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Saw "Glory Road" Friday night. It was an account of the first NCAA div. 1 team to start all black players. It was typical Disney fare... good guys won... you knew what was going to happen.. Used the "N" word once in the beginning of the movie to set the scene, but only once.. no other bad words in movie. Anyway, I loved it. It is what it is.. (IMHO) a good family movie with a great message.
2 points for this board:
* The Texas Western Team was subject to nasty incidents of racism as they progressed through their dream season. Rednecks beating up a black player in the bathroom, hoodlums leaving racist messages on hotel walls, racist notes, etc. I was interested in seeing if the movie would portray the black team being victims of racism by officials. I was pleased to see the movie's creators played officials straight up, and never showed anything that hinted at officials were racist in their calls (No idea if racism was a factor in officiating when it happened in the real life back in 1967, I realize this was just a movie)
* In one scene a kid dunks from T.W., gets a Technical for hanging on the rim, 2 shots awarded to the other team. I wondered if the "2 shots for a T" is historically accurate? Did NCAA have 2 shots for T back in the 60's... for some reason I thought it was a single shot back then. (I suspect I am wrong, as I would guess a movie so steeped in historical basketball wouldn't be sloppy and get something like that wrong.)
By the way, there was the one scene when it seemed like ref's may be calling one against the "black team", but that call (with no time on the clock), and the 2 points made on "T" tied the game. However in OT, TW's opponent seemed to win on a last second shot from way outside.. but ref's waived it off and TW won, so (again no idea of that all actually happened in a game, or if it was all made up) so the "game costing" fouls went both ways, in true Disney Fashion!
BTW-- if you go stay, in your seats for credits, as they roll some old black and white footage of the actual championship game, and interviews with players involved. The center on the losing team in the championship game was Pat Riley, and he talks about the game.
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