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Visitors Review

2012-05-23 07:27:51

Glory Road DVD

This review is from: Glory Road (Widescreen Edition) (DVD) This is an awesome, inspirational movie and any basketball player or fan would benefit from watching this movie. I am really pleased to have added it to my DVD collection and no doubt, I will watch many more times in the days to come.

mdatty 2012-05-22 23:43:11

it's a very good movie..why not just tell the truth?

It's a good movie. You will like it. It is true that Texas Western wasthe first team with 5 black starters to win the NCAA BUT.........theLoyola Chicago 1963 Champions had 4 black starters. Came from 10 downin the NCAA title game to beat Cincy........played SEC championMississippi State after that team had to fly out at night to avoid acourt order grounding the team. This really happened. Where is thecourageous story of these men, and their coach, whom I had the pleasureto meet, George Ireland? It doesn't subtract from the entertainmentvalue of Glory Road, but why can't Disney tell the truth about theteam, Coach Haskins, and just about everything in the film. They were agreat team, and Coach Haskins was legendary as well. The truth was, asmany have pointed out, there were none of these close games in thebeginning..Coach Haskins did not come from coaching a girl's team tothe NCAA Championship in one year. It's a great story just as it reallyhappened. It's a shame that the only recognition Loyola gets is thatTexas Western beat them (in a newspaper headline) and seen in the topten rankings that year. They both deserve credit. So does MississippiState for their courage in coming to play Loyola. This really happened,and it's a great story. Where is it?

Kirk Honeycutt 2012-05-22 06:32:07

This Jerry Bruckheimer production, directed by commercial director James Gartner in a solid feature debut, should please male fans as well as those who don't mind a dose of social commentary with their sports heroics.

David Ferguson 2012-05-21 19:12:10

Fundamental Movie

Greetings again from the darkness. If you are looking for a historylesson on the truly amazing story of Don Haskins and his 1966 TexasWestern basketball championship team, then the closest you will get isthe closing credits which feature quotes from Don Haskins, Pat Reillyand the real TWU players. If you are in the mood for a feel-good,underdog story presented in full Jerry Bruckheimer mode then "GloryRoad" aims to please.First time director James Gartner shows some attention to detail butadmittedly takes some creative license while presenting the story ofthe first all black team to win a NCAA championship. Of course the teamwas not all black, but coach Don Haskins made the decision to play onlyblack players in this historic game. The best part of the film iswatching Josh Lucas as Don Haskins and Jon Voight as Adolph Rupp stalkthe sidelines during the big game. Lucas with his gut and mannerismsand Voight with his pompous poses really capture the essence of thepublic image of these two men. Also, Red West (former Elvis bodyguard)does a nice job as Ross.There are many other parts I don't really understand. Emily Deschanelis totally wasted as Haskins' wife. Most of the black players look atleast 5 years too old for college. In fact, Derek Luke ("AntwoneFisher") is almost 32 years old. Also, the time frame for Haskins atTexas Western is quite misleading. None of those really matter in aglossy Hollywood production, but they do matter when presentinghistory.Nothing at all wrong with the crowd-pleasing, root-for-the-underdogmovie, although it is a bit frustrating when it deals so lightly withhistoric facts. Also, don't miss Don Haskins as the gas stationattendant who asks Lucas is he wants his tank filled up and definitelystay for the closing credits.

Bob Bloom 2012-05-14 20:14:05

What is difficult to ascertain about Glory Road is where fact ends and fiction begins.

Stephanie Zacharek 2012-05-14 00:35:07

Sometimes it takes a sports movie to remind us how far we've come as a country -- and to marvel at how we got here at all, in our awkward combination of leaps and baby steps.

Douglas Young 2012-05-13 00:23:06

An underdog team can win the big one

(Synopsis) "Glory Road" was inspired by a true story of Texas Western'sCoach Don Haskins (Josh Lucas), who led the first all-black startinglineup team to the 1966 NCAA national basketball championship title.Coach Haskins has a lot going against him: first, Texas Western has apoor basketball program, and second, he cannot recruit good whiteplayers to the team. Coach Haskins goes to Northern cities to recruittalented black players from the streets to play for his team. The blackplayers must adjust to his coaching, and not play street basketball.Coach Haskins doesn't see color when he evaluates the skill of all ofhis players, and chooses who plays in the game. With courage anddetermination, Coach Haskins changed basketball history, when hisunderdog team beats the powerhouse Kentucky team.(Comment) This is a very good movie that you should see. It portraysthe racial hardships that the coach and all of his players encounteredduring the 60's. Even though you know that the team wins thechampionship game, you still root for them during the game. At the endof the movie when the credits start to roll, please stay in your seat,because you will see photos of the actual players with a shortcommentary, and their careers. You will see an interview with PatRiley, who played on the Kentucky team, and you will also see footagefrom the real game. I liked this part the best, because it let you knowwhat happened to the players in life. (Disney Pictures, Run time 1:49,Rated PG) (8/10)

mike rice 2012-05-12 03:38:55

Glory Road: The True Story Behind the Film

An upstart all black Texas Western Comes from nowhere to win the NCAADivision One Basketball title in 1966. Glory Road is the story of aseminal moment in American College Basketball. In Glory Road, Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) is coaching a girls high schoolteam in rural West Texas when the call comes from Texas Western of ElPaso. The film implies Haskins started the basketball program atTex-West from scratch in 1965, the season the Miners went all the wayagainst Adolph Rupp's Kentucky in the NCAA Final.In reality, Haskins was in his fourth year at El Paso in 1965. He didnot initiate the program as the film implies, nor did he draftTex-West's first black players. He inherited a team with three blackplayers on it, in his first year as coach, 1961. The movie has Haskins arriving at El Paso in 1965 having just left ahigh school girls basketball coaching job. The Coach finds he is reallybeing hired to keep order in a college dormitory where he and his wifeand two children will be forced to live. Texas Western isn't thatinterested in basketball. Haskins is unable to draft first rank white players. In desperation, hesends his assistant to Harlem, and tries to attract black playgroundplayers himself in Indiana and other urban settings. In reality, TexasWestern was among the first of southern colleges to integrate itssports teams. Glory Road implies that 1966 was the year integration finallypenetrated NCAA Basketball. But the University of Cincinnati won theNCAA with four black players in 1962. Loyola won the title with fourblack players in 1963. By 1966, not many years after the comic blackGlobetrotters had beaten the all-white Minneapolis Lakers, the NBA'sleading players were black: Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, OscarRobertson and Elgin Baylor.So how could the Kentucky-Texas Western Showdown be the moment the NCAAwas integrated? It wasn't. It was, instead, the year the mostlysouthern, Atlantic Coast Conference which had been dragging its feet onteam integration, saw the race issue blow up in its face.Haskins played five black players nearly every game that year, andassembled a 27 and l record, the same record Rupp's Kentucky finishedthe Season with. Noise about the team kept drifting into the nation'ssports pages. But few Americans saw the team play. No one dreamed theupstart black team could challenge the traditional white teams of theACC.In the movie El Paso has seven black players and two token whites. Thescreenplay creates story points out of thin air to create audiencesupport for Texas Western. The screenplay has Tex-West players doing 180 degree slam dunks, butthere was no play like that in the NCAA basketball of 1965-66.Coach Haskins is shown forcing his largely black players to play thegame the 'White Way.' In fact playground basketball technique had notyet become an issue in the 1965 NCAA. A story point in Glory Road hasHaskins losing several games, then having to give in and let the team'play black.' In fact, the Miners played disciplined white basketball."Play one at home, two on the road and three if you get behind." Thisis the supposed comfortable adage about how a coach should use blackplayers in the South. Its a great legendary saying. But integrationtook place so quickly, there was little time for the saying to takehold and have meaning. Before Brown vs. the Board of Education therewere no blacks playing on Southern College Teams. After the NBAintegrated, the NCAA followed quickly in its footsteps. In '66-'67, theyear after tiny Texas Western won it all, Haskins had no blacks in hisstarting lineup. By 1969 even Rupp had his first black player.Don Haskins is a legend, but he never again placed a team in the NCAAFinals. The luck and talent that assembled and trained this great teamin 1965-66, did not repeat. Still the NCAA Final Game between Rupp's Kentuckians and Haskins' blackTex-Wests IS a great drama. Americans and most NCAA Teams had readstories about the upstarts, but few had ever seen them play. Only one Atlantic Coast Conference Basketball game a week appeared onnational TV then. With no previous reputation, Tex-West had appearednot once on television. The team was only seen where they played. Thefive black men all on the floor at the same time scared some collegeteams that had not played a totally black team before.Actor John Voight disappears in makeup to make him look the image ofAdolph Rupp. Voight has obviously studied game films of Rupp. Hisportrayal is like nothing seen from him before. The Rupp on screen is ajowly, elderly man with a load of mannerisms and tics. Voight'sperformance is a tour de force. This must be close to the way the realRupp looked and acted.As the credits rolled at the end the real Don Haskins appears in blackand white inset and tells of his experience. A photo of the real AdolphRupp shows how close to reality John Voight's makeup was. Haskin'sremarks crosscut with black and white game footage. Kentucky player PatRiley then appears and adds a stunning perspective to the events ofMarch, 1966. Riley, now an NBA coach, says he went to the Miners'locker room after he'd recovered some and congratulated the blackplayers.Riley said no one realized the significance of the game immediately.But as years went by it started to dawn. Riley says it was hard toaccept that the black team was that much better than Kentucky then.Over the years he says he has come to see that accepting that wasowning up to the dignity and the triumph of their effort.

Lisa Schwarzbaum 2012-05-10 05:06:15

Remember the Titans? Forget about them! Here's a new Jerry Bruckheimer production that places its secular faith in an almighty audience appetite for underdogs, sports, and dramas in which wrongs are righted by good-looking Americans.

tgarcia2-1 2012-05-09 17:21:46

What a great film

I took a couple of friends of mine to see the film yesterday. Two ofthem go to The University of Texas at Austin, and one will be going toTexas Tech. Now neither of them care much for UTEP but do know of thestory of the 1966 team.All four of us really enjoyed the movie and believe it'll be in the topten in the box office. Now for those of you who don't like the atypicalsports movie, well this one seemed to be a hybrid between Friday NightLights and Remember the Titans in the form of the story line. It gave areally good insight in how black players were treated back then and howCoach Haskins risked not only his job but the safety of his family forwhat he loved to teach.Wait after the movie and you will see a little interview with the Coachand his players along with Pat Riley. As you see the original film ofthe '66 championship game, the movie got it down on bulls eye.Really enjoyable, hope everyone goes out and sees it!

Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) 2012-05-03 11:33:12

The big game at the end of the film has the momentum and rhythm of a really exciting basketball game. It's just that the 90 minutes that come before that scene aren't so great.

John Venable 2012-05-03 03:04:44

Until inspirational sports films stop making us feel good, expect several more. This is a fun ride that will make you smile.

Dan Fienberg 2012-04-27 04:25:53

Only a few quibblers are going to point out that Glory Road takes a fantastic real story and muddles it with sloppy storytelling that fails to trust the source material

David Kaplan 2012-04-26 19:41:58

It was only a game, but for these seven young men, it was their way to gain respect from a predominantly white society.

Connie Ogle 2012-04-26 11:23:05

In the end, a sports movie is only as good as the adrenalin rush it provides in the climactic match, and there, finally, Glory Road hits on all cylinders with nonstop action and a powerful emotional impact.

2012-04-26 03:02:55

Glory Road's historical inaccuracies worth a mention, but not worth a second thought

Despite distorting and omitting certain factual details, "Glory Road" has made it to the end of its road to glory. Although James Gartner's movie about Coach Don Haskin's 1966 Texas Western College's NCAA Men's Division 1 basketball championship team over exaggerated the racism and discrimination the black players felt at the time, it is a phenomenal film in the same league as Denzel Washington's legendary "Remember the Titan's".The film depicts Hall of Fame Coach Don Haskin's efforts to win the NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball title by recruiting black players instead of whites, who were heavily recruited by the nation's top basketball schools such as Kansas and Kentucky. The movie shows Coach Haskin's rigorous training programs and controversial rules used to integrate his black and white players into a single team with a common goal. It contains scenes of racial tension and hatred, much of which was blown out of proportion, throughout the season until the NCAA finals where Texas Western beats Kentucky's team of five whites with five blacks. The movie inspires emotions that would bring a tear to anyone's eyes, whether the tears are tears of hate caused by the discrimination the team had to put up with or tears of joy caused by watching the perseverance and dedication of the Miners. Although a 5 star movie, one cannot deny the dramatic license regarding racial scenes that may have been taken a step too far.First of all, the movie depicts Don Haskin's as someone who rattles chains and has the guts to break social norms by recruiting seven blacks in one year. The truth is, while the movie is set during Texas Western 1965-66 season, Don Haskins started coaching at Texas Western in 1961 and the school had been recruited black players as far back at 1956. In fact, most of the 1965-66 team was together the year before. While the movie depicts the Texas Western basketball team as if they wouldn't go anywhere if not for Coach Haskins heavy recruiting of black athletes, the Miners had been doing fairly well the past few years, going 18-6 in the 61-62 season during Coach Haskins first year and 18-9 in the 64-65 season, the season preceding the year the movie takes place.Another dramatization worth mentioning is the scene right before the championship game where Coach Haskins motivates his team by claiming he plans to put an end to racial discrimination in sports by playing only the black players in the finals game tomorrow. However, in an interview with the real Don Haskins, he states, `I really didn't think about starting five black guys. I just wanted to put my five best guys on the court. I just wanted to win the game." The team had started five black players before and it had worked well for them. Also, in 1956, the University of San Francisco won the NCAA championship with 5 black players. Cincinnati and Loyola of Chicago each won the NCAA championship in 1962 and 1963 respectively, each with 4 black players.However, one should question whether or not these racial exaggerations really matter. After all, "Glory Road" is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, so isn't Disney simply upholding its reputation as the ultimate children's entertainer by not only distributing an inspiring movie but a movie that teaches future generations about the crimes of racism and discrimination? The exaggerations and historical bloopers deserve a mention, but shouldn't take anything away from how inspirational and moving the story is. The racial aspect of it just makes it that much more inspirational. "Glory Road" isn't just a movie to be watched, it's an experience to be lived.

joelio612000 2012-04-25 11:46:32

An amazing movie that should be looked on as one of the greatest.

I had great expectations of this movie, and none to my surprise themovie moved me like no other has. It inspired me and i think it will dothe same you, by the way the group of basketball players did notsuccumb to criticism, jeering and all sorts of racialism. Everyoneshould see this movie even if one is not interested in sports or morespecific basketball. Especially children need to see this so that whenthey want to do something thats not viewed popular or common they knowthat they are probably not going to face what others did to get werethey are today. A breath of fresh air compared to the movies that havebeen of late. Do not pass up the chance to see it while you can.

Bob Townsend 2012-04-24 20:46:35

Glory Road plays fast and loose with some of the facts leading up to that event. But that certainly gives it dramatic punch.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat 2012-04-20 20:04:57

A scrappy and fast-paced sports flick set in 1966 that also deals with heart and racism.

Matt Pais 2012-04-20 07:25:23

A darn good story, told with enough conviction and impact to connect with people who don't know the difference between a three-pointer and a field goal.