Brian's Song (2001)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

People are voting emotionally.

A different way of telling a story

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I just discovered this film on Netflix instant viewing and decided to give it a shot. I was introduced to the original film in high school when our gym teacher showed it in class, and I'm eternally grateful for that... the original version of Brian's Song is an amazing film and you should check it out if you get the opportunity. (It happens to be on instant viewing at the moment as well.) At first I didn't think I was going to like the film since it seemed so different from the original; it was hard to get used to the new actors as Pic and Sayers since I had James Caan and Billy D. Williams in my head as owning those roles for so long. I'm glad that I gave the movie a chance, though, because by the end I was absolutely loving it.There are a number of differences between this movie and the original, though I don't think that the remake suffers for them. The tone of this film is much more serious and toward the end is much more focused on Pic's illness, but I think that this serious tone helps to show that even someone who jokes around and takes life as lightly as Pic can be overwhelmed. It helps to add humanity to the film which it would have otherwise lacked, and the actors all do a wonderful job of bringing the characters and their pains to life.Some reviewers and commenters have said that this remake shouldn't have been made and that ABC should have just shown the original again to introduce it to younger audiences but I disagree. All too often, older movies just don't hold up well in the eyes of a younger generation. I know when I was young I'd much rather watch a new movie than some old film that came out when my parents were young; I think that this remake did a good job of honoring the 30th anniversary of the original while introducing the story to young people who might not have known about it otherwise. Once they've seen this film it might be easier to introduce them to the original as well.I scored this remake 8 out of 10 because I liked it but not as much as the original movie. The original would be a straight 10.

I've seen both versions and the original is vastly superior. A lot of it is in the details which can never be recaptured. First of all, the original used many actual players, coaches, and team personnel from the Bears. Secondly, they filmed the training camp sequences on location at Rensselaer, IN's St. Joseph's College where the Bears used to train. The office that George Halas uses is the actual office the real George Halas used on campus! They used archival game film - none of this fake announcer stuff and re-enactments. I've heard some give credit to the new version for focusing more on the cancer element of the story. The heart of the story is not the cancer but the friendship between Piccolo and Sayers - a white rural man and a black man fighting for the same job in the 1960's. Some complain about the "racism" in the original version but to ignore that would be to ignore slavery in the Civil War - it's the racial element that made their friendship and their story so transcendental. Let me remind you that a racial comment is not necessarily a racist comment. There's a powerful scene in the original in which Gale Sayers is brought to tears from the laughter when Piccolo tries to call him a "n****r". They both realize the foolishness of the gesture and at that moment, their friendship takes an important step. We can't do that today, because someone might get offended. But if you're really honest with yourself, you can see where a word of such unspeakable hatred actually got turned on its ear and two men saw each other not for the color of their skin but for the content of their character. The new version didn't accomplish anything new - it just changed the movie to a story about cancer. The original is so much more than a football movie as it speaks to some very sensitive racial issues that Americans were grappling with in the 1960s - much of which was still living in defacto segregation.If you read Gale Sayers' book, I Am Third, which is the inspiration for this movie then you'll agree that the original version got it right.

There was absolutely no reason for Disney to remake this movie. They should just re-air the original every year. I am sure the actors in the latter version were good, but the '71 version is classic.It's unfortunate that Disney did not want to air a film that had some racial overtones, but guess what?? There was a lot of that in the '60s. Brian's Song will always be James Caan and Billy D.I wish filmmakers would stop re-making classics and just stay with the originals.People should know that this is not a sports movie. It is a movie with sports as a backdrop.

Maher and Phifer do a terrific job of bringing Piccolo and Sayers to life. Brain's Song was in a way the grandaddy of them all, one of the first made for television movies; and in the eyes of many one of the best. I think it would take a person utterly without feelings not to be moved by the original and this one (surprise, surprise) is just as good. I thought it would be a word by word remake (like that ridiculous Psycho movie in 1998) but this one is different. I guess to be politically correct, it shows more of the relationship between the players wives as well. What makes it a little chilling is the makeup job on Maher as he is becoming sicker and sicker, they pointed out that you couldn't show death on tv that way in 1971. I think that they should have used the exact same music as in the original, it was just too perfect and it would not have mattered (didn't they use the same music in all of the Rocky films?). I hope that we see more of these two young actors as both did a terrific job and I hope they remember them at Emmy time. An added treat, that old raascal Ben Gazzara is on hand as grouchy Coach Halas and he does a wonderful job of theatrical larceny. A story of courage found and the power of friendship, but ultimately a tragedy. A an added footnote, today medical science has made great advances in treating the kind of cancer that killed Brian Piccolo.