I just watched Hoosiers for the first time.
Maybe it's my liberal white guilt, or perhaps that I'm old and jaded, but to me it just seemed to be the charming tale of some white country boys fending off the big scary black city kids. And Gene Hackman sucks.
Ok, I think I'm going to take the next month off from posting.
Dell once produced a really nice line of Pocket PCS -- the Dell Axim series. Nicer form factors, better screens than Palm or HP iPaqs.
Also, I used to have a Dell MP3 player -- a whole, whopping 128MB of storage, back in 2001.
Maybe if they put 1 + 1 together, they'll come up with something decent... but I doubt it.
Well, BB's take of the movie was interesting...hadn't ever thought of it that way.
I did keep waiting to see if any of the other teams would have black players. There weren't any until the final game. Is it true that Indiana had integrated schools in 1952? We also have to take it on faith that Jimmy Chitwood is that good. I mean we do get the montage of him racking up points in that final game but, we really never see him (or anybody else) play except in slow motion. I think he can take his guy only because the script says so. Plus the movie loses a lot by focusing on the coach's problems being accepted. Drop that story line, really. We get little quirks of back story, but honestly, it was hard to tell the players apart. Also, from the math geek, we start with 7 players, 2 leave the first day of practice, one comes back and apologizes, then finally Jimmy Chitwood decides to play but somehow during that final game there are 8 players on the team. 7-2+1+1=7.
The movie should focus on the players more. We should see more practice footage and we should really know all the players names by the end. Barbara Hershey is also unnecessary. Give us team, not coach, so yeah, I think it's overrated. It's a sports movie that follows the formula but doesn't give us enough reason to really care about these particular players.
I would keep the Dennis Hopper storyline, I'd even give him more screen time.
I know the movie is loosely based on the Milan High School Championship of 1954 but, I think there's a bit of this story in there too http://beavercreekelkranch.com/bradl..._synopsis.html.
I'm just observant. I'm not one of those people who looks for inconsistencies but c'mon, it's not hard to see that there are three guys in their bright yellow warm-ups in the huddle at the end of the game. Also, when they pan to the picture of the 1952 State Champs hanging in the gym, it's really not hard to see that there are 8 players in that picture. Plus we've already had the scene where Ollie has to go in and gets to be the hero because Dennis Hopper's kid's stiches open up and that other guy fouls out. Where was number 8 then?
I'm also prooving my point that the movie hadn't successfully made me care enough about these players to keep me from noticing things like that. If I had seen it in 1986 I might feel differently about it. All sports movies follow this formula, it might have felt fresher in 1986. Now, I certainly wouldn't put it my own personal Top 10 sports movies. I know we had that vote on sports movies a few months ago, so perhaps I'm beating a dead horse, but I'll come up with 10 sports movies I think are better than Hoosiers
Bull Durham, Raging Bull, The Bad News Bears, American Flyers, Hoop Dreams, that documentary about the wheelchair rugby players, The Jericho Mile, Rocky, North Dallas Forty, and The Longest Yard (the original). That's just off the top of my head. I do notice that I've only got one basketball movie on that list, hmm, The Fist That Saved Pittsburgh? Blue Chips? Nah. Perhaps I'll give it Top 10 basketball movies. I didn't dislike it, by any means, but I did sit there itching to rewrite the script.
I've only been writing plays for about 10 years now. Before that, I'd go to the movies and just accept what went on, now, I often find myself thinking how the script could have been so much better. Sigh. And I notice bad writing when I never used to.
I'm glad to see someone didn't like Hoosiers. I never liked Forest Gump. To me it was a ridiculous story without even entertainment value. A waste of 2 hours of my life, and now another 60 seconds complaining about it. Damn that movie!
American Flyers is one of my favorite movies. I knew I was a geek when I liked the camera angle showing the shifting on the rear derailleur, although I'm not sure it is realistic from a racing perspective.
I discovered last night that if I run across [I]Air Force One[I] when channel-surfing, I will watch it to the end. Elvis Grbac's Hollywood moment is in that movie. The scene of the people parachuting out of the plane is so fake that it makes me laugh.