"The Express": The Ernie Davis story

Simon, Hoosiers had more changes in it than a fashion show.

I still love it.

 

Yeah, I don't think the Milan coach hooked up with the acting principal during the season.

 

Plus the coach was a second-year coach, not from Ithaca, not from the Navy, yada, yada, yada.

But Chitwood/Plum was legit.

 

Yeah, except he never "held out" until midseason, he was not a social recluse, he was not a semi-orphan, etc etc.

Obviously, he never made any "coach goes, I go" ultimatum in a town meeting, since there was never any town meeting, and Marvin Wood was never in any danger of losing his job.

 

The difference with "Hoosiers" is ... it's a good enough/entertaining/feel-good movie to overcome its flaws and/or historical inaccuracies. "Eight Men Out" and "Glory Road," while their flaws both eat at me, fit that description, too. (With "Miracle," of course, too many people knew the story for them to fuck with any major plot points. That's the most well-made of all the sports re-creations, IMO. Kurt Russell was just brilliant.)

Some of these other films, like "The Rookie" or "Invincible" or -- from Simon's account -- "The Express" feel compelled to fuck with the story to make it more dramatic, but then it makes you feel deceived as a movie-goer because there's so much wrong with it. That turns me off about sports/historical movies more than anything else.

 

I think Hoosiers is miles... miles ahead of any of those other films above.

The only grain of truth I needed was that a tiny school COULD play the largest school for the state title, and that it happened and the small school won.

All I needed.

Hackman is God, but Hopper, incredibly, was even better.

To me, he was as believable as Shaw as Quint.

 

See, the love story got in the way for me in "Hoosiers" and so did the changing of the names, year, etc. -- I consider that movie to be as different from the story of the real Milan High as "The Natural" (movie version) is to its original story (the novel).

That said, it doesn't take away from my enjoyment of either film. I just consider "Hoosiers" to be a completely separate story from Milan High. One's history, and the other is fiction. Both are all-time great stories.

 

Doubt the DVD sales in West Virginia are too hot.

 

But the VHS tapes are selling like crazy!!!

 

Nothing like the Betamaxes