I saw the high school football movie "Friday Night Lights" last night with my good friend Jace. While not an out and out masterpiece, I must say that I was really impressed with the movie.

I read the book way back when, so I don't remember all the ins and outs of the book, but the movie seemed to be as faithful to the book as a 2 hour movie would allow. The movie did cut out a lot of the more controversial elements of the book, but the movie did come close. If I'm placing percentages, I'd say that the movie went about 70% as far as the book did. Like I said, it's been a while since I've read the book, but the movie did show the people of Odessa Permian in a little more of a positive light (aka not as fucking idiotic and crazy as they were in the book) and also cut out some controversial elements about how the student athletes of Odessa Permian high school got their grades boosted because of their in-school stardom. They mentioned the grades thing in the movie, but it wasn't a central element of the movie like it was in the book.

But with that being said, I felt that the movie was pretty truthful to the book. Its about as truthful to a book as a movie like this can get.

The acting in the movie was superb. Director Nic Berg did a good job of mixing established actors like Billy Bob Thornton and Derek Luke with lesser known actors. But everyone did a good job, from top to bottom.

This was probably the truest high school football movie I've seen. Anyone who's ever played high school football would probably dig this movie a lot. Even though I never played football, there was a lot I could relate to being a former Friday Night Lighter (just made that up) with the band.

I know it's a crappy review, but that's all I got for now. ;-)

matt out