Movie and Discussion Time!

The Plainfield Township Branch would like to invite all interested adults to come to a special screening of the film “Friday Night Lights” on Saturday, October 4, with pizza served at 12:30 PM and the film beginning at 1:00 PM. After our viewing, we will hold a discussion of the film and some of the themes explored. The movie, originally released in 2004, is based on the nonfiction book by H.G. Bissinger that was published in 1990. The story centers on a small town in Texas where high school football is the reigning passion, and the players are the heroes of the town. Here is a description:

Odessa is an oil town in the western part of Texas that is home to the Permian High School Panthers, the football team with the best winning record. The city’s economy is in a tailspin, but football is the one thing that brings all the people of Odessa together, and on Friday nights, as many as 20,000 people fill Permian’s football stadium to watch Coach Gary Gaines lead the team to victory. And in Odessa, a football victory is prized above all else. The players ponder the fact that a championship season can be as much a burden as a triumph.

The movie also spawned a popular television series, which ran for five seasons.

Though we will be discussing the movie and not the book (or the TV series), we encourage anyone attending to read the book ahead of time if they’d like and bring whatever questions or comments they’ve gleaned from it to our discussion.