Varsity Blues (1999)
Last Watch Date - September 5, 2022
Total Times Watched - 3 maybe
Comments
It's football season, so that means it's time for a corny old football coming-of-age movie! This year's sacrifice (of my time) was Varsity Blues. You know, that movie that was made famous by the whipped cream bikini. I think young me probably loved it, but adult me finds it a bit off-putting. Think of how sticky and messy that's going to be. Also, whipped cream by its nature of being cream has a bit of a sour taste to it. Gross. Curious how she got the cherries to stick on her nipples though.. maybe she has huge spear nipples that went through them? These are the questions they never answer in the movie.
Jon Voight plays the douchey "hardass" coach pretty well. I've met quite a few of those over the years growing up around the game. There were also those old "hero" classes of e.g. Berwick in the 80s and 90s with George Curry at the helm. I bet you a lot of those players looked at this movie as more of a depressing reminder of what it was like. Or maybe looked fondly because they won so much? Who knows. The story in this movie is as tropey as they come and quite frankly, the acting isn't very good either. I guess you can expect that from Dawson's Creek and Amy Smart (though she was actually pretty decent). Billy Bob as a character is a farce and Tweader is possibly too real. I didn't grow up in a town obsessed with football (senior year our team was 0-12), so a lot of this didn't really apply. When we were in youth football, it was pretty big. But we also won all the time. Times change and most of the teams of the youth weren't still playing together by high school. Parties weren't like this either. I think this is one of those things that people from foreign places get confused about - this is like a party school (college/university) atmosphere, not regular old high school.
The uniforms in this movie are awful in that late 90s sort of way. You know, like the current Denver Broncos that have held onto their mid-90s replacements like they're some sort of revelation. They look like shit, but hey they won a few super bowls with them on so I guess that means you wear them forever, right? Back to the movie, the ending is so ridiculous that it almost makes the rest of the movie more real. This is a fever dream of someone whose school probably won 4 games but back when they were young kids, they were a power house. Their dad's probably won districts as seniors and told their kids about how amazing it was while they butt chugged a keg of Genesee beer. Maybe Genny Light if they're watching their caloric intake now that they're 50 years old and have heart and gut conditions.
You have to really want to like this movie to enjoy it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it either. It's a smooth 5-5, just missing the expanded playoffs and avoiding the embarassment of losing to some other shitty team 6-0 in the opening round.
Recommended?
Pass on this one, there are better football movies.
