Moneyball

When I heard that Moneyball was in production, I thought it would fail.  How do you take a book about statistical analysis and turn it into a narrative film?

Moneyball succeeds by changing focus from the book.  The book, as I said, is about statistical analysis and uses one team’s experiment with it to educate the reader.  The movie is about Billy Beane, the manager of said team, his journey, and how his grasp of the potential of statistical analysis changed his sport, his team, and his life.

Brad Pitt plays Beane as smart and savvy, yet insecure.  He’s a baseball guy, but he’s so totally a product of his lifelong immersion in the sport that he’s a baseball guy only.  When he spots an influential whiz kid (Jonah Hill) in an opposing manager’s office, he understands the value of a completely different perspective.  It’s a perspective so different that betting on it could cost him his career.  There’s your drama.  There’s your movie. 

Now, I like baseball.  I go to several games per year, I follow the Nationals in the Post, and believe that Marconi invented radio specifically to give the world the magic that is Vin Scully.  But you don’t have to like baseball to like this movie.  You have to like scrappy underdogs, you have to like things that don’t go boom, and you have to like Brad Pitt.  I like all three, and I like this picture.  I want to see it again as soon as I can.  

Two for the Weekend

THE SANDLOT is lazily written, horribly acted, altogether miserable, and a laugh riot if you happen to be a five-year-old boy. It's a story about some Boomer kid in the early '60s who moves to the San Fernando Valley and falls in, improbably enough, with a pack of Babe Ruth worshippers. It was like something a guy who grew up in New York would imagine growing up in California to be. This movie made my soul bleed.


MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, on the other hand, was surprisingly successful. As a reasonably cynical Washingtonian, I didn't expect to be taken in by Capra's paean to Americana; nevertheless, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I think the movie sold me in a scene in which Mr. Smith has a brief conversation with a senior senator's daughter. Instead of focusing on Smith, the camera focuses on his hat. It shifts from left hand to right, gets dropped again and again, and does more to tell me its owner's state of mind than would an extreme closeup. Some movies are great because people generally think they're great. Some are great because they really are. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, thankfully, is the latter.

Take Me Out to The Ball Game

Busby Berkeley's TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME, starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Esther Williams, is utterly, atrociously, horribly bad.

Kelly, Sinatra, Williams, and the supporting cast don't act - they merely mark time between uninspired musical numbers. The story, your basic love triangle, isn't interesting because there's no real sense that any of these people even like one another. The comedy falls flat, Kelly's dancing is tied down by his costars, and not even the pool number can do much more than put a check in a box.

Here's the setup: Kelly and Sinatra are, basically, Ruth and Gherig, a couple of ballplayers on the vaudeville circuit between seasons. Gher-, er, Sinatra is all smiles and enthusiasm, while Kelly's all about the money and has fallen out of love with baseball. When these guys finally show up to spring training, there's bad news: the team's owner has died, leaving it to his stripper wife, who ... oh, wait, that's from a better movie. This movie's bad news is that the owner had died and left the team to his niece, a woman who, dontcha know it, has a talent for and knowledge of baseball. You can fill in the rest of the dots from here, but why bother? It's the middle of summer - why not just go to a ball game, instead?

The Natural

THE NATURAL is so archetypal that it borders on parody.

The story itself is rather simple: gifted but older man makes good in the world of professional sports, overcoming temptation and injury to step up to the plate for the crucial at-bat in the crucial moment of the crucial game. The magic is in the execution: Which bat does he swing on his way to the top? One he fashioned by hand from the wood of a tree struck by lightning. Who personifies temptation? Kim Basinger as the Call of the Big City. Who personifies redemption? Glenn Close as The Goodness of Rural America.

There's this scene toward the end, in which star Robert Redford tells manager Wilford Brimley that he'll play in the big game regardless of the risk to his health, that encapsulates everything the movie's about. As Redford pokes his head in Brimley's door to deliver the news that he'll play (and, by so doing, save the team, escape the temptations of the flesh and the pocketbook, and generally redeem America), he's backlit with a key light so intense that his blond hair forms a no-kidding halo. This is a movie that knows exactly what it is and exactly what it's about, and it's a movie that's gloriously, ridiculously shameless in the pursuit of those objectives.

This leaves the viewer with two options. One can either laugh with it or laugh at it. I chose to laugh with it, allowing it to take me on its magic carpet ride through the mythic landscape of an impossible America.

And I had a wholesome good time.

Fever Pitch

There's a scene early in FEVER PITCH in which Drew Barrymore tells the shaggy-haired guy (SHG) that someone in her office is going to get promoted (Plot Point!!). SHG does a bit in which he cracks wise about backstabbing while making whiny squeaking noises and pantomiming the stabbing motion. It's supposed to be cute, and it's supposed to endear us to his character. DB & I both reacted with, "What a loser."

FEVER PITCH is a reasonably cute romantic comedy that doesn't hold a candle to earlier Farrely Brothers efforts such as SOMETHING ABOUT MARY and STUCK ON YOU. It's drawn from a Nick Hornby novel that doesn't translate as well as ABOUT A BOY or HIGH FIDELITY and, if I had to put my finger on why, I have to say that it's the shaggy-haired guy's fault. Like Bruckner letting a ground ball slip by him, SHG is simply unable to make the plays when they matter. Poor Barrymore's acting her heart out against this guy, but he just can't pull off "endearing man-child." If ever there was a movie that demanded the presence of Adam Sandler, this is it.

The Kid from Left Field

1953's THE KID FROM LEFT FIELD is a sweet picture with a tough heart, a family drama that actually has something for everyone in the family, and an opportunity to see some familiar faces in a forgotten picture.

THE KID FROM LEFT FIELD plays out the old boyhood dream: a boy gets to put on a Major League uniform and play with the men. Unlike ROOKIE OF THE YEAR or ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, however, this kid doesn't realize the dream through medical oddity or divine intervention. He realizes it because he has brains, moxie, and a father who loves him. See, here's the deal: the Bisons suck. They can't hit, they can't field, and they're poorly managed, unlike the more interesting sandlot team that plays across the street. Said team, managed by young Christie Cooper (Billie Chapin), plays like a team and has the benefit of a tough but fair manager who knows what he's doing. Said manager's father, who's a peanut vendor in the big leage park across the way, once played ball himself and knows the game better than anyone in the Bisons organization. Only he's washed up, see, and nobody's going to follow the peanut vendor.

Through luck and a cross-generational meet-cute with 23-yr-old Anne Bancroft, Christie gets a chance to meet the Bisons' owner. Here's where the brains and moxie part comes in, as he talks his way into a job as the team's bat boy. Before you know it, Christie is receiving his father's baseball wisdom, mixing it with his own, and supplanting the team's worthless manager. Along the way, he tries to resurrect the lagging careers of Lloyd Bridges and newcomer Fess Parker (with mixed results), tries to cupid for Bancroft and Bridges (with mixed results), and turn his team around. It's a dream come true!

It's not all pennants and cheers, however. The father, "Pop" Cooper (Dan Dailey) has serious confidence issues, and maybe even a mild drinking problem. There's a real sense of desperation to the guy, like he's just this far from poverty and he's doing everything he can to keep his son and himself afloat. Bridges knows his legs are going and his time is running out, and he has some hard decisions to make. The kid, well, he's just a kid. How long can he actually hold up under the pressure of managing a Major League ballclub? I was particularly impressed by this aspect of the movie. When these storylines resolve themselves, those resolutions feel earned. I felt like I hadn't just watched these people go through the motions of an entertaining family picture - I felt like I'd been on a journey with them.

Regarding the performances, Bancroft and Bridges are utterly charming (and incredibly snappy dressers, to boot), Parker turns in some fine comic relief by playing it close, and Cooper and Dailey convincingly play a father and son who, rain or shine, are committed to making a go of things.

This may well be the best movie I hadn't heard of in quite some time.

Rookie of the Year

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR is the kind of innocuous kids' movie that dreams small dreams: it only wants to entertain young baseball fans without inflicting too much pain on their parents.

It succeeds, I suppose. It entertained my young baseball fan and didn't inflict too much pain on me, but that doesn't make it a good movie. Its star, a kid (at the time) named Thomas Ian Griffith, knows two expressions: happy and dumfounded and sad and dumbfounded. Its action is ridiculous, it story paper-thin, and its adult-themed jokes too risque.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR isn't a failure because it sets its sights so low. If you don't have a young baseball fan in the house, however, don't bother.

For Love of the Game

Everyone hated 'For Love of the Game.' When it came out, I don't think I heard a single word of praise for the feature, so I gave it a wide berth. When a friend pressed it into my hands with a "you have to see this," I felt no particular urgency to do so.

When I finally gave it a spin, I was pleasantly surprised.

'For Love of the Game' follows Detroit Tigers star pitcher Billy Chapel, a guy looking at the end of a 19-year career on the eve of what could be his last start as a major-league pitcher. As the game wears on, Chapel (ably played by Kevin Costner) reflects on his life and his on-again-off-again relationship with Jane Aubry (Kelly Preston). Will Chapel win the game? Will he get the girl? Is Kevin Costner a movie star?

'For Love of the Game' is most effective when it's in the stadium. The picture puts us in Chapel's headspace, helping us think as he thinks and giving us a feel for what it's like to be a major league pitcher. I've always been a sucker for sports movies, and baseball is particularly well-suited to the genre. The picture falters, however, when it focuses on Chapel & Aubry's relationship: maybe it was the press of my DVD or maybe it was the movie itself, but the ADR was off ever so slightly during many of their scenes together. The effect was jarring enough to pull me completely out of the movie, and I had a hard time investing in their relationship as a result.

Nevertheless, I rate 'For Love of the Game" as a pleasant surprise.

Now, buy me some peanute & Cracker Jacks.

Angels in the Outfield (1994)

Look, ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD is a trifling kids’ entertainment. The question is, is it a competent trifling kids’ entertainment?

It’s a simple setup: pathetic child prays that woeful team will win a few games. God hears prayer, dispatches angels to fix games. Team needs newfound confidence to win Big Game on its own. Oh, there are some family issues and character arcs along the way, but they basically serve to add some emotional weight to a series of gags whose effectiveness is directly proportional to the number of six-year-olds with whom you’re watching the picture.

While I enjoyed spotting the future movie stars among the team’s lineup of misfits, my six-year old laughed at every gag, cheered at every victory, and generally bought the whole thing. From a trifling kids’ entertainment, what more can you ask for?