Rewatchables Reference

• The Gettysburg speech – 'if we don't come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed.' Incredibly manipulative and yet it absolutely works every single time.
• Left side, strong side – when Gary shoves Julius and they start doing it together, then the whole team joins in. People of a 30-year age range will respond 'strong side' if you say 'left side'.
• Julius and Gary yelling at each other about leadership – 'attitude reflects leadership, captain.' You don't know whose side you're on yet.
• Ronnie Bass coming in after Rev gets hurt – Coach Boone's speech about losing his mother and father in the same month, then the touchdown play going right into 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye'.
• The locker room mama joke scene that leads to Sunshine kissing Gerry, Gosling dancing in his own world, and Ray looking overwhelmed.
• Denzel watching game tape with the daughter – treating her like another coach.

• The soundtrack – CCR, Marvin Gaye, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, The Temptations. Introduced Shea Serrano to rock music he'd never heard before.
• The 'Titan Spirit' theme song – used in countless sports telecasts and both the 2008 DNC and Obama's election victory.
• The cast – Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale on The Wire), Ryan Gosling, Donald Faison, Ryan Hurst (Sons of Anarchy), Kip Pardue. Everyone got more famous afterward but still feels like their character.
• The parallel scenes at the restaurant – Sunshine trying to buy everyone dinner and getting refused, followed by the Boone-Yost confrontation about coddling. Two of the smartest moments about race in the film.
• The parenting of that era – nobody is a helicopter parent, and the movie treats the kids independently.

• The 'based on a true story' claim – almost nothing in the movie actually happened as depicted. The championship game was a blowout, the schools were already integrated, Coach Boone was widely disliked.
• Hayden Panettiere as the football-obsessed daughter – dialed up too much, annoying rather than charming. 'This is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship' needed more workshopping.
• 'Water is for cowards' – the opposite of what water does, doesn't hold up in the concussion/player-safety era.
• The racist officiating subplot in the semifinals – corny execution of 'I know what's going on here'.
• The halftime speeches of the championship game – not great.
• The football scenes filmed too close – needed more wide shots.

Ed Harris instead of Will Patton as Coach Yost – Patton is the poor man's Ed Harris, and Harris going nose-to-nose with Denzel would have been a different, arguably better movie.

• Sappy Disney sports movies – this is when they mastered the formula. Bigger and better than 'Miracle', and they kept doing it with The Rookie and others afterward.
• Everyone else in the cast went on to do something better – except maybe Blue (the singing character), whose whole career peaked here.
• Kip Pardue as Sunshine – this was his high spot.

Denzel delivering 'make sure they remember forever the night they played the Titans' – saying the title of the movie during the movie.

• The other team has nobody in prevent defense with 20 seconds left – once the Titans get past the first couple defenders, there's nobody for 50 yards.
• A TV crew is broadcasting the championship game live in 1971 Virginia – you could barely get a Red Sox game on TV in '71.
• You can't advance a fumble in Texas high school football rules, but they do it multiple times.
• Denzel is holding a spoon with a single grape on it in the cafeteria scene – no fruit cup in sight.
• 50,000 people didn't die at Gettysburg – Denzel says 50,000 men died here but the actual number was about 8,000 deaths.
• The 'based on a true story' fabrications – every major plot point is changed from what actually happened.

• Denzel Washington – the only answer. He could say 'John Brown hind parts' 12 times and it would still work because he's Denzel. This is LeBron putting up 29-10-12 in Sacramento.
• The counterargument: progress won the movie, which is why Obama bookended his whole 2008 campaign with the Titan Spirit theme.