The Best of Times (film)

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The Best of Times
The Best of Times
Directed by	Roger Spottiswoode
Written by	Ron Shelton
Starring	Robin Williams Kurt Russell
Distributed by	Universal
Release date(s)	1986
Running time	104 min.
Language	English
Budget	N/A (estimated)
IMDb profile

The Best of Times is a movie released in United States in 1986.

[edit] Overview

Robin Williams plays Jack Dundee, a thirty-something banker obsessed with a pivotal experience of failure in his life: the moment he dropped a perfectly thrown football in an important high-school game. After this game, which took place in 1972, nothing seems to go right for Jack. The worst of it is that everyone continually reminds him that it was his clumsiness that lost the town Taft its one chance for glory by beating Bakersfield. Jack ends up marrying the daughter of Bakersfield High's biggest supporter, a bank owner. Jack works at his in-law's bank and has to hear his father-in-law gloat everyday about how Taft could never and will never beat Bakersfield, and put-downs of Jack's inability to catch a pass, especially the one pass that would have finally beat Bakersfield. Thirteen years later, Jack elicits the help of Reno (Kurt Russell), the former star quarterback and now a struggling owner of a garage, to help him replay the game. He convinces both towns to restage the game and in the process revitalizes the town of Taft and his and Reno's marriages. In the end, Taft defeats Bakersfield and Jack is redeemed by making the game winning catch.

Soundtrack - Much of the movie soundtrack consists of The Pomp and Circumstance Marches, a series of five Marches for orchestra composed by Edward Elgar.

In reality: This movie is based on an actual game between Bakersfield High and Taft High that occurred in 1976. Bakersfield is a perennial state football power with run down facilities but great athletes, and cross-county small oil town Taft, with the best athletic facilities in the county, is a small school struggling every year to compete with, let alone beat, Bakersfield. Much of the film is shot in and around Taft. Unfortunately the football scenes were not shot at Taft's wonderful football field or Bakersfield's historic Griffith Field. Instead is was shot at Pierce (Junior) College in the San Fernando Valley outside of Hollywood. This once bristling rivalry even featured the junior college football programs of Bakersfield College and Taft College play in front of 20,000 fans at Bakersfield's Memorial Stadium in the 1980's. Today, Taft High is a small school and plays in a small-schools league and division. Bakersfield High won its record 33rd section title in 2005.

A silent character who watches the game (and who seems to appreciate the rain strategically) reveals his name in the closing scene. Who is he?

[edit] Quotes from movie

Reno Hightower: Okay Jack, you tell the Caribou whatever you want, but I'm gonna tell you something. You're a low-life, black mailing, chicken-shit squid.
Jack Dundee: Low-life, black mailing, chicken-shit squid? Welcome aboard Reno.

Reno Hightower: She's gonna leave me as soon as I fix her car.
Jack Dundee: You gonna fix it?
Reno Hightower: Hell no! I love her.

Jack Dundee: Elly, I have a new move for you.
Elly Dundee: Oh? Show me.
[Spins while undressing, naming the move]
Elly Dundee: Sort of a white pimp, I love it.