Paterno

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by tman53, Apr 9, 2018.

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  1. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction Thread Starter

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    No posts on this HBO movie that aired this weekend? I am surprised. I thought Pacino's performance was understated and quite good. As for the subject matter and those involved I found all of them deplorable.
     
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  2. sberger

    sberger Dream Baby Dream

    About a quarter in. Only reason I'm watching is for Pacino. Liking it so far.
     
  3. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I'm curious who they cast as Sandusky, the animal. He was a very crafty and sneaky predator. I would think that he's the dark heart of this movie.

    The little I've seen shows that Pacino really has Joe down, I had a short 1 on 1 with him back when I was at PSU.
     
  4. sberger

    sberger Dream Baby Dream

    The actor is Jim Johnson. Doesn't seem he's done much. Seemingly the movie is more interested in Paterno and how this affected him and those around him then Sandusky who is more of a minor player in the movie.
     
  5. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

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    Marple, PA, USA
    interesting. Maybe it's me, but I'd like a wide angle lens view of the whole fiasco. But I guess they feel that 1) Joe's name gets more publicity and 2) too many living people (potential lawsuits) to do a film of the story. Well, have to check this out regardless.
     
  6. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction Thread Starter

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    They definitely just took a piece of this story (Paterno's obviously) but you still get a sense of how vile the whole thing was. Paterno seemed to feel that anything outside of football didn't concern him. At least that is how it was presented in this.
     
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  7. PearlJamNoCode

    PearlJamNoCode Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    I enjoyed this, as much as you can enjoy a film about this story. Pacino did a great job. Paterno was focused on doing his job, which to him, was football and only football. Everything else was a distraction.

    I can see a lot of Penn State folks complaining that they only showed a one dimensional side of the students, blindly supporting him and chanting outside of his house, but the movie is a drama, they aren't going to show students quietly sitting in their dorm discussing their concerns about Joe and the situation.
     
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  8. mdphunk

    mdphunk Sharing in the groove

    Location:
    Northern VA
    PSU grad here.

    Overall, I thought the film was melodramatic and just not very good. I kept wondering why this film even had to be made, but maybe that's just because I was too close to the actual events to want to see them dramatized.

    Pacino was excellent as Paterno...I kept forgetting that I wasn't watching Joe. Grundberg was also very well cast as Scott Paterno.

    The film was fair to Joe and reflected the sentiment that I've heard from a lot of fellow PSU alumni: He should have done more, but his negligence wasn't out of malice. He was a football coach who came from a time when you just didn't discuss those types of things. He was uncomfortable and passed the issue off to Curley/Spanier, trusting that it would be dealt with. I was surprised as I completely expected the film to portray Joe as a monster who led a culture of covering up bad things, which has become one popular public narrative outside of the PSU community.

    Overall, I would have preferred a film that looked at the issue from all sides and investigated the multiple failures that happened, in which Paterno would be a minor character or only mentioned in passing. The psychologist character was right: "Why are we talking about Paterno?"
     
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  9. dead of night

    dead of night Senior Member

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    Northern Va, usa
    There was a scene with profoundly good dialogue: "I don't remember what I had for breakfast."
     
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  10. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Seems like the focus was on Paterno to give Pacino another tour de force performance like Phil Spector or Jack Kevorkian. This the third HBO movie with Pacino doing a deal like this is it not?
     
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  11. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

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    Marple, PA, USA
    The one thing Al will never capture is the fact that Joe was 85 when the zhit hit the fan. How 'with it' was he? I'm inclined to cut guys that age a lot of slack when it comes to remembering things. We'll never know his mental state.
     
  12. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction Thread Starter

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    I know this is a drama based on actual events but I couldn't help thinking while watching that his kids (especially the daughter) wanted to scream at him "Dad, kids were being abused!". Paterno may not have remembered everything but I still think he was culpable. Just my opinion. Don't want to turn this thread into a battle.
     
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  13. John Moschella

    John Moschella Senior Member

    Location:
    Christiansburg, VA
    Well at 85 he was still the head football coach. I don't think he could have lost too much.
     
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  14. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    There were rumors here for years before that about him supposedly relying on his head off/def coaches for the majority of play calling. Surfaced almost every other year for at least 10 years, who knows? Guess it depends how cynical you are.
     
  15. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    He wasn’t 85 when he decided not to scream to high Heaven that kids were being abused. He made the choice to do the minimum and let it continue. It could be because as another poster said he just didn’t know how to handle it or it could be that Wins were the only thing that mattered....either way let’s not give him a pass because he was 85 when it hit the fan...he had many decades of a cognizant brain to have done something about kids being abused.
     
  16. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    yea, sorry. In reality, I do hold him partially responsible for reasons that would get the thread closed. I just say that his state of mind is difficult to judge now, I know how with it my mom was and wasn't at 85
     
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  17. sberger

    sberger Dream Baby Dream

    Evidently he was told about stuff going on in '76 and did nothing. As to him being coach at 85, that proves nothing. He was the king of PSU, just like Coach K is at Duke. These guys call the shots, and they retire when they want.
     
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  18. neo123

    neo123 Senior Member

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    Northern Kentucky
  19. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction Thread Starter

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  20. NaturalD

    NaturalD The King of Pop

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    Boston, Mass., USA
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  21. Chris from Chicago

    Chris from Chicago Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes

    I caught a glimpse of it last night. Paterno was saying Jerry had kids, a bunch of kids, lots of them over all the time. And everyone was laughing. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to have this story be told to me at the time... but I was repulsed. Maybe that's the point. I may give this another shot at another time. I may not.
     
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  22. Chris from Chicago

    Chris from Chicago Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes

    I couldn't agree more. They want to ignore what happened and make a feel good movie about a coach winning football games and the effect he had on their lives. No... this is a different story that was told. And just because it isn't what they want to see doesn't make it uninformed.
     
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  23. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    This would have been a good season 2 of American Crime Story.
     
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  24. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I would have liked to have seen a deeper dive on how this sicko set up all his various traps, to contrast with the Paterno story. My gut always told me he used the Paterno name and his connections to open doors that should have been closed. Then show how Joe overlooked things and chose to ignore other items. Kind of contrast the two stories that unfolded at the same time. The focus on the endgame ignores the spider webs that this evil man set up over a long period of time to use people and institutions to help his abusive behavior.
     
    arley likes this.
  25. Brenald79

    Brenald79 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    The rioting was unbelievable.

    Good movie.
     
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