry. They'll be oversentimentilized by the film's end. Singers Mya and Ja Rule appear for about 5 seconds just so their names can appear on the poster and can help sell an older person's film to a younger audience. I should mention that Sarandon, who we couldn't care less about, hires a private dick to keep tabs on her husband when he seemingly goes astray. This is easily the dumbest subplot I've seen in recent memory as its given way too much time. There is one perfect moment toward the film's end where Gere goes to win back Sarandon after she learns of his secret life. The song "The Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel which is not at all a dance song or anything to make you tap your feet is used and its a beautiful moment.