Ep. 74: Drinking With... Friday Night Lights

With football season firing up, there's no better time to relive this genre-defining film! Pour up a Permian Panther Punch and join McCash as he relives this football classic alongside Brandon and Stoney. Today, we're drinking with...Friday Night Lights.

To make the Permian Panther Punch, you'll need: 

• 2 oz Bourbon
• 1 oz sweet tea
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz peach schnapps
• Cola

Directions

Shake bourbon, tea, lemon juice, and peach schnapps with ice. Strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice. Top with a splash of coke and garnish with a lemon wheel.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
The Sobrose Network presents the Movie podcast, breaking down films
and their impact on pop culture as they approach the
legal drinking age.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is Drinking With.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's your host, Steven m cash.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Welcome to Drinking With, the podcast where we raise a
glass of the movies that have reached the legal drinking age.
I'm your host, Stephen mccash or the Sobros Network, and
join me as we embark on a cinematic journey through
the classics of yesteryear, celebrating their twenty first birthdays in style.
From iconic blockbusters to hidden gems, each episode will toast
to a different film that has stood the test of
time and shaped a cultural landscape. So grab your favorite

(00:57):
beverage or the one we have curated for this episode.
Let's dive into the nostalgia as we explore movies that
are finally old enough to join us for a drink. Now,
I can't do this alone, so joining me at the
bar as always, are the two best people I can
think up to stumble out of a bar with a
after a long discussion of movies. First, as the resident
film critic of the Sobros Network, mister Brandon Vick who's

(01:18):
also a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, a
board member of the Music City Films Critics Association, and
most importantly the birth giver of the vix Flicks and
the Cinema Chronicles podcast that you can hear wherever you
get your podcasts from through the Sobros Network and joining
him as always the man behind the Sobros Network, the eic,
the glue of the brand. Jenni Fishonado, all around cat

(01:39):
lover he's got two cats now, and all around football wordsmith,
mister stony Keey, gentleman, how is this fall day finding us?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, it still doesn't quite feel like fall here in
Middle Tennessee. It's early early September, and it's like we're
in that fake fall category where it's like we'll have
a couple of days where it feels nice and then
it's going to be ninety degrees again. But watching Friday
Night Lights getting into the spirit of the season is
awesome and I love it every year.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
What college football is already.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
In f all week zero is in the books.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
Indiana undefeated. Yeah yeah, unbelievable. Unbelievable yet and what a
bad tumble. Nick Saban took off the stage.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Oh that's oh.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Man, we can't break no get to feeling better.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
Yeah, I think it was just spoiled of what film
we're going to be watching this month or talking about
this this month. But that's fair because if you hit once,
you hit play, you already knew what you're going to
listen to. So it's no big but it is just
that Friday Night Lights. Friday Night Lights relives the nineteen
eighty eight season of the Paraman High School Panthers football

(02:51):
team as they pursue a state championship while under im
mints pressure from their coaches, family, and their community. Friday
Night Lights dives into the themes of ambition, racial tensions
in the fleeting nature of youth. I personally had not
seen this movie before. I don't know why. I just
put it off and put it off and put it off.
And I never saw the TV show that it's based

(03:12):
off of as well.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, me neither. I never watched the show, but I
could see where that that's probably like to have more
time to kind of focus in on the families, the coach,
the kind of town more than just a lot of
that shown field.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Who is it?

Speaker 4 (03:25):
Kyle Chandler and like Connie Britton's in it. Yeah, she
starts a different kind of wife, Yeah she does. But
I did Tim mcgrol ever come back.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
I don't think so he should have.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Tim mcgral was something else in this movie.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah. First, that was the first thing I noticed.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
I noticed his hair. Yeah, that's the first thing I noticed.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well he took that cowboy hat off.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Yeah for this, Yeah he did. Yeah, he did.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
And now we know why he wears.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
The exactly exactly it could have been.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
It could have been you know, cg I or you know,
a wig or something. You don't know.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
I don't want to start rumors. I'm pretty sure he
had some kind of like hair treatment thing, and I
don't know if that was like the beginning of it
or what, but I'm almost positive he ended up doing
something because I mean that man was bald. Yeah, I
mean he was bald.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I just want to say that I'm glad this conversation
about this movie is starting where it should with Tim
McGraw's hair.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
It's important. But I don't think anybody I mean, you know,
he's been in what he did, that flick a movie.
He's also done The Yellowstone Show. But I think this
was like his first real acting.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Well, it's the first that I remember. And then of
course The blind Side.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Was right, and that was later two thousand and nine. Yeah,
so I'm pretty sure this was like his debut.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
So yeah, maybe it's just a rule that if you're
a Nashville country star and you get into acting, you
have to lose your hair. Because look at Dwight Yoakum,
he does hair. That's true, and he's a fantastic actor.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Yeah he is.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I'm typing words. I never thought i'd type into Google
right now, Tim McGraw.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
Well, listen here, listen here, and Dwight Yoakum has co
starred with Billy Bob Thornton.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah that's right.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, yeah, Dwight Yoakam's Dwight Yoakam's got some chops.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
He's worked with Clint Eastwood and David Fincher. So yeah,
that's impressive.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Impressive indeed.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
And also was saying, Dixie, hmmm, I'll take you. What
are we drinking?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
That's That's where I was heading, because I think we
need a drink after this, Uh off the rails intro already.
The drink I've curated for this month for Friday nightights
is called the Permian Panther Punch. You're gonna have two
ounces of bourbon, one ounce of sweet tea, a half
ounce of lemon juice, half ounce of peach knops, and

(05:47):
some coke on the side. Here, you're gonna shake the bourbon,
the tea, the lemon juice, and peach knops with ice
strained into a highball glass filled with some fresh ice,
and then top with a splash of coke and garnish
with a lemon wheell, giving you your Premimeium panther punch.
Sounds delightful, it does. Indeed, it's a you know, like

(06:08):
you said, false fall is here. I think this is
a perfect drink to sit down watch a little Saturday
afternoon college football as we prepare for the NFL season
to arrive. I think this is a good little drink
to go with it.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm with you, and I have efforted. Tim McGraw's filmography
technically credited in a film called Black Cloud that was
released before Friday Night Lights. It, but Friday Night Lights
earned him a nomination at the MTV Movie Awards for
Best Male Breakthrough Performance.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Thank You.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
I thought it's gonna be Best Male Douchebag Performance.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Until we get can we I don't want to stall
this anymore than I plan on, but can we see
who was nominated that year? Because I would like to
know what we needed? But mccash please, uh.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Well, the film was directed by Peter Berg, who also
did very bad things the Rundown in Hancock. I wasn't
familiar that he had done Hancock.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I wasn't.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
I didn't remember that well, and now he is associated
because I'm pretty sure he did at least like three
Mark Wahlberg movies in a row. He did Loan Survivor.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
No, But of the of Wahlberg's for our filmography, these
are the better ones because Loan Survivor he did. Okay,
I think he did what was the is it deep Water?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
What was the Oil Water Horizon?

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Yep, he did that one. And I think there's another
one that he did with him that I feel like
was like a. I mean, they're all like macho movies.
But but Peter Berg makes a cameo in the studio too, yea.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
So maybe maybe Peter Berg is actually Peter Wahlberg.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
Then oh it could be Oh my god, they're part
of the wallbergers or did you? But do you know
Peter Berg. He's an act he I don't know if
he actually Moore, but he's he is Mark Ruffalo's partner
in Collateral.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Okay, that's Peter Berg.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Oh yeah, okay, Yeah, Peter Berg has done some cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
I named a couple. Yeah, the Rundown, which I.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Enjoyed. I enjoyed the Rundown. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
That was the passing of the torch between Arnold and
the Rock.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah, the literal on screen passing of the torch. I
have efforted the field for the two thousand and five
breakthrough mald Win. He did not win. You had Tim
McGraw for Friday Night Lights. Sure, you had Zach Braff
for Garden State. You had Freddie Hymore for Finding Neverland,

(08:38):
Tyler Perry for Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and
the winner, John Heater for Napoleon Dynamite.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
No, that's that's fair. That's fair.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Uh, there's something. Yeah. I don't know if Tim McGraw
belongs in there, but sure.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah. Alongside Tim McGraw, you had Billy Bob Thornton, who
played Coach Gaines. His wife Sharon Gaines, portrayed by Connie
Britton and then a young budding cast featuring Derek Luke
as Boogie Miles, who's in Antoine Fisher, Pieces of April, Notorious,
the Therrius Pig film, Lucas Black as Mike Winchill, who

(09:16):
was in Cold Mountain, Sling Blade with Billy Bob Thornton,
and jar Head, Garrett Huntland who played Don Billingsley, who
was Inside. He was in Inside Lewyn Davis Four Brothers
with Mark Wahlberg and Iron Tron Legacy.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
I noticed you didn't say that Josh Josh what's his
name black? Right? Who Lucas Black, Lucas Black. You didn't
mention he was in Tokyo Drift.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
I did not. He was in several of The Fast
and the Furious films. I should have just put the
WHLD franchise down for him.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
And I think here recently you've he's shown up in
the is it the New Orleans n C. I s
he's in one of those here. Yeah, I just I've
saw him that he has not changed a bit, still
going huh no, And that accident is.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
It's it's really weird because you would think, I mean,
this is a cast of young men that were on
the On the Rise in two thousand and four, and yeah,
I don't know, like I'm I think I'm most baffled
by Derek Luke because it felt like he was a
really talented actor. Yeah, and never never seemed to really

(10:25):
kick that career in the Second Gear.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
You know movie directed by Denzil.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, it's like that's like Vince McMahon calling Drew McIntyre
the chosen one.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
That's right in the day. But you know, it didn't
work out for him, and it didn't work out for that.
He's still got a chance, still got a chance.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
And there's another one, Lee Thompson Young who plays Chris Comer.
He was in Akila in the Bee and he's most
famously known as Jet Jackson from the famous Jets Yes show.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, I was going to say that's what I remember
him from.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, that's the only thing I know him from.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
I have a question, and since none of us have
seen the show, I'm sure no one can answer this,
but Connie Britton is in Friday Night Lights the show Yes,
So my question is is she playing the same person?
And is Kyle Chandler playing a younger Billy Bob?

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Is he coach Gains No, they're they're none of the
totally different. They're totally different because all of the people
in the film are based off real life people, because
this is a true story, whereas the show is just
based on the themes of Friday Night Like, so you know,
she is playing the coach's wife, but it's a different

(11:32):
character altogether.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
All right, So she must kill or divorce Kyle Chandler
and then becomes because this is a Friday Night Lights
cinematic universe, so it has to make sense.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Well, somebody who's used to a cinematic universe, or at
least at one point was was Amber Heard, who makes
her film debut in Friday Night Lights as Maria, who
also was in obviously Aquaman The rum Diary of Pineapple Express.
And I will tell you right now, I don't know
which character Maria was. Is Maria the one who hooks

(12:04):
up with the quarterback at the party?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Okay, I did not recognize her at all.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
I didn't recognize her.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
I didn't either. You posted something about Amber Heard and
I didn't respond because I really truly didn't know she
was in the movie. Yes, so what impact?

Speaker 3 (12:21):
She's the most unforgettable actress I think in the history
of cinema.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
She's the most forgettable actress.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, because I never remember her in anything, and I
know I've seen her in a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Yeah, I mean, come to think of it, I don't
think I could if you gave me Amber heard, I
don't think I could name one movie. Do you know what?

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:42):
No, I'm saying like before that, if you had asked before.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
I actually do remember her in the Rum Diaries.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
I don't remember the Rum Diary because that's what started
the whole battle.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
But I'm thinking, is it because Shawny Depp's in it
and I know that that's where they met, So I don't.
I don't know if I remember her for her acting
in anything, but she was She wasn't very good in
the Aquaman movies.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
I don't even remember who she was in the Aquaman.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
She just wore a green spandex thing. That's all I remember.
She was someone's I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
her name. Well, yeah, but good for her, Good for
her and Derek Luke. Come on, let's let's get these
people back in it.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
I gotta I gotta know what Derek was doing these days. No,
I'm just gonna I'm gonna work on it.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
Actually, he was a teacher in a recent movie I saw.
Really yeah, he played It was somewhat of a or
is a show. I don't know. We always do this boys,
biker boys.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
He got excited about blacker Boys kyo. Uh. The film
was written by David Aaron Cohen and Peter Berg as well,
and it's based on the book written by Buzz Bissinger.
If that's not the almost kick ass fucking name, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
It is buzz Busit buzzinger Bus.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
It's Bussinger. It should be it should be Buzzinger to
be honest. Yeah. But he also wrote Shattered Glass, the
two thousand and three film with Hayden.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
That was good.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah, Yeah, I love that film.

Speaker 4 (14:14):
Yeah, and uh, what's Maggie Gillenhols.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, that had a good little cast altogether.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
It was Yeah, that was a that was a very underappreciated,
under the radar type film. It was like it's I
think it's highly regarded now as far as like reviews
and like critics.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Anyway, I remember seeing it when it came out and
be really excited because I thought this was gonna be
one of those like indie films that had like a
lot of award season buzz. Yeah, and I was this
will be one of the first years I was in
on a film before everybody else knew about it. And
then it didn't turn in to be that so whatever.

(14:51):
But yeah, uh, we ready to talk about some money
because that's yeah here, So what what do we think
the budget for Roddy Knight Lights is?

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Well, Billy Bob makes twenty million a movie.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Oh boy, I can't tell you.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
That's really I don't want to affect your decision on this.
He does not. He did not. He did not for
this unless he got something way down the line.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
But I'm going to say, I'm gonna say it costs
thirty two million.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Thirty two for Stony.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
I'm gonna say forty seven.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
And forty seven for Brandon. Brandon way overshot his load.
The budget for FNL was thirty million dollars about that, yeah,
thirty thirty three zero.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Well, yeah, I don't know what necessarily the money went to,
but I just it was a It was an oddly
beautifully shot film. At times, I thought like some of
the cinematography in it was actually for a football movie.
It kind of felt not out of place in a
bad way, but just that it kind of I don't know,

(16:04):
you don't typically I haven't watched a lot of football
movies that have felt like they've slowed down to take
the time to really let the setting breathe, so to speak.
And I think Friday Night Lights did a good job
of that. I don't know who the names would have
been back then. That would have been requiring a lot
of money. But you think about I don't know, like

(16:26):
some of the football scenes that they they filmed, and
they've got to go to a stadium somewhere. They've got
all the equipment, all the coordination, all the people in
the stands and stuff like that. I don't know. I
just Tim mcgrawl got twenty five of that thirty.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
That hairpitch was was, you know, seventeen?

Speaker 4 (16:46):
Sure he wrote a song for the movie too. I'm
sure he did all of it.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
There was no Tim McGraw in the soundtrack or the
film at all.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
What No, Yeah, I think Indian Outlaw would have said,
been committed. No, just an old song too, Yeah, just
put like down on the farm. Yeah, Indian Outlaw.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Box office. Let's talk box Office US Canada, opening weekend
this film opened October eighth, on over twenty six hundred screens.
It opened alongside such classic films as Hillary Duff's Raise
Your Voice, Oh, Stage, Beauty, Baptist at the Barbecue, and Lemon.

Speaker 4 (17:23):
I have not heard of those last two and I
wish I did, I wish I did. I'm glad they've
all got that. October.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Yeah, just to help you out, Friday Night Lights finished
at number two. It's at number two opening weekend, just
ahead of The Forgotten Taxi latter forty nine and Trading
I'm excuse me, trailing only Shark Tale.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Oh that's right, the Shark Tale was out.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
So with all that information, what do we think opening
weekend box office was for Friday Night Lights?

Speaker 4 (17:55):
So it got beat by a movie that's already out. Yeah,
but it's a kids movie, which means it could have
made a ton of money the week before, and even
if it took you know, a hit.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say twenty six million.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
I was gonna say twenty two.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Okay, I think I think Stony's cheating cause Friday Light's
brought in twenty five point six million dollars opening weekend.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
So you went that over, I went over, I lost
my prices, right and.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
This crisis right. Yes.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
It's total US box office was sixty one million, two
hundred and fifty five thousand dollars. Now think of that number.
Sixty one point twenty five. Worldwide it did sixty one million,
nine hundred and fifty thousand, meaning the international box office
only brought in six hundred and ninety five thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
But that but that makes absolute sense because this movie
those it's only for America.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't. I don't know, you
get some pretty niche pockets of the world that are
going to see this movie. Like you know what I'm saying.
Like the NFL does their games in London and Germany
and Mexico four not in two thousand and four.

Speaker 4 (19:12):
There's only one kind of football they love.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
There's only one kind of football they love. I don't
even know who outside of the country in two thousand
and four, and.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
The Texas high school football ain't it was the.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
NFL Europe still happening in two thousand and four.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
It would that's the XFL.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
It would have been see I know it was going
on in two thousand and six. But I can't remember
when it started.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
Okay, it didn't do any good, so yeah, I don't,
I don't. I love that. So couldn't even get to
the sixty two.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
No, I will say out of that six hundred ninety
five thousand, Australia brought in four hundred and four thousand
of it, which to.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Be fairs probably the closest. They have the closest sport
outside of America two football in OSSI rules football.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
So yeah, that's true. Yeah that that's one where like, yeah,
that you're counting on domestic box office because I don't
think there's a whole lot where like, oh, well, you
know what, wait till this release is in China.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
I am shocked though at how little it did at
the box office, and then that's still turned into a
successful TV spinoff.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
That's what I was about to say, is like you
would you would think this was like a one hundred
two hundred million dollars movie the way that the series ran,
but it wasn't wasn't really the case.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
I don't know, Hey, listen mcgruber got a show.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Well, you raise an excellent point.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
I just see Grouper probably did better at the box office.
I'm not sure offhand, but.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Let's not get crazy. But but there's a lot so
I mean that makes sense. But here's the thing, and
it's what I say. I could see where you could
kind of take that material and you have like the
title Friday Night Lights. But I'll be honest, a show
probably suits that better because there's not really a whole

(21:02):
lot like I like Friday Night Lights, but there's not
a whole lot that you can do within two hours
of trying to kind of depict different characters to make
them stand out, but then also give people what they want,
which is the you know, Helmet's hitting on the field.
So you know, I mean to me, it's kind of
like this one I like better than them trying to

(21:24):
do like you know what we saw on radio, But
there is still a little bit of it's still kind
of short changes on like well, okay, all these kids
with their dreams like abusive dad and stuff. I mean,
there are a lot of cliches in this, but they're
just not They're not fully played up and the acting
is well done even I mean from like basically the

(21:49):
they were kids back then to Billy Bob Thornton to
Tim mcgrall, I mean, you know, so there's it makes
it a little more authentic too.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Let me take this moment to apologize to the cast
and crew of Friday Night Lights by saying that mcgruber
made more money than them. Mcgreober did make more money
internationally than Friday Night Lights did, but mcgroober worldwide gross
box office was only nine point three million dollars. WHOA

(22:18):
on a ten million dollar budget.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
And just so people understand, we're not don't know about
my cash, but starting are big fans of the movie.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
I love mcgroober.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Yeah, we're not knocking that, but I am. Well, listen,
that's what happens. You want to make American football story, Yeah,
you got to deliver in the States. Yeah, and I
bet a lot of people didn't go see it because
it was in Texas. And people are like, no, I
hate I hate Texas A and M So.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Why why would we care about high school football exactly?
Not realizing what that means to the state of Texas.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Necessary Roughness is the best text football film ever, So
why do I need to see this?

Speaker 4 (22:56):
That's right, that's right, and this was the true story
was what this was actually in the eighties, right, And
that's what it says. Yeah, yeah, okay, I remember it
coming up in the thing, which I just what I like.
But here's the thing, and you guys may not agree,
but when you and this is what I mean about
kind of letting things kind of having more depth if
it's a show what happened, which I guess like besides

(23:19):
like the coin flip and stuff, I felt like most
of that story was like the typical football story. So
I don't know if it's just because of like the
tie and then they had to go and they just
happened to win because and listen, God bless the guys
that did it, but most of them didn't do football,

(23:41):
even the ones. I think one made it to Baylor.
I think that was Lucas Black's QB. Right, So I
thought it was kind of funny because I'm like, well, actually,
there's probably ten thousand Texas high schools that probably each
have this story. So I did think it was kind
of weird that like nothing like really stuck out and
like why did this catch on? I guess because of
the book. So yeah, anyway, just should have never been made,

(24:04):
but I like it just any other football story.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Rotten tomatoes, What are we thinking? The critics felt about
Friday Night Lights. I will tell you on Rotten Tomatoes.
There are one hundred and seventy two reviews from critics
across the board. What percentage do you think they rated?

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Seventy four?

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Seventy four?

Speaker 2 (24:26):
I was going to say seventy six.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
You're both a little under there, WIW of the one
hundred and seventy two reviews, eighty two percent.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
I didn't think it would be that.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's surprising for a football movie. I wonder what the
highest rated? Did we talk about this on the radio episode?
The highest rated football movie actually is?

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Oh no, I don't think we did. And if we did,
I've already forgotten it because it's like I forgotted radio.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
Well, I know that's not it.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
No, it's probably rudy.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I'll look as we uh as we go.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Okay, while you're looking that up, let's talk about what
the common folks like you and me thought about, uh,
Friday Night Lights the popcorn meter. I don't have how
many reviews. I'm sure there's like a couple of hundred
thousand reviews on rot Tomatoes. So what do we think
that percentage is? Uh?

Speaker 4 (25:21):
I'm just saying eighty five.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
I was gonna say eighty five. Johan, we'll both say
eighty five.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
I'm really good at this. I'm sure you're right.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
You would both be correct. Eighty five percent.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Boom. Here's what gives it away. If critics liked it
at eighty two. I just would imagine the common fan
of football it had. I would be shocked if it
didn't start with an eight and it was lower than that.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
The highest rated football movie on Rotten Tomatoes is a
film called Heaven Can Wait from nineteen Oh yeah, that's
at eighty six percent. There's a couple documentaries up here.
They have Jerry Maguire listed as a football movie technically
it is, and then Friday Night Lights.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
And then any given Sunday unnecessary Roughness, And none of
these are on here. Giants.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
I'm at fourteen and I haven't seen.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
We Can stop No Rudy.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Rudy is awful. But I thought it was well beloved.
Is it it is? Oh yeah, it's up at seven.
I'm surprised, but I'm surprised by You're right, it is beloved.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
But is that all of just Notre Dame.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
It's propaganda for Notre Dames?

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Right, right?

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Maybe all those reviews also might just be from Notre Dame.
It might just be Sean Aston. It could be over
and over and over.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Any given Sunday, is it thirty one?

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Oh? Come on?

Speaker 2 (26:51):
And I still haven't gotten to unnecessary rough Giants.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
Any film with Kathy Ireland, like Half Naked Kicking a
Football should be high rated.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Necessary Roughness is at forty five, just below.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Radio mcash is thinking of the porn unnecessary roughness.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
It was necessary us, it was unnecessary.

Speaker 4 (27:14):
I think it is necessary, isn't it the guy with
like Scott Blucher, Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, Beluca that's right,
which he stars in that same n CIS show as
Lucas Black.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
It has a rut.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Oh haters.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
Uh burn that.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Let's see what else people thought about unnecessary rough Jesus
on Friday Night Lights on Letterbox. I got a couple
of letterbox reviews here. Alex gave it three and a
half stars and just simply ask someone, look at me
the way Texans look at football.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah yeah, I mean it's it's true, and there's there's
some really interesting stuff I think thematically about how devoted
these people are to high school football and how god
it is man it's it's it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (28:10):
Which makes it when I was talking about like, oh,
you know a lot of these kind of feel like stereotypes.
I do, like I have no doubt that like the
Tim mcgrawl that he plays, like the type of father
he plays is very much a real like I have
with doubt, without a doubt.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
And it's playing a real person. So yeah, well.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
That's true with great hair.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
It's interesting how the game of football is so beloved
because of it's portrayed as like, well, this is a
way out of all of this, yeah, in one sense,
but then in another, it's portrayed as you will never
do anything greater in your life than this right now,
so enjoy the moment. Yeah. So many people are fixated

(28:53):
on it because it is like a reminder of the
good old days to them. And there's a lot like
we couldn't get out of this town yeah and make
it big, so we've got this. This is what we have.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
And I think Friday Night Lights is a perfect example
of there's nothing else really going on in this town
except this game.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, I did live through high school in a small town,
not as small as some of the towns you see
in Texas. But when we my high school in Tupelo
would play other smaller much smaller towns in football. You
would drive to those cities to go to the game,
and there would be signs up on businesses as we're
closed going to the game. So what you see in

(29:37):
the film actually does happen throughout I believe it.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
I believe it.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
I don't remember that ever happening at Wilson Central High School.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
No, No, not in metro Nashville.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
No.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
And didn't we go Our team lost like the first year, Like,
I don't think the football team won anything in the
first year of our sophomore We were sophomore.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
We were the first sophomore class of Wilsonson. Our football team,
if I'm not mistaken, did not win a game until
we were seeing.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
And I think that year after we graduated, the team
won like ten games and went to the playoffs and
oh my god, it was us. It wasn't a state
title or anything, but yeah, it was a pretty We.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
Play a municipal auditorium or something. Do you think we
could have done that?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
They do arena ball for the champion high school. Okay, shoot,
they do that at at the time it was Tennessee
Tech's university or stadium.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Oh god, you got to go out to Cookville.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
So another letterbox review here is from Canley Stubrick.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
Oh I get it, you get it?

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yeah, yeah, four stars from Canley and says, listening to
twenty five year old actors asking each other if they
fill seventeen is true acting?

Speaker 4 (30:51):
Hell yeah, they all do look a bit too old,
they do. Yeah, And I kind of think, but it's
not his fault nothing. A lot of people would be
jealous of being if he, you know, seventeen. But I'm
pretty sure Lucas Black like had a beard at like eight.
He just looks like he just he's one of those
that he grew a beard before he even like knew

(31:14):
how to tie his shoes.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Maybe that was done, Maybe that the casting of these
older guys was done on purpose to show how rapidly
the pressure of Texas high school football ages people.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
Or maybe they were in their twenties and still in
high school because they were stupid you see the football.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
Yeah, they were held until you win a state championship exactly.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Billy Bob Thornton was actually twenty seven this.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, So Garrett Hedlind, who played Don Billingsley, the son
of Tim McGrath's character. If he was to take his
hat or helmet off, you'd probably see that he was
really bald too at that at that time because of
the pressures.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
Oh yeah, so in the film A spoiler alert, the
movie's been twenty one years around, so if you haven't
seen it yet, that's on you.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
But at the end of the the movie, they make
it to the state championship game to take on Dallas Carter.
This like behemoth of a team.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
And then Nate Johnson on Letterbox gave Friday Night Lights
four and a half stars and says, Dallas Carter greater
than the eighty five Bears. How about that they looked
like it on film.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I was about to say they looked like an NFL team.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
I think they were. I think that. I think that
was the Houston Texans.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
So I remember when the scenes with the with that
team showing up for the first time, You're seeing the
players do the walk through, and I'm like, these fuckers
look forty. These are not high school aged actors by
any fucking memes.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
One of them was Emmitt Smith, Yeah, two thousand and
four Smith, Yeah, him and dions. But yeah, no that
it's as clear as can be that this is kind
of the underdog's story in a way. But I love
when they bring in the opponents and they like, there
ain't no seventeen year old who looks like that, and

(33:15):
then they would they would have been suspended a long
time ago.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, all right, this was an award not real, Yeah,
not real at all. What was real was the award
this film made, didn't. I honestly thought this film was
held higher from a critics aspect because I, for some
reason thought this was mentioned in award season. I didn't

(33:40):
think this was just filler, throwaway football movie like some are.
So I when I did the research, having not seen
it till this week, I was kind of shocked that
was somebody like Billy Bob Thornton in it. It didn't
get more critical praise.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I just feel like I've learned throughout the years that
these football movies are really hard to pull off at
that level of filmmaking. It's just they feel like it
feels like critics view them as just like crowd pleasers,
and I just there aren't. I mean, we just talked
about a movie we've never heard of or barely heard

(34:19):
of being the highest rated film football film of all
time on Rotten Tomatoes, and well, I.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Don't think any of the three of us were alive
when that film came out.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, but having nothing of equal quality or better until
Friday Night Lights in two thousand and four and nothing
since two thousand and four, I don't know, man. I
still I come back to this take I've been marinating
on for months now, probably since the radio episode last year,

(34:48):
where I just don't think football movies are are that good.
I think there's a reputation and I don't think I
think there's a reputation for them being kind of slop
and there's not a lot of critics that look favorably
upon it.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yeah, I guess you either need Sandra Bullock or Goldie
Hawn in your football movie to get critical praise.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Well, I one I have to disagree, because I will
say that now I have not watched it either, but
heaven can wait. When it came out, was like that
was a big deal, and that's one of Warren batties.
I think Britton. I think it was nominated for I
don't know how much that in Reds, which I haven't

(35:32):
watched either one and shampoo and shampoo how can forget?

Speaker 2 (35:37):
But evan can wait? Was nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 4 (35:39):
Oh I was three and I wasn't even.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Thought of you were negative a lot.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
But this is what I think that But to your point,
I do think this is what happens is that I
think sometimes a lot of the football movies kind of
get lost in with other football movies and unless you
have and what mccash was saying is that the football
movies that get awards consideration are football movies that doesn't

(36:07):
really it's not actually about the game at all, right,
or you have that one showy performance and that's it. Yeah,
this one doesn't have any of that. It's it's straight up.
It's a drama, but it's football based on real events
in a town and from Billy Bob Thornton to any
of the kids that Derek Tim McGraw like, none of

(36:29):
it to me is like okay that, Like.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
I mean, there's there's a scene where they're talking about like, well,
if it's cover two, you can still have the star
player if you slide this guy over against their zero,
like people like casual fans like it goes in depth
into the football talk to you. A lot of people
are just kind of like, huh.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
What you look at? These are the three things that
I look at Derek Luke when he got hurt, because
we knew that was a big deal and the season
might as well be over, Billy Bob Billy, pub Thornton's teeth, Yeah,
and Tim Mocgrel's here yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Is like you run into an issue with a lot
of these underdog stories where they do kind of blend
together and they feel the same. And I think what
was different about Friday Night Lights was a lot of
the acting was good in it. I felt like some
of the characters could have been a little fleshed out
a little more. I'd like to know like why was
Billingsley's dad the way that he was, what did he

(37:27):
go through? How did he get to where he is
instead of just they should be in a dick you
know that sort of thing.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Well, and you can't dig into like the thing is
also they're trying to cover at least what three or
four different guys on top of the town and top
what the coach goes through, and it's an hour and
fifty something minutes, so I mean, on top of are
you know, are they going to make it to the
championship and then you have to watch the championship. So

(37:54):
I agree, and.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
That's why sorry, go ahead, go ahead to me.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
Well, I was just going to say, I think a
lot of people of especially in this day and age,
if you said Friday Night Lights, that I think they
think of the show. I don't think anybody thinks of
the movie.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah, but I think, like as for for what it
was like, the acting was good. I thought the cinematography
was good, even like the score in this film I
think is pretty different from what you feel.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
I thought scores, the music, yes.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Music like it feels like this was approached as let's
make a let's shine a lens or let's shine a
light on Texas State football and let's do it. Let's
make an actual film and not just like driven. Yes, yes,
and that's what I think Friday Night Lights where it

(38:44):
excels compared to other football movies and probably why it's
rated so high. But you know, to the to the
larger point like how deep can you go before you
start losing the casual audience?

Speaker 4 (38:55):
And there was a lot of football action. Yeah, you
have to deliver that too. I mean it's kind of
the promise you make.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
But yeah, I'll say I was gonna say real quick
that I do believe that when it comes to the
football sequences in the film, it's probably some of the best,
if not the best, I've seen in any football degree. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
Yeah, that and the water Boy.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
That's what you get when you're using forty something year
olds to play high school football in a.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Movie, Ain't that the truth?

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, this film did win. Like I said, mentioned it
won an award. It was the two thousand and five
Espie winner for Best Sports Movies. I do not know
what the other nominees were. There probably wasn't one.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
You said it was two thousand and five.

Speaker 4 (39:36):
Yeah, it's the two thousand and five SPI's Is that
like the Oscars? Is it two thousand and four?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Well, I'm gonna because I think.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I think the SBS are a lot like the ww Slammys,
where they just make up their own fucking rules as
they go.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
They I actually I don't think they had nominees something.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Yeah, yeah, congrats, Stony.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
You mentioned how the average football might have been a
little lost in some of the play callings that is
described in the film. When the film opens up and
it's uh, the quarterback with his mom and she's reading
plays off and he's describing the what Like I was
fucking lost for like the first eight minutes of the
film because I kept thinking, A, I don't know what
these plays are and B why does this look like

(40:19):
it was shot for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh?

Speaker 4 (40:23):
Yeah it is. It's very gritty. Yeah, but that's Texas maybe. Yeah,
I lived there for four years.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
But hey, he winchell was uh he was. He was
spelting it off. Man, he knew she was throwing stuff
at him. What if the safety's here? What if the
linebacker does this? What formation on this play? And he was?
He was, he was checking the boxes.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Uh, we'll get into fun facts now. So Buzz Bissinger,
who wrote the book, we talked about Friday Night Lights,
A Town, A team, and a Dream. Uh, what's the
films based on him? And director and co writer Peter
Berg our cousins in real life.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
So NEPA, Yeah, now we know how this is.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Now. I came to Fruition and then I haven't read
the book. Kind of I'd like to go back and
read it because the book displays several instances of racism
and the use of racial slurs towards black players. So
when the makers of the movie asked the high school,
the real Permian High School, to use all their facilities
for authenticity, the school agreed only on the terms that

(41:25):
all racism from the book not be included in the
film to avoid a negative image of the school in town.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
That's really interesting because Friday Night Lights, you can tell
they they flirt with the issues of racism, and they
never really go full bore into it, and it's kind
of it was kind of one of those things that
I was watching rewatching it here at thirty nine years old,
thinking like, there's no way that this was It was

(41:52):
like this, yeah, yeah, like these there's some racism here
that the film is not.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
And you know what, I think it's a shame that
they tell this story and but to use the facilities
they leave out I'm sure a very critical part where
a lot of those real players are like, well this
is bullshit. Yeah watching it.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, I thought you were about to say, you know what,
I think it's a shame that racism and I was
gonna say, I agree.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
I also wonder if there were elements in the book
about homosexuality, because in the beginning of the film, I
get the vibe that the quarterback uh, because he's asked
about a girlfriend, this and that, and then they end
up at that party he hooks up with Amber Heard
and it seems like reluctantly he just did it to

(42:42):
get people off his back, if you will, because I
was wondering if maybe the character or the real life
person was in fact gay.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, because she says, are you gay? And then she
turns to the other guy was like, is he gay?
And I'm just like, what, Like.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
It did seem that did seem weird a little out
of place. I didn't pick up, but I just thought
that scene was weird, like all of a sudden, she's
like turns off like and.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
It's all it's it's almost like you've got it, like proved.
She says, can you prove it? Yeah, like prove to
me that you're not gay, and he does it, so yeah,
I mean maybe there was something they tell him.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
They have to leave that out too.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
They were whispering about the quarterback.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
And I also want to mention that it didn't seem
he had good cardio because after the sex scenes they're
at that bathroom mirror and he's huffing and puffect.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Safe he wants a scholarship.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
Well, here's the thing. He proved it. He proved it.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah yeah, Well we don't know how long they were
going too, to be fair.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
I mean when you were seventeen, how long were you going?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
I don't know that I was going at all?

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Like our hand or what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Confused?

Speaker 3 (43:52):
I'll let you fill in the blanks. Yeah. Uh. We
mentioned Dallas Carter High earlier, and although they did win
the nineteen ninety eight state championship, due to great tampering
among other violations, probably age violations, Carter High was stripped
of their five A state title and then was awarded

(44:13):
to runner up Converse Judson. So my question is why
is Converse Judson winning and not Permian.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
That's a good question. Is another coin toss?

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
So in real life, there are three football teams in Odessa,
Texas that call Ratliffe Stadium their home. The Permian High
School Panthers, the Odessa High School Broncos, and the Division
two University of Texas of the Permian Basin Falcons. Huh,
that's a mouthful right there.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I was about to say some of these, some of
these school names. There's something else.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
I've never known a high school in college to share,
like a stadium or court or anything.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, I can't say that I have either, not at
all the top of my head anyway.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
So there was a lot of stuff excluded from from
the book by the beheast of the high school. But
another thing that's not true is in the film the
final score the matchup versus Dallas Carter was thirty four
to twenty eight, But in real life that was incorrect,
as the final score of the real game was fourteen

(45:26):
to nine.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Oh, but they've got to they got to flare it
up for the movies. They got to add some highlights.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
He wins championships in real football, but in television and movies,
offense is what sells tickets.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
We need fireworks, that's right.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Yeah, I just want to say, past two minutes.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
I thought you fell asleep.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
I looked up Mike Winshell. Is he gay?

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (45:50):
And apparently the he he's not in real life. But
then I saw where somebody said that what they got
from it is that his focus was primarily on getting
a football scholarship as well as taking care of his
sick Grandma, that it's not a high priority for him,
given the way that football consumes your life in Odessa.

(46:13):
But I also read a quote where he said he
was talking about how basically like his abilities at Baylor
like declined, like he just didn't have it, And he
said he said, one day I'm throwing like Roger stall
Back and the next I'm throwing like Roger Rabbit.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Damn.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
So boo, yeah, he's straight. Can we have a segment
of that from here on out? We'll pick different people
that they played and be like, oh, he's gay or
she's straight.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
The straightest thing a man can do is throw a
football like.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
Roger Robert Rabbert and proved a Amber heard that he
can have sets.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
You do like Robert?

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Is that who you said?

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (47:01):
Cool?

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (47:03):
Uh he played for the he played for the Falcons, right.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, So so I'm putting a blender right now. How
you got Robert Rabbert out of Roger Rabbit?

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Hey, Roger Staubit. I don't really know what happened there.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's that takes me back to Canley Stubrick.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah, it's gonna be a new letterbox name for somebody.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
You mix, you take four clear it and things happen. Yeah,
things just happen.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Uh, you know, Boogie Miles was a larger than life
persona and person in real life. Uh. After his injury,
Miles was the target of racial appitat and was told
that he should be shot like an animal after being injured.
Mind you, he's a seventeen year old kid when this happens.

(47:59):
And after a with his uncle elv who I think
the actor that played the uncle in the film was fantastic.
He was probably my favorite character in all of film.
But after their fight, Miles moved out and with Chris
Comber taking its place at fullback, Miles never played again
obviously for Permian and high school, and that injury was
nasty in the fact that they tried to hide it

(48:20):
and come back in technically a week, which I think
turned into closer to a month, was just absurd.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah, but it's kind of a testament to the desperation.

Speaker 4 (48:29):
Yeah, I've got there's nothing else in life.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
There's nothing else in life. That scene where they're in
the car and he tells him I wanted to buy
you a house. Oh my god, that wrecked me.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Because Luke is good.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
He is good. Yeah, and it's it's wild because he
had shown throughout the entire movie this big bravado, this
confidence and everything, and that was a moment when it
was very intimate, it was private, it was just the
two of them, and he finally just completely broke and
it was so heartbreaking to see that.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
The way he did it reminds me so much of
Oh my god, Dion Sanders when he was with the Cowboys.
There's so much flash you know, and I mean, and
you kind of saw it, like I mean, there's a
little bit of Lawrence Taylor in there too, I think,
and Peyton Manning, yeah, right, personality, real, real flashy. But

(49:28):
but yeah, man, Derek Luke, he had I think I
liked his stuff the most only because I think that
really kind of and captured what that game meant to
those to those kids, like I know, you kind of
you know with Tim McGraw's and all that, but like
that to me was one of those like that was
a way out. But he also wanted because as flashy

(49:49):
as he was, he wanted to take care of his
family and he and you know, there's nothing like kind
of that untapped potential because of you know, injuries that
end up taking you away from you know, saying what
could have been.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Well, you think about it, man, it's a it's a
beautiful game that can provide a lot for a lot
of people, but it can also be incredibly cruel and
it can all be taken away from you in an instant.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Well, and I think and just I mean, what's amazing
to me is like there are names I hear and
I'm like, oh, yeah, you know, but then like they
only played like six years, like they actually didn't play
is mkesh growling at me, Oh my god, ohn not
talk about football.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Paisley's been my dog. Paisley's been asleep by my side
the whole time, and now she hears somebody outside and
she's losing her fucking mind.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
No, it's uh, it's fine. I just it's it's crazy
because like besides, like I guess, like Tom Brady and
some of them like not big names, but then you're like, oh,
like they had a peak of three years, and that's
it's crazy.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah. I watched a YouTube documentary this week on like
where some of the players are now in real life,
a good number of them have passed away sadly, and
then what some of them did following football, like like
Boogie actually spent time in jail for a while for
some aggravated assault or things like that. I forget which

(51:17):
detail did he play football in there? He went to
if I remember correctly, he did not play, though the
longest yard is not based on Boogie's time in prison.
He did end up in college at a smaller college
and played for a little bit. But I don't think
anything became of it.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
It's still making it to college, is yeah, pretty good?

Speaker 4 (51:38):
He tried.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
But there's also a thirty for thirty documentary not on
the team Permia in high school, but on the Dallas
Carter Cowboys after the won the state championship in eighty eight,
which we said had to be forfeited. A number of
the players from that team would go on to get
involved in armed robberies and later sent to prison. And
the thirty for the three documentaries called What Carter Lost,

(52:02):
as told by players and coaches from the team, that
tells a story of everything that went on during that
school year.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
To Brandon's point, every team in Texas has a story.
There you go.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
For some reason, we fixated on this on Tim McGraw's character.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
I need a Friday Night Lights universe. Yeah, yeah, down
the line of every high school in Texas.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
Of team in that year.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yeah, and then uh legend.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
But hold on, if we do this there, Billy Bob
Thornton has to come back. I got to have all
the original people, including Lucas.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
What if we take the cast from the film and
the TV show and merge it all together.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
A hell, now, it's going to be too confusing. Connie
Britton is going to have to play two different people.
That's no.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
No, I think she's got the child sport legend has
it that the infamous mojo chance and battle cry the
Permian Panthers? Uh? Is that reverberated throughout the film originated
when a group of alumni from the school attended the
game in Abilene and started chanting go Joe for one

(53:09):
of their players, but other fans mishearted as mojo.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Wow. Oh funny. How things start organically?

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (53:19):
And like we and like we've mentioned, and like we
mentioned about the TV show the show excuse me? The
film earned a spinoff television show that debuted on October third,
two thousand and six. Just two years later. The show
would run for seventy six episodes over five seasons, and
I have seen zero of the seventy six.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
I didn't realize it started soon after and within a
couple of years I was thinking it was like more
of like five, six, seven years, but wow, yep.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
The show kept the premise of the film, but none
of the real life characters were including in the show.
Connie Britton was cast as the coach's wife, but did
not play the real life sharing Gains. Her new character's
name was Tammy Tyler, the wife of head coach Eric Tyler,
and the Eric Tyler character basically replaced coach Gary Gaines
played by Billy bo Thornton.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
Is it the same team? Is it the Panthers?

Speaker 3 (54:10):
I would imagine. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
I'll be honest, I don't know if it is, because
I want to say that the team's colors are like blue.
I feel like, from yeah scenes i've seen, they're all
in blue. So and it's not possible that the team
changed colors, so it's probably a different team. Italy makes sense, but.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
The TV show also did feature an up and coming cast,
including Minka Kelly, Alicia Witt, and Michael B. Jordan.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
How about that I know one of them.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
I know all three.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
He's in that new vampire movie.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
And I will say one of the three lives in Nashville.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
Mika no, Michael no, Alison, Alicia okay, Alicia Witt dang close.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Oh, Adrian PLICKI has a credit.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Yeah, she was in like I think like fifty six
of the seventy six episodes or something like that.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Home On. Do you remember who that is? You got
to talk to her and interview her?

Speaker 4 (55:08):
Yes, I do?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
You really did not remember? That was.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
Quasi?

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Yeah, all right, real quick, I've got a couple of
things before we get out of here. We got some
Kulda would have shout us, not for the cast, but
for direction of the film.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
Oh oh, you mean his cousin couldn't. His cousin wanted
someone else.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Peterberg was not the first or second choice for Friday
Night Lights. Alan J. Pacula was originally set to direct
the film before he died, and he directed Pelican Brief
All the President's Men in Sophie's Choice.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
Oh no, he's way too No, he's way too sophisticated.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Well maybe maybe this would have gotten some oscar Bus
that the character.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
That's true, but you know, what happened. Billy Bob Thornton
would have been replaced with Robert Rudford.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
That'd have been fine too.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
I don't yeah, I think that might could hit you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Another director that was originally attached to the film before
Peter Berg came on would have gotten some Oscar hype
for it as well. And that's Texas's very own Richard Linkletter.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Wow. He dropped out when the studio started cutting the
budget to the film.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Get it to thirty million. Yeah, yeah, I don't see that.
I feel like Peter Berg's was probably it's probably the
right guy, especially. I mean I think he's I think
he's from Texas too, isn't he? I cannot know you
where he as his cousin must be from Texas, so come.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
On see born in New York.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Ah, perfect perfect for Texas.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
He didn't grow up in Texas.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Northern Texas.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Okay, yeah, okay, I would to pretend he loves Texas.
But I think he did a great job with it.
And I think those I think the other two again,
and it's kind of the same discussion each time. It
just would have been a different kind of film. Better
for better for worse, it would have been different.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
So that's really all I have, notewise for Friday Night Lights.
Do we have any like favorite scenes or or or
quotes or anything we want to talk about before we
get to our mount Rushmore.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
The scene where the guy approaches Winchell and Company at
the drive in diner, I guess yeah, and wants a
picture with him and tells him after this it's nothing
but babies and memories, don't waste it.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
He was onto something.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Coach Gaines saying, uh, there's not much difference in winning
and losing is uh is pretty pretty profound stuff like that.
He says, there's not much difference in winning and losing
except for how the outside world treats you. Inside you,
it's about all the same, And I think it's it's
really funny because it does point out how so much

(58:03):
of football is about the process, the routine, and any
coach will will tell you that that it is that grind,
and so many games kind of do come down to
a razor thin margin between winning and losing, but the
grind keeps on so like from in the building, from
that perspective, it gets all really the same, but the

(58:27):
results dictate how the outside world treat you. I thought
that was a pretty pretty profound comment to have their
about how seriously people outside of the sport take it
and how even keeled most people in the sport are
about it. And then Tim McGraw's character we just keep

(58:48):
calling him, says, you got one stinking year to make
some memories. It's all gone. After that, I thought, man,
that's that's sad for seventeen year old to hear it.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
To hear yeah the I I actually really like the
ending where the guys are moving on and he's taken
off the coach gains, taking off the name plates and
you see it like going with all of his you know,
the playbooks and everything. It's almost like, yeah, you you
have these relationships. I mean, you have these you know,

(59:23):
you're trying to make them into good young men. And
as they go on to either you know, jobs, school, whatever,
but it's all it's it's but it's almost like to
your point, it's then they reset and they do it
all over again, which then come to find out what
the very next year they went to the championship and
won it. So yeah, yep, they just needed to get
rid of some of those people.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
I guess it was just like Tennessee against Nebraska. They
just had to get rid of Peyton Manning to win.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
That's all it was.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
That's all they had to do was thanks T Martin.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
I will say, uh, one last note you're talking about,
you know, some of the quotes and shit. Uh. The
the speech at halftime of the championship game that Billy
Bob Thornton gives was well written out by Peter Berg
and the other writer. And Billy Bob Thornton had a
really close friend of his kind of double cross him,

(01:00:15):
stab him in the back like around the time of
the filming of this film, and he was so you know,
hurt on the inside that he just asked Peter, He's like,
could I take a stab at at like basically improving it,
which he ended up doing. That's what they used in
the film because he had so much pain on the
inside that he wanted to get out well.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
And you know, I actually appreciated it because it's not
the usual halftimes you see, yeah in in these kinds
of movies. So I actually was like, I like that.
I like that different approach, which makes me wonder if
that's probably what the speech was until he brought a
piece of it with him and did it that way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
But it fits.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Yeah, it fits all right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
So let's let's try to get out of here real quick.
Our favorite fictional coaches, not football coaches, just coaches that
that we have loved over the years that maybe have
taught us a thing or two.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
I'm gonna go. I took a comedic approach to this. Okay,
I'm gonna go Coach Cline from the water Boy. Okay,
I'm gonna go Jackie Moon from Semi prov Patches o'hulahan
from Dodgeball, Oh yeah, Dodger Wrinch, and Ted Lasso. I
Ted Lasso to me is the goat fictional coach I did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
And you know what, I almost did that one, but
I I kind of went with like what I remember
from like the good old days, and I coach, I
think is a loose term. Uh, But I have Mickey
from Rocky.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Oh yes, Nicky gold Mill.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
I have Gordon Bombay Mighty Ducks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Mighty Ducks, Yeah, I have.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
This one's gonna sound strange, but it's sort of in
line with Mickey mister Miagi from the Karate Kid.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
And uh, Coach My personal favorite is uh Jimmy d
from a League of their Own all right with Tom Hanks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
So all of mine but one have been named so far.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Ted Lasso is the goat of all fictional coaches. Uh,
there's just no way. I do have Jimmy Duggan from
a League of their Own aka Tom Hanks and Mickey
gold Mill from The Rockies one and two. But my
one that hasn't been mentioned is Morris butter Maker from
The Bad News Bears.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
How about that?

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, Walter Matthew was phenomenal in that role.

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
Oh you don't, you're not. We weren't talking about Billy
Bob Thornton in the remake.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
No, no, I.

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
Thought you were going full circle. Uh yeah, no, I
like that one.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
Parts of me wanted to do Paccino from any given
Sunday just because it's so over the time. But that's
Oliver Stone and uh you know what, I just want
to give a shout out to Nick Nolty and Blue Chips.

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
There you go, that's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
My My honorable mention was going to be Goldie hon
from Wildcats. I thought she was really good in matt
I never saw that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:16):
Not a fan of female actresses. Okay, good, Sorry, oh boy,
I choose men. Well, I've never seen that. I don't
think I've ever seen Ballcats.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
It's really good. Yeah, it's no Private Benjamin, but it's
one of my favorite Goldie Han performs.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
I was gonna say, yeah, Private Benjamin and what's that
overboard for her? And Kurt meant I can't. I can't
get into it. They're too adorable.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
Yeah, anything else, gentlemen, before we got to here, I've
I've said all I can say about Friday Night Lights.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
I think I've I've the clip on this film.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Yeah, yeah, no, I'd like to end with Goldie Hon.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
That's fair. There would be worse things to happen in
life if than ending with uh with Goldie Han.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
You got one year. You got one year to make memory.
This is it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Don't waste it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
That's right?

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Can Can you be perfect? Can you be perfect? Yep? Guys?
Check us out on a Nashville Movie Dispatch, where you
can find all of our work as well as Sobrosnetwork
dot com. Most importantly, subscribe to Drinking with Wherever you
get your podcast fixed, leave us a rating and review
so we know what you think about the show. And
let us know what movies turning twenty one that you

(01:04:22):
would like to discuss. Gentlemen, please tell these fine folks
where they can find you on the interwebs.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
At Stony Keeley on Twitter, at Sobros Network. No, that's
not right, at Stony Keeley everywhere. No, there you go,
There you go, and at Sobros. Network.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
There you go at Sir Brandon V on Twitter, Sir
Brandon on letterbox, and well of Young Nashville Moovie dispatch
dot substack dot com for everything.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
You can find me on x at mc underscore cast
seventy five on letterbox at simply Stephen mccash and cheers
to another episode of Drinking with where we've explored the
films that have come of age, just like a fine wine.
As we raise our glasses the movies turning twenty one,
we've laughed, reminisced, and maybe shed a tear two over
the timeless classics. So and you'll until next time. May

(01:05:09):
your drinks be cold, your conversation's lively, and your movie
night's unforgettable. Drink responsibly. Remember age is just a number,
but great films are forever. We'll see you next time,
because spooky season's right around the corner, but I've got
to go. I got to return some videotapes.