Friday Night Lights

Peter Berg, 2004


3/5

The Permian High Panthers are a high school football team that gives the depressing town of Odessa, TX hope... and also high expectations. The players are competitive yet innocent, looking ahead to their future while also trying to please everyone around them by bringing home the big victory. Based on the book by H.G. Bissinger.

Berg successfully captures the rapid pace of a football game, and augments his unsteady camera work with a transcendent soundtrack. Transitional shots of industrial rust-littered landscapes are peppered in throughout the film with beautiful, ambient musical elements that are reminiscent of early Modest Mouse. The high expectations resonate throughout the town, from the deadbeat old-jock father vicariously living through his son's athletic moments to the African American uncle who just wants his nephew to have a future more meaningful than his own. The high expectations of the Panthers do not just stop at the players. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) feels the weight of the pressure on his own shoulders, and at times wonders if the long hours and late-night arrivals at home to a cold dinner plate are really worth it. Berg effectively paces the film to a big climax of a championship game. Versatile cinematography really puts you in the middle of the action on the field, although at times it's a bit erratic with jumping back to the scoreboard quickly and then back to the line of scrimmage. You find that you lose track of the game clock, presumably because Berg wanted to focus on the individual player drama more than the technical details of the game. Too often sports dramas have that cheese factor: repetitive shots and exhausting cliches with scenes that might as well play out to the "Chariots of Fire" theme on repeat. Berg avoids the cliches here and really paints a compelling picture.

30 for 30: Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?

Michael Tollin, 2009


4/5

          Take a step back in time to the early 80's when the NFL actually had some competition, albeit short-term. Michael Tollin examines what specifically caused the sensational USFL to come to a screeching halt even though they had some big names on the field and big money in the front office.
          These 30 for 30 documentaries are very well made, and I've yet to see one I do not like. This is a particularly interesting examination because its hard to even think of any organization competing with the NFL, which is clearly the biggest sport in the U.S. and is a behemoth in television ratings. That wasn't always the case, and at one point America was looking for something different. The USFL offered a league with more edge, less regulation, and a more intimate connection between the players and the fans. It seems that the two biggest faults that were made that led to the demise were 1) expanding the league from 12 teams too early and 2) Donald Trump's push to move the league from the Spring to the Fall much too quickly. Trump is not painted well in this film, and is the scapegoat from all of the people involved in the league who felt wronged in some way. Ultimately, I think its a fun idea to think of a Football league played the Spring - but I don't believe it would remain sustainable in today's climate. The modern day equivalent to this is the Canadian Football League. There are of course some talented players in the CFL, but the National Football League is the mecca of the sport and sits high on top of its mountain. At one point there may have been room for some competition in the football market, but those days are clearly over.