BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Friday Night Lights: It's about life


I loved Friday Night Lights the movie. The film was
way better than the book (and the paperback was a fab read). And I wondered what they were thinking of adapting it for television.

Duuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I love the way the critics put it, "it's culturally important because it captures the what the game means to small town America."

What I also love about the series is its penchant for improv -- shooting most everything in one take and using three cameras all the time. The actors are allowed unprecedented leeway to stray from or ad lib the script as long as they keep to the main points of the plots. I was initially skeptical of Kyle Chandler in the lead role of Eric Taylor, the coach of the fictional Dillon Panthers, but he darns nails it in the end zone. The acting is top notch, the script -- well, its rolls like a charm.

They shoot on location in different parts of Texas and get this... no sound stages or sets. They're all real houses and the extras are real townsfolk. It adds to the authenticity.

The characters and the situations they have to deal with are telling; that's the typical soap aspect of Friday Night Lights and like football. And it makes for riveting storytelling.

I loved the music of Explosions in the Sky for the film and Snuffy Walden is able to replicate that for the TV series. Great soundtrack too for all the episodes. If you like post-punk band Sparta (1/2 of the now defunct At the Drive In who are all from El Paso,Texas) or Daniel Lanois then you'll love them. Think U2's chiming and ringing guitars circa the Unforgettable Fire. Now that's Explosions in the Sky.


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