In a Theater Near Me

I already was somewhat interested in Friday Night Lights. It has gotten pretty decent reviews and I like Billy Bob Thornton. Usually I don't care for the sort of movie he is in so this would be unusual. However, we ran into a friend after Mass who mentioned that my friend Angie, who some of you may have seen as the wife shown in flashbacks in Robocop, is in this movie and has a speaking part at the beginning of the movie. As Angie told me later:

I saw "Friday Night Lights" for the first time last night...and it was really GOOD! I think you'll really like it...the acting is wonderful, as well as the sense of place the director brings to the film. Just know that it's shot in a fast, gritty, "real", jump-cut documentary-type of style (how don't know HOW Peter Berg edited this thing... Lord!) ...but it really lends itself to telling the story effectively....

My part is so small that if you blink your eyes you'll miss me!...but I'm in the dining room scene with Billy Bob (as Coach Gaines) and I think you'll see the back of my silver-haired head first, and I say,"Coach, are you ready for Midland-Lee?"...or was it "Are you ready for Midland-Lee, Coach?" Haha! Anyway, the scene is during the first hour (maybe first half-hour) of the film...it took a whole day to shoot (on the 3rd day of filming), and the director let all of us improv so much that I wasn't sure if the scene would be used at all...because we totally got away from the script.

I remember that around the time The Passion of the Christ came out she told me that she had been in Austin on a shoot. We had quite a conversation about Billy Bob Thornton as she described watching him charm young women as knowing what it must have been like watching the serpent charm Eve in the Garden of Eden. Very interesting. I knew what she was talking about as it is some of that same sort of charm that makes me enjoy watching him in movies.

Anyway, now I have a reason to make me actually find time in our schedule to go watch that movie in the theater. Thanks to Angie's impromptu review I'm much more interested in seeing it ... probably next weekend.