tavm Review of Everybody's All-American

Everybody's All-American (1988)

After 25 years, I finally got to see Everybody's All-American which was shot in my current hometown

[8/10 · 16 January 2014]

After about 25 years of reading about this movie shot in my long-time hometown of Baton Rouge, I finally watched Everybody's All-American with my mom on Netflix disc. From the parade at the State Capitol to shots at Airline Highway near the end, I recognized many of the landmarks that were depicted in the film. Oh, and the shots at LSU Tiger Stadium (otherwise known as Death Valley) were glorious! It follows Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange as football hero and homecoming queen as they go through the trails and tribulations of falling in love, getting married, making a family, and the ups-and-downs-of career and marriage. There's also nice supporting turns by John Goodman-as a fellow player who has some personal problems, Timothy Hutton-as Quaid's cousin who becomes a writer, and Carl Lumbly-another former football star who thrives when the civil rights era passes. If there's some disappointment concerning the narrative, it's near the end when there seems to be some scenes missing which was confirmed when I looked at the deleted scenes section of the DVD and found a whole sequence concerning Quaid's affair with another woman in it. With that, it might have been a much better movie. Still, I enjoyed what I saw and was glad to watch this. So on that note, I recommend Everybody's All-American. P.S. I recognized singer (and New Orleans native) Aaron Neville as the man with a track pistol in the Spanish Town sequence and Patricia Clarkson (fellow N.O. native) as Hutton's fiancée. I also loved seeing Mike the Tiger when he was shown!