Monday, October 3, 2011

Hoosiers (1986)

Hey gang, what I'm about to say is going to blow your mind, so get ready..... "Hoosiers" has a lot of basketball in it. Like, A LOT OF BASKETBALL.

It's probably 15% drama scenes 176% basketball scenes.


The "drama" parts are pretty dumb and half-assed but the basketball parts are plentiful and include white-knuckle suspense.


Let' s just say it's the "You Got Served" of Basketball movies. That's not a bad thing. "You Got Served" is an AWESOME movie:


"Hoosiers" is a...um...it's okay. (Don't argue with me, I'm right about this.)








"Hoosiers" is the (duh) based on a true story movie about a small town basketball team that defies the odds to become (spoiler alert!) state champions!


And this guy is recruited to coach the team. He has a shady past and I question his intelligence what with his choice to drink an open-topped hot beverage while driving.



Barbara Hershey is a teacher who takes one look at Gene Hackman and says to herself "This dude is a loser. La-hoo-za-her."



And just like in that crap-fest Radio...or was it Remember the Titans? No, it was Radio, definitely Radio, the townsfolk gather in the barber shop to harass the local coach. Word to the wise: If you are interested in coaching a high school sports team, stay away from the local barbershop.


Is it just me, or is that deer totally giving that guy the side-eye?



What a rag-tag bunch of misfits. (Speaking of Misfits, that show is SO GOOD. You should watch it.)



This is what training montages looked like in the 50s.



So, there are some sub-plots, let's round them up:

Town drunk:


Student who is extraordinarily talented, but refuses to play for some mysterious reason (he's focusing on his academics, what a fool):


The student's name is Jimmy. 

Hi Jimmy.

Hi.

 Hey.


And Gene Hackman's friend/the school principal is sick in bed so Barbara Hershey takes over. That happened too. That's it, no other plot points that will mysteriously show up out of nowhere and make you throw up a little in your mouth.

So, anyway...

Basketball
Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


I forgot to say that shots of the scoreboard make up about 26% of the movie.


Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


What a fucking hipster.



Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


So, in the middle of the movie, Gene Hackman gets an idea and decides to invite this Dennis Hopper's character, an alcoholic who hides in the woods with this shotgun, to help him coach teenagers.

Super! This will go swimmingly!

At the next game, Dennis Hopper shows up in a suit and everyone is all "Whaaaa? Isn't that the alcoholic who hides in the woods with a shotgun? Oh well, let's let him coach our teenage sons at basketball. What could go wrong?!"



Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


Hi Jimmy.
Hi.


Oh, right, also the townsfolk don't like this new coach and they want him fired. So they call a town meeting where they will vote on his fate. And, for some reason, despite no signs that she finds him to be even remotely attractive as a human, Barbara Hershey cries when she asks the townsfolk not to fire the coach. I see where this is going and I don't. Like. It.



Then, right as their voting to fire the coach, Jimmy (Hi Jimmy) shows up and says he'll only return to basketball if the coach stays. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?!

Jimmy, I'd really prefer it if you focused on learning to play "Satellite" on the guitar and writing poetry about snow and trains.


Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


Turns out a nice suit and a handshake isn't enough to keep a shotgun-toting alcoholic sober, so Gene Hackman has to continually find new and interesting ways to keep Dennis Hopper on the wagon.



The team starts winning and everyone likes the coach because winning is all that matters.


Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


Basketball
Basketball
Basketball



Oh, hey, look at that!
They made it to the Sectional Finals! That means this team is one step away from going to State!


Ruh roh, who could have seen this coming? Dennis Hopper shows up drunk to a game, starts a fight, and gets kicked out of the arena, embarrassing his son who is one of the players and the only one who saw this coming.


Basketball
Basketball
Scoreboard



Side note: This movie takes place in 1951, but was released in 1986. Looking at the hairstyles on these extras, there's no way anyone would have guessed. No way. No how. Those mullet perms just scream 1951.



Thank God they finally included a few scoreboard shots otherwise I would have been completely lost.



At one point, Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper's son find Dennis Hopper in the woods with his shotgun (NO WAY) and they put him in the hospital to sober him up. (Ahh, yes, maybe a better idea than pursuing sobriety through a high-pressure basketball coaching gig.)



Slow clap = necessary.

Hi Jimmy.


Guess what:

Basketball
Scoreboards
Basketball


At one point, a guy gets kicked out of the game and the short, adorable guy who never plays, just warms the bench is put in the game.

I thought this actor was awesome so I looked him up and-

Dammit! Scoreboards! Quit interrupting!


Anyway, it turns out, he was actually a really good basketball player in real life, so he was acting like a bad athlete.
And also, he shot baskets granny style.

Seriously?


Oh, yay! Little guy made the game winning shot! Yay! They won!
They're going to the State Championships! Wow!



Out of nowhere, Gene Hackman and Barbara Hershey decide they're in love. Great. That totally makes sense because of no reason at all.

The only thing I like about this scene is that they actually look like people on a farm in Indiana. If this was made in 2011, she'd be wearing cut-off jean shorts and he'd be Kellan Lutz.



The state championship is at this arena. Wow, that's a big arena. Gene Hackman does a big show of demonstrating that the court is the same size as any other court. So, you know, no big deal.


Basketball
Basketball
Basketball


Scoreboard


Basketball


Basketball
Basketball

And then, it all comes down to one shot...
Hey Jimmy


And Jimmy makes the shot! And they win!

They win!


Why so smug? She's totally turning into one of those ladies who calls her boyfriend "Babe" and says crap like "We don't like television, do we Babe? We only watch foreign films, right Babe? Babe, hey Babe, can you pass the grape leaves?"


The movie ends with a shot of the winning team. I find this annoying.
I find this annoying because the movie is based on an actual small-town team from Indiana that became the first small-town team to win the State Championship. As any inspirational sports movie fan knows, you end the movie with a shot of the actual team. Not some dummy picture of the actors playing the real team.



mlady: Come on Jimmy, let's get out of here. I'm sick of basketball and scoreboards.

Jimmy: Me too. Hey, I know a place where we can listen to My Bloody Valentine and read David Berman poetry to each other.

mlady: Dreamy.


.

4 comments:

  1. The scoreboards from the first set (Fair-Play FD-60 with the analog clock) and second set (Fair-Play FF-1S) were scoreboards that would have been around when the movie was supposed to take place. I think the third set with the red FF-1S is the same FF-1S with different bulbs out and with the red covering instead of the gray to make it look like a different scoreboard. The ones from that last set look to me to be 1980s scoreboard digits put in an old looking frame (probably made for the movie). The digit style for the 2 and 4 are how scoreboards run by a digital microchip rather than electro-mechanical like the earlier Fair-Plays make their digits, and I don't think any scoreboard before the early 80s or late 70s used that digit style for 2's. It sticks out to me to be a fake scoreboard made for the movie while the earlier ones are real ones from that era. Strange that they'd do that.

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  2. After posting that other comment, I realized that the last scoreboard is a 1980s Nevco model with a fake frame on the front to make it look old.

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  3. Hope they didn't use tenths of a second...that didn't start until the 1990s.

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