Anybody see The Junction Boys on ESPN? Its about Bear Bryant and his boot camp training camp his first year as Texas A&M coach in 1954. When I read that it was filmed in Australia and that Tom Berrenger was the only American actor in it I didn't expect much but it turned out to be a great movie. I don't know how those Aussie actors learned their Texas accents but I have met people who talked just like that If they show it again I highly reccomend it to any football fan 2 Thumbs UP!
I did not watch it in protest for the 16,239,302 commercials they made me watch... But I guess I will have to watch it. I assume Tide fans had a small confilct of interest with that one. Think about it. Their Hero coaching the school they now hate. Irony is a strange thing sometimes.
Man I agree about the damn commercials. I think a few times they just cut the Bear off in the middle of a sentence to take a commercial break. It was terrible.
The movie was decent, standard TV movie of the week stuff. The commercials that ran during the film every ten minutes frustrated lots of people (much like their Bobby Knight film). In any case, the book is much better and a very quick read. The film melded some of the players and didn't get as involved as the book. If you enjoyed the movie, buy the book. If you hated the movie, buy the book . . . no commercials.
Of course there were too many commercials but what did you expect? This was ESPN, not HBO I tried to watch a movie on WTBS the other night and the as the movie progressed the commercial breaks were getting to a break every 7 or 8 minutes and got longer and longer as the movie went on.
Tell me about it. I watched my favorite Christmas movie (Nat Lamp Christmas Vacation) on NBC Sunday night and the commercials really ruined the continuity. And now, political correctness has reared it's ugly head once again, resulting in their deleting the funniest part. Where the old lady's cat bites into the lights and gets fried? They censored out the cat's ear piercing shriek which really ruined the whole scene. Don't want to offend the PETA folks now, do we?
The movie has been somewhat of conversation topic here in Houston. Apparently there were questions about the facts in the movie and book. According to the book, one of the former players is dead. However, that same player was on the Outdside the Lines that followed the movie. Also, many of the players interviewed since the book came out said that much of what was in the book was either exaggerated or made up. The movie cut the 15 charactors in the book down to 3. Two of the victims of the cut down were Gene Stallings and Jack Pardee. According to the former players, the charactor of Smokey the trainer was completely exaggerated. I don't think anyone knows what to believe about it.
That's what is known as "dramatic license". Movies are rarely, if ever, historically accurate. Real life is just too boring for Hollywood. Besides, the movie was filmed in freakin' Australia with Aussie actors. What did you expect?
