Hoosiers!

JoshuaHeter

I literally shouted "Woo!" when this came up on my feed. This was assigned viewing in my house growing up since my Mom is a native of Indiana (and very proud of her home state). Just because, here as some fun(?) facts about the film...

- Jim and Aron (understandably / reasonably) criticized the forced love story. There are almost 45 minutes of deleted scenes, and a decent amount fill in the details of that relationship to make it feel more natural. But, I agree, what's on the screen does seem... weird.

- The parallels between Hickory (and the real life) Milan are pretty thin. The Milan coach was new-ish, but it was in his 2nd year that they won the State Championship, and in his 1st, they made a deep run in the state tournament. The troubled backstory of the coach was completely made up (Milan's coach was actually only 24), as was most of the stuff surrounding the best player (Jimmy Chitwood in the movie, Bobby Plump in real life). 

- In the movie, Coach Dale is hired because the previous coach unexpectedly died. In real life, the former Milan coach was fired for ordering new uniforms without authorization.

- A number of college basketball players had roles as either Hickory players or opponents. The NCAA suspended them all 3 games from their respective teams for performing in the movie.

- Jack Nicholson was almost cast at the coach (but he had scheduling conflicts).

- James Dean (who starred with Dennis Hopper in Rebel without a Cause) played high school basketball against Milan.

DrKen

I always thought the call at the end to get Jimmy the ball was meant to show that the team had come together along with Coach and he respected their motivations enough to understand that they all felt that was best for the team and Coach knew that was something they all believed in.  

Also that Coach didn’t need to outsmart himself either and just go with his best play for the team. 

A_Ron_Hubbard

Thanks for all that background info, Josh. After we did our review, I kept reading here and there, and I was amazed at how difficult it seemed to be to work with Gene Hackman. The idea that he only does his best work under intense pressure so he does what he can to make the entire set a miserable pressure cooker, good god, what an asshole. Can act his pants off, but this has to be the dumbest, most destructive magic feather I've heard of aside from heroin.

I also couldn't believe the NCAA cracked down on those three guys, but I could also totally believe it, because they're a hypocritical, morally bankrupt institution. At least on the football/basketball level.

JoshuaHeter

Thinking about the final huddle / shot, I think @DrKen is right. They wanted to show that they were all acting as one unit, and now that even includes Coach Dale.

You might think “Well, the fact that the team just wanted to give it to Jimmy for the last shot undercuts that point.” 

*But*, the filmmakers probably felt constrained because when Milan won their championship, the real life Jimmy character (Bobby Plump) hit a buzzer beater to win the game, much like Jimmy does in the movie. It’s a famous-ish moment in Indiana. Plump even owns a restaurant named after that play: Plump’s Last Shot.

DrKen

JoshuaHeter said:

Thinking about the final huddle / shot, I think @DrKen is right.

Plus it’s just a cool moment to hear Jimmy say, “I’ll make it.”

The motivational speech before the game is also one of my favorites of the genre.   It’s basically - we all know what we’ve been through - I love you guys.  

Gets me every time.  

JoshuaHeter

DrKen said:

JoshuaHeter said:

Thinking about the final huddle / shot, I think @DrKen is right.

Plus it’s just a cool moment to hear Jimmy say, “I’ll make it.”

The motivational speech before the game is also one of my favorites of the genre.   It’s basically - we all know what we’ve been through - I love you guys.  

Gets me every time.  

Oh man… that scene. So, the guy who plays Merl (sp?) says “Let’s win this one for all the small schools who never got a chance to get here.”

As the story goes, they gave that line to him specifically because he had been an Indiana high school basketball player on a team from a small school that made a deep run in the tournament but fell short of making it to the finals.