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Friday night lights - Billy Bob Thornton, Derek Luke, Garrett Hedlund, Peter Berg

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Hope comes alive on Friday nights.

Friday night lights chronicles the entire 1988 season of the Permian High Panthers of Odessa, Texas USA, with football players, coaches, mothers, fathers, pastors, boosters, fans and families struggling with ongoing personal conflicts while the team fights for a state championship.

A town for sale, Odessa, Texas USA, has seen better days - the financial bust evident in its boarded-up shops and broken lives. Yet one hope sustains the community where, once a week during the fall, the town and its dreams come alive beneath the dazzling and disorienting Friday night lights... when the Permian High Panthers take to the field. In a city where economic uncertainty has eroded the spirit of its inhabitants, nearly everyone seeks comfort in the religion of the Friday night ritual, where the unfulfilled dreams of an entire community are shifted onto the shoulder pads of a team of high-school athletes.

Friday night lights captures the frenzy of a small town that reveres its school team and their weekly games. With Odessa standing in for places just like it all across America, the film provides an illuminating look at the hoped-for successes and the built-in failures of trying to live the American Dream through the efforts of a group of talented young men.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film football American drama grid iron high school Texas sport team fight coach community

Persons of interest

Billy Bob Thornton .... Coach Gary Gaines
Lucas Black .... Mike Winchell
Garrett Hedlund .... Don Billingsley
Derek Luke .... Boobie Miles
Jay Hernandez .... Brian Chavez
Lee Jackson .... Ivory Christian
Lee Thompson Young .... Chris Comer
Tim McGraw .... Charles Billingsley
Grover Coulson .... LV Miles
Connie Britton .... Sharon Gaines
Connie Cooper .... Mrs Winchell
Kasey Stevens .... Flippy
Morgan Farris .... Jennifer Gaines
Gavin Grazer .... Trapper
Turk Pipkin .... Skip Baldwin
Tommy G Kendrick .... Odessa Doctor
Brad Leland .... John Aubrey
Lillian Langford .... Nancy Aubrey
Christian Kane .... Brian
HG Buzz Bissinger .... Author: Friday night lights: A town, a team, and a dream
David Aaron Cohen .... Screenwriter
Peter Berg .... Screenwriter
Peter Berg .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Friday night lights official movie site
Friday night lights production notes
Friday night lights QuickTime movie trailers:

Small * Medium * Large

Awards and film festivals:

Cinematic Intelligence Agency Trenchcoat Awards 2005: Nominated: Best teenager (Mike Winchell - Lucas Black)
MTV Movie Awards 2005: Nominated: Breakthrough male (Tim McGraw)

See also Any given Sunday, Remember the Titans, The replacements, The Slaughter Rule, Varsity blues, We are... Marshall
Studios and distributors:

Universal Pictures * United International Pictures

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Things which I have trouble believing the following facts about USA high school football despite the fact that they're true:

Each side consists of two teams (offensive and defensive).
Each team has a back-up team.
Each back-up team has a back-up team.
The head coach has four back-up coaches.
And four tacticians.
The head coach is a salaried position.
The head coach is allowed to scream at his players in a way that would have him arrested if he did it to a stranger.
His back-up coaches can do the same thing.
The coach controls each play from the sideline, as if he were a player and not an official.
High school sport is reported on the radio.
And TV.

Friday night lights is pretty much the same film as Varsity blues with a little bit of Remember the Titans and The Slaughter Rule thrown in for added drama. Teenage men playing a violent "game" of full-body-contact football, giving their all to:

Escape from their hometown.
Get a girl.
Get a reputation.
Please their violent, overbearing football-freak father.
Be the best they can.
Hang out with other dudes in the showers.

It's a fun, exciting sport drama but you need to be a bit mad-keen on sports to watch the many shots of teams running around until they hit each other. The end is good, but.

One character calls Grid Iron "The greatest game in the world". I guess that's why only Americans are allowed to play.