Friday Night Lights

In some parts of Texas, high school football is more important than George W. Bush. Friday Night Lights visited such a place (Odessa) and returned with one of the best sports films to date. Based on the nonfiction book of the same title that chronicled the Permian Panthers through their 1988 season, Friday Night Lights ignores sports movie conventions with a documentary look that shifts focus from individual characters and packs plenty of hard-hitting pigskin action. The extras go even deeper into the story and harder over the middle of the field. "Player Cam" gets a jock's-eye view of things from the extras who donned pads for the movie's ultrarealistic game footage, including cranky teens undergoing '80s-style haircuts (mullets included). "Tim McGraw: Off the Stage" goes behind the guitar and chaps to talk varsity athletics and also catches the country warbler and costar Billy Bob Thornton schooling the young'ns in a game of touch football. But the MVP here is "The Story of the 1988 Permian Panthers," which catches up with the real players chronicled in the book. Interviews with teammates, local journalists, trainers, and even current Permian players still enduring tales about those late-'80s teams teach us that there's more to life than high school football. Like college football.