Two true-life sports movies opening on the same weekend! Oh yeah, it was bound to happen but we’re taking a big detour (hmm), maybe even a U-turn (okay, enough already) from the video game F1 flick. For one thing. this one is set squarely in the past, before Pong was a staple, way back in the splashy 1970s, after a brief stop in the sensational ’60s. Oh, and this concerns the American pastime (as in hot dogs and apple pie), in the tradition of THE NATURAL and THE ROOKIE (with which it shares a star). Now the title doesn’t refer to the pitcher’s mound, but rather to the obstacles its focus must face (perhaps closer to a steep mountain). And since it’s also the last name of the family in this faith-based drama it’s simply THE HILL.
After the briefest of prologues in which a seemingly angry teen jumps in his beat-up 70s auto and cranks up a power ballad, we’re whisked away about ten years ago as he spends a lazy day outside his father’s country church. Little Rickey Hill (Jesse Beery) smacks pebbles over the treetops using a stick as a makeshift bat. That’s because his pop, Pastor James Hill (Dennis Quaid) doesn’t believe in encouraging this “sport” by buying proper equipment. And he can’t afford it, as the family barely scrapes by (Sunday dinner is a pan of cornbread). Oh, plus Rickey can’t run the bases with any speed as he’s still wearing a pair of leg braces due to a degenerative spinal condition. Things get worse when the preacher is booted out by his surly congregation (he called them out for “chewin'” and smoking during his sermons). So, he’s got to pack up his three kids, his wife, and her mother-in-law, the no-nonsense Gram (Bonnie Bedelia), and hit the road. Through a bit of chance, they learn of a nearby Texas town in need of a pastor. But there, Rickey’s love of baseball is stoked by the grade school team, Thus begins a new battle of wills between father and son, until Rickey learns he can shed the braces. Flash forward several years as teen Rickey (Colin Ford) is a homer-smackin’ high school phenom. But an injury benches Rickey and gives more fuel to his father’s hopes that he’ll follow him to the pulpit. Somehow the town rallies to fund the needed surgery. But can Rickey heal in time to impress a major league scout, Red Murff (Scott Glenn) at an upcoming audition? And will Papa Hill ever embrace his son’s athletic aspirations?
Though he’s not “on the field”, the film’s “heavy hitter” is Quaid (a “rookie” no more) who easily dominates every scene as the stern, but often sympathetic man of God. He’s able to channel a bit of that old “Jerry Lee” charisma (can that FIRE flick really be 34 years old) when Pastor Hill is delivering “the word” and can be quite intimidating as the strict head of the household. But Quaid shows us that hint of uncertainty as his faith is tested time and again. And he’s got a very strong spiritual sparring partner in Bedelia as the feisty, sassy Gram who won’t be “bulldozed” by his ways. Ford is a likable and sweet-natured sports hero as the slugger aware of his gifts but thwarted by his physical “restraints”. Ditto for Berry as the pre-teen version, as he aches for a chance to take on a bully who taunts him with the moniker “Robo-boy”. Glenn is stern and savvy as the baseball “wizard” who needs to test Rickey’s stamina and skills.
Director Jeff Celentano strives to bring a new spin on the familiar story of the athlete hero fighting a debilitating illness (BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY amongst many others), while addressing conflicting religious beliefs (Papa Hill believes baseball cards encourage the worship of false idols). The father is the main obstacle (after Rickey’s health) and he often seems a tad obstinate but he’s never cruel and is capable of change. And though I must praise the producers for giving the press access (most faith-based films aren’t screened for us), I had problems with the odd script choices. I attended services through the 70s and never encountered the chain-smoking congregations shown here (even at Hill’s new church), so it feels contrived. More than that, the huge leap in time, probably a decade) as Rickey goes from grade-schooler to high school senior seems like two separate stories barely stitched together. What changed in those “shadow years”? Plus the “rekindled romance” feels a tad “tossed in”, more to give Rickey a “sounding board”. And the mix of movie pros with more inexperienced actors can be distracting. These quibbles just can’t push my interest in this “true tale” over THE HILL. Maybe a solid double or so…
Yogi Berra smiling. Photo credit: Getty. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
It doesn’t get any more delightful than the surprising, warm documentary about beloved baseball legend Yogi Berra, IT AIN’T OVER. Surprising? Yes, as this well-made bio documentary looks back at Yogi’s outstanding baseball career as player, something overshadowed and even forgotten by fans, as he became best known as a lovable pop culture icon and for his “Yogi-isms,” quotable phrases like “it’s deja vu all over again,” “when you come to a fork in the road, take it” and “it ain’t over until it’s over.” Yet Yogi Berra was a baseball player whose record put him among the greats of the game, As actor and baseball fan Billy Crystal put it, Yogi was “the most overlooked superstar in the history of baseball.”
The numbers are impressive, jaw-dropping even, considering what we might think we know about Yogi Berra. With 10 World Series rings (still a record today for a player), three MVP awards in the American League, 18 All-Star Game appearances, Yogi Berra was a Hall of Fame catcher who caught the only – still the only – perfect game in a World Series in 1956. He was a powerhouse slugger who could turn balls that were not even over the plate into home runs.
IT AIN’T OVER starts with Berra’s baseball-playing childhood and his career as a big leaguer. There are plenty of thrilling moments with other baseball greats, including Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio, as well as how Berra was treated by the press who had trouble giving credit to a player who did not look like the tall, blonde baseball ideal. The stats are impressive. In 1950, Berra had 597 at-bats, hit .322 with 124 RBI and 28 home runs and struck out only 12 times. A factoid from the record books, and the film’s notes, in 1950 “Berra hit 2.33 home runs for every strikeout. He drove in 10.33 runs for every strikeout. When Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, he hit 0.67 home runs for every strikeout and batted in 1.85 runs for every strikeout…In MLB history, there are only two players with more than 350 home runs and fewer than 500 strikeouts: Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra.” As a catcher, Berra still hold the record for most RBI for players primarily at that position, and he caught a record 184 shutouts in his career, followed by Cardinals great Yadier Molina at 175. And there are more records and firsts in this should-be-storied career.
How could this be? Yogi’s baseball career should have made him a legend. Instead, we tend to remember him as a clownish figure, a lovable fellow with a knack for managing the English language. Somehow, Yogi Berra’s impressive baseball career got overshadowed, as he became a manager, then an advertising pitchman, even a cartoon character, and a beloved pop culture figure known for his memorable if puzzling sayings. IT AIN’T OVER goes a ways towards setting the record straight, while providing audiences an entertaining cinema experience.
This excellent, entertaining, even heartwarming documentary goes a long ways to giving us a fuller picture of the man and the athlete, with interviews from former Yankee greats Derek Jeter, Joe Torre, Mariano Rivera, Willie Randolph, Don Mattingly, Tony Kubek and Ron Guidry. along with interviews with Whitey Herzog, Bob Costas, Vin Scully, Billy Crystal and Yogi’s childhood neighbor and friend Joe Garagiola. There is plenty of archival footage, on and off the baseball diamond, and lots of family stills, along with interviews with his granddaughter (and producer) Lindsay Berra, and his sons Tim, Larry and Dale. The documentary covers Berra’s career as a player, his personal life with his wife Carmen, his career as a coach and later an ad pitchman and of course those famous “Yogi-isms,” not all of which he actually said. Even that famous “It ain’t over until it’s over” actually started as “It ain’t over until it’s mathematical” which makes more sense but is less memorable. Real Yogi-isms have a strange kind of logic that the fakes don’t.
The documentary gives us a glimpse into the real Yogi. A kid from an Italian immigrant family, Yogi grew up in the working class Italian neighborhood in St. Louis known as the Hill. Yogi was born Lawrence Peter Berra (the Americanized version of the Italian name his parents gave him). As a kid, he loved playing baseball, as did his older brothers, and earned the nickname “yogi” for his tendency to sit cross-legged on the ground while waiting for his turn to bat. Across the street in his old neighbor was his pal Joe Garagiola, the second best baseball player on the street. A die-hard Cardinals fan, Yogi hoped to play for the home team but while Joe became a Cardinal, Yogi ended up with the New York Yankees. Yogi met and fell in love with his wife Carmen when she was working as a waitress at the legendary Hill restaurant Biggies. The documentary tells in better, with plenty of colorful baseball details but it doesn’t get any more classically St. Louis than that.
The story of Yogi Berra is so fascinating because he is a figure people think they know but in fact are missing whole aspects of his real life, of the man himself and his amazing accomplishments. There is great fun, and plenty of “wows” as this doc peels back the layers on this accomplished but modest man, a big personality who made others feel welcome and included, as he did for Jackie Robinson. While Jackie faced discrimination and racism from some other players, Yogi reached out to make Jackie feel welcome and part of the gang.
Lots of these tales are told by the people who were there or the people who knew Yogi personally, giving this documentary both warmth and the ring of truth. Funny stories abound but so do those that are touching, including of slights, towards a kindhearted, down-to-earth man who was smarter that people assumed. Yogi did not look like the era’s ideal of tall, blonde, handsome baseball player. At a mere 5-foot-7 and rather squat, with an odd face with a gap-tooth smile and wingy ears, the press compared him to a gnome and worse. But he was kind of cute, good-natured, and fun-loving, but most of all, a giant on the playing field.
There is hardly a dull moment in this thoroughly delightful film, with astounding revelations, interesting inside baseball facts, heartwarming and even heart-tugging stories, and an unparalleled human warmth, as you gain a deeper understanding of a man you thought you knew. You will leave realizing that Yogi Berra was one of baseball’s all-time greatest players, despite pop culture’s resistance to letting him be who he really was, and not just a funny character it has presented him as.
You can’t spend a more enjoyable and informative 98 minutes, if you are any kind baseball fan at all, than watching this delightful film about the wonderful little baseball giant Yogi Berra. IT AIN’T OVER delivers the goods – just as Yogi did, on the field, and off.
Most fans of film (especially comedies) may recall this quick three or four-second gag (really, this flick is jam-packed with them) from that iconic 1980 comic smash AIRPLANE. The stewardess is walking up the center aisle, clutching a load of magazines. Spotting a white-haired grandmotherly-type she asks, “Would you care for something to read?” “Do you have anything light?” “How about ‘Famous Jewish Sports Legends’?”. Then Julie Haggerty hands the elderly passenger a very thin (maybe a folded page) leaflet. Got a pretty good chuckle back then (it’s not the “surely Shirley” bit, but…). Well, the subject of this new documentary feature is worthy of a thick book (and he has). It’s a life full of drama and danger, about a man of such varied interests, he could be the hero of a thriller. And he was, in last year’s THE CATCHER WAS A SPY, played by Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd, no less. So many historical figures and celebrities crossed path with this man, you’d think he might have inspired ZELIG. But no, major league baseball player Mo Berg was very real. And unbeknownst to most of his teammates, and family, he was THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE.
Berg’s life is an amazing story, enough for a series of films or a long TV mini-series. He was born to Ukranian Jewish immigrants in 1902. He had a knack for sports (which pharmacist poppa Bernard discouraged) and played baseball at gentile schools under the name “Runty” Wolfe (sounds like the hero of a sports comic strip). Moe studied law, much to his father’s delight, at Princeton, and was one of their baseball team’s standouts (he’d say he was a great “glove-man”, but not much of a hitter). He was recruited by the Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers), and begin a pro career that took him to the Chicago White Sox (where he had to choose between law and baseball), the Washington Senators, and the Boston Red Sox. In school, Moe learned a dozen languages, which came in handy when he was part of a baseball goodwill tour in Japan (the sport was getting very popular there). But he was the only member of the group to get a letter from the state department awarding him “diplomatic courtesy”. This aided him when he shot “undercover” 16 mm footage of Tokyo from the top of St. Luke’s Hospital (this was in 1934 as Japan was building up their military). In between trips and cruises around the globe, Moe was a frequent contestant on the radio quiz show “Information Please”, sort of a Jeopardy precursor. Later, when the US entered WWII, Moe was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS later the CIA), along with many civilians and some celebrities, to be an undercover operative in Europe. As the war neared its end, Moe followed the European scientific community to find out just how much progress Germany was making towards nuclear weapons. His “double life’ was more thrilling than a doubleheader.
How’s that old expression go? If somebody thought this up it would be dismissed as ridiculous or far-fetched. Yes, truth is stranger and perhaps more improbable than fiction, at least when it relates to Mr. Berg. Director/screenwriter Aviva Kempner keeps his “cradle to grave” story rolling at a brisk speed (perhaps faster than Berg’s slow trot to first base, according to sportswriters of the day), making ample use of family photos, archival footage (those bustling streets filled to the brim with vendors just outside those towering tenements), interviews (especially Moe’s older brother Sam), new interviews with baseball players, managers, and historians, and period pop music (lots of big band standards). They reveal many surprises. Father Bernard never saw Moe play baseball (Sam shows us how his pop with spit in disgust at the mere mention of the sport), while Mama Rose would scoop up neighbors to join her at the ballpark. Plus there’s film and new stories about Moe’s more famous acquaintances. He’s on the Japan tour with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth (seems that Moe was quite taken with Ruth’s 18-year-old daughter, unlike the “sexually fluid” Berg of the Paul Rudd movie). We get to hear Moe dazzle radio audiences with his knowledge (a “book smart jock”). As war approaches, Kempner tells us of the influence of British intelligence on the OSS, mainly via several meetings with Ian Fleming (yes, of 007 fame). On his advice, the OSS goes after citizens like Berg and Marlene Dietrich (she cut records that had anti-Nazi messages). To help illustrate the US spy efforts, clips from then-current Hollywood films are intercut (there’s Alan Ladd and Gary Cooper). The only time the doc stumbles is the detour into the race for nuclear power. Retellings of the Manhatten Project and Werner Heisenberg (hey “Breaking Bad” fans) take several precious minutes away from the journey of Berg. Luckily the film gets “back on track” as it tells of that scientist’s near assassination by Berg (see the Rudd flick for more focus on that). This is another astounding tale of the “greatest generation”, one with more detours and twists than any five Hollywood true spy thrillers. History really comes alive in THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE. It doesn’t hit one out of the park, but it’s a solid triple, and so it gets….
3 Out of 4 Stars
THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE opens everywhere and screens exclusively in St. Louis at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas
Sienna Miller as Estella Huni, and Paul Rudd as Moe Berg, in Ben Lewin’s THE CATCHER WAS A SPY. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is a strange slice of history, about a real-life Jewish Major League baseball catcher with a degree from Princeton and a knack for languages who turned spy during World War II. As catcher Moe Berg, Paul Rudd heads an impressive cast in a historical film with polished good looks and a score by Howard Shore. The film assembled all the right elements for a prestige biopic but does not quite score a hit.
THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is available on-demand from IFC starting Friday, June 22, and in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
Part biopic and part WWII spy thriller, THE CATCHER WAS A SPY focuses on a particular part of Moe Berg’s life. Director Ben Lewin (THE SESSIONS) based his film on Nicholas Dawidoff’s biography of Morris “Moe” Berg, a remarkable individual better known as “the brainiest guy in baseball” than for his skill as a catcher. Berg was a Princeton graduate who also attended the Sorbonne and Columbia Law School, who spoke several languages and read several newspapers a day. He was a brilliant but secretive man who was a mystery to those around him. Unfortunately, director Lewin gives us the facts of his unique story but little insight into this curious character.
Paul Rudd brings leading man good looks and his irresistible appeal to his portrayal of Moe Berg, who the film introduces in the waning days of his long but undistinguished baseball career. Rudd plays Berg as a likable fellow but a bundle of contradictions and questions, with a hint of darkness underneath. Berg hardly embraces his Jewish identity but is quiet about it nonetheless, which is understandable in that anti-Semitic era. But Berg is secretive about his personal life as well. He was not married but has a girlfriend Estella (Sienna Miller) who he keeps hidden despite rumors about him being gay in this homophobic era. As his baseball career winds down and WWII ramps up, Berg is eager to use his language skills to help the war effort and actively campaigns to join the military intelligence division.
He makes a connection with Bill Donovan (Jeff Daniels), the head of the OSS, the intelligence service that will become the CIA. However, the active, energetic Berg is frustrated behind a desk. Eventually Donovan finds a use for the brainy ball player. Berg becomes part of plan to find out how far along the Nazis are in their quest to build an atomic bomb, and possibly to assassinate the German scientist leading their effort, Dr. Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong).
Actually, this story focuses on two historical figures who left unanswered questions. The other one is Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize winning German theoretical physicist, developer of quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Despite his private disapproval of the Nazis, Heisenberg remained in his native country out of a sense of patriotism when they take over. When war comes, the Nazis put him in charge of their effort to build an atomic bomb but historians have debated for years whether Heisenberg was really trying to build a bomb or delaying the Nazis while pursing his own research.
This is truly a star-studded film and throughout we encounter name actors, sometimes in surprisingly small roles. Guy Pearce plays a Army officer assigned to get Berg and physicist Sam Goudsmit (Paul Giamatti) through enemy lines to rescue an Italian physicist (Italian legend Giancarlo Giannini) from the retreating Nazis, hoping for information on their atomic bomb research. Tom Wilkinson plays another physicist, Dr. Scherrer, a Swiss-based friend of Heisenberg, that becomes part of the mission. Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (TWILIGHT SAMURAI, LOST) appears in a small part, as a Japanese official Berg meets on trip to Japan shortly before Pearl Harbor, for a demonstration baseball game played by a team that includes Babe Ruth (Jordan Long) and Lou Gehrig (James McVan) as well as Berg.
How could a film about such remarkable characters and events be dull? Yet director Lewin fails to find the spark in this story. We never get inside Berg’s head and he remains opaque. One can’t blame Rudd, who makes valiant efforts to draw the character out. It is hard to know what went wrong but Lewin fails to find a way into the heart of the story and takes a decidedly serious, just-the-facts approach to Berg’s life, hardly even allowing a sly, ironic smile despite all the absurdities in Berg’s mysterious, contradictory life.
One can’t help but feel like THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is a missed chance for a much better movie. It is a strike-out that failed to swing for the fences despite all the right elements.
At one time or another, we’ve all felt we’ve had the worst parents in the world. We have our reasons, but watch THE HARVEST (2013) and you’ll quickly reevaluate your thinking. The question arises… what is a child’s life worth and how far will you go to save that life when certain death rears its unfriendly head?
THE HARVEST tells the story of a seriously ill boy named Andrew, bed-ridden and bored out of his mind. He’s not allowed to leave the house, play baseball, have friends or go to school, and is barely allowed to leave his room. Andrew, played by Charlie Tahan, is weak and can barely stand on his own, but he still has desires just like any boy his age. These desire have been successfully subdued by his over-protective, borderline psychotic mother Katherine, played by Samantha Morton. Then a misunderstood, rebellious girl his age named Maryann moves into her grandparents’ house nearby and changes everything.
Maryann, played by Natasha Calis, doesn’t waste any time exploring and looking for some way to entertain herself in this secluded area, tucked away in the woods. This is how she happens upon Andrew’s house where the two quickly develop an awkward but empathetic friendship of kindred spirits. For the first time, Andrew actually appears to be experiencing some level of happiness, that is of course, until Katherine discovers the existence of Maryann, which had prior been kept a secret.
THE HARVEST is set almost entirely inside or in the immediate vicinity of Andrew’s home. What Andrew’s house may lack in physical size, it more than compensates with the size and severity of its secrets. With Andrew basically confined to his bed in his room, the house is essentially a prison. Katherine, a medical doctor by profession, is obsessed with curing her son’s ailment at any and all costs, which serves as her prison. Andrew’s father Richard, played by Michael Shannon, is also a prisoner, but his confinement is his hopelessly lost marriage to his mentally unstable wife Katherine.
Written by first-timer Stephen Lancellotti, THE HARVEST is a passionate film steeped in fear, guilt and lies kept by every major player in the film. The emotional scale of the film tilts heavily toward the darker, unsavory elements of humanity. Despite this, Lancellotti’s strong, well-written characters hold the otherwise excessively depraved nature of the story together, keeping Andrew’s world from crumbling around him until the very end. This is most clearly illustrated in Michael Shannon’s surprisingly subdued performance as Richard, a man so beaten-down by his wife’s insistence on being a controlling emotional mess, that he can often barely speak or move in her presence.
Richard is not a coward, but he is weak. Having left his career to stay home and take care of Andrew while Katherine works, he has but a single purpose that drains his very essence, and yet Katherine will not even allow him to fully embrace this role. Other weaknesses of Richard’s emerge in the film, but they all tie back into his desire to do right by his son, however he must. Sadly, that often means protecting and supporting Andrew against his mother’s abrasive, even violent behavior spawned from a truly demented sense of ensuring her’s son’s well-being.
Samantha Morton delivers a performance so absolutely frightening that the concept alone of their being a real life Katherine out in the world somewhere alone sends chills down my spine. On the most primal, stripped down level, her heart is in the right place, but the manner and methods by which she pursues saving her son’s life are so utterly deplorable that virtually every moment she is on screen is cringe-worthy. Consider Kathy Bates’ performance as Annie Wilkes in MISERY (1990) and then notch that sucker up to 11 on the bone-tingling terror scale.
Andrew’s helplessness is made convincing by Charlie Tahan’s performance, not just in the physically demanding nature of the role requiring him to appear weak and broken, but in his emotional state and virtually non-existent level of energy. In pulling this off, Tahan only increases the next-level insanity that emerges from Morton’s performance. Meanwhile, Natasha Calis is perhaps the most normal and well-rounded character in the film, despite her own demons, which are relatively minor in comparison to Andrew’s. Finally, for good measure, McNaughton throws a familiar seasoned favorite in the mix with Peter Fonda playing Maryann’s grandfather. While his role is rather small, he does provide a crucial line of dialogue in the film that, for Maryann, serves as the equivalent of Uncle Ben telling Peter Parker “with great power comes great responsibility.”
John McNaughton is a filmmaker of notable cult status, but many of you reading this are scratching your heads, I am sure. Having made his mark early in his career, McNaughton is best known to true horror movie aficionados for HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986), his debut film that also introduced Michael Rooker to movie audiences, who is now something of a household name amongst The Walking Dead fans.
Well-known for the gritty, faux-documentary style of his feature film debut about what makes a killer, McNaughton takes a sizable step away from that visual style. The film still has a hint of that voyeuristic element, but its subtle and will go mostly unnoticed. I realize how strange this will sound, but THE HARVEST actually conveys more of a prime time Hallmark family movie night vibe to its visual style, with its contemporary, shot-on-digital video looking, real life drama sort of stuff, that actually adds to the creepiness of what takes place.
McNaughton is no stranger to delving into projects that develop as much controversy as they do cult following, such as MAD DOG AND GLORY (1993) and WILD THINGS (1998). I feel this will not be an exception to that rule and I am certainly grateful for McNaughton sticking to his guns. I will end with this… if you are not even a little bit afraid of Samantha Morton after seeing this film, please do me a favor and never introduce me to your mother.
THE HARVEST opened in New York on April 10 and is available on VOD now.
The film opens in Los Angeles this Friday, April 24th at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood.
Recently MLB rounded up a group of players to recite, word for word, James Earl Jones’ famous “people will come, Ray” speech from FIELD OF DREAMS.
WAMG declares America’s national pastime, Baseball, to be the official sport of movie fans everywhere. As Brad Pitt said in MONEYBALL, “How can you not be romantic about Baseball?”
It all started Sunday night with the Cardinals at the Cubs with St. Louis winning 3 to 0.
To celebrate the first pitch of Opening Week, here’s our list of the best Baseball movies.
THE ROOKIE
One of the best baseball biopics to come along over the years, THE ROOKIE, starring Dennis Quaid, tells the true story of Jim Morris, a man who finally gets a shot at his lifelong dream-pitching in the big leagues. A high school science teacher/baseball coach, Morris’ players make a bet with him:if they win district, he tries out for the majors. This family feel-good movie has heart and a great cast, including Rachel Griffiths and a young Angus T. Jones of Two and Half Men fame.
42
BRANCH RICKEY I want a player who’s got the guts not to fight back… Your enemy will be out in force, and you cannot meet him on his own low ground…
JACKIE ROBINSON You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, and I’ll give you the guts.
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson emerged from the tunnel at Ebbets Field in a Brooklyn Dodgers’ uniform bearing the number 42. In that instant, he broke Major League Baseball’s infamous color line. Simply put, that is the extent of what most people know about him in the context of history. However, few today can fully comprehend what that meant in the context of human experience. And the whole of what he achieved was anything but simple.
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures teamed up with director Brian Helgeland for “42,” the powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. “42” will starred Harrison Ford as the innovative Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show, and Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, the heroic African American who was the first man to break the color line in the big leagues.
The film opened on April 12, 2013, to commemorate the 66th anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day, on April 15th. In 1997, Major League Baseball retired the number 42 for all teams, making it the first number in sports to be universally retired. The only exception is every year on April 15th – Jackie Robinson Day – commemorating the date of his first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. On that day alone, players from every team proudly wear the number 42 to honor the man who altered the course of history.
THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY
To go along with 42 is THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY.
This 1950 biography of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player in the 20th century, is one of the best and most convincing baseball biopics ever filmed. Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson plays himself and Ruby Dee as his wife Rae in THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY. Dee would later play Robinson’s mother in the 1990 TV movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson.
Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, Major League Baseball “universally” retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams; the first pro athlete in any sport to be so honored.
THE NATURAL
Adapted from the 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud, THE NATURAL tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a fictional baseball prodigy who rises from nowhere, only to have his career nearly cut short when a woman shoots him down. The story is rumored to based loosely on real-life baseball players Eddie Waitkus or Billy Jurges, but this has never been confirmed. The 1984 film, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert Redford as the talented ballplayer, with Robert Duvall and Glenn Close, was nominated for a Golden Globe and four Academy Awards.
MONEYBALL
This 2011 Best Picture nominee from writers Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zallian and director Bennett Miller, stars Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who in 2002, attempted to put together a baseball club on a budget to go up against powerhouse clubs like the New York Yankees who had an unlimited budget to buy the best players and win championships, by using a computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.
Beane hires Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who evaluates players using the statistical approach. Beane assembles a team of no-names who, on paper, can get on base and score runs. But is this approach enough to take the A’s all the way to the 2002 World Series and turn convention baseball wisdom upside down?
We loved this scene and the dialogue between Pitt and Hill.
BULL DURHAM
“Ballparks are like cathedrals.”
Based on the experience of writer/director Ron Shelton, this 1988 film focuses on the antics and comedic drama between the team’s veteran catcher “Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner), the wild rookie pitcher “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) and the sultry baseball groupie/guru Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon).
The film was a commercial success, a hit with critics and ranks in the top 100 of both Bravo’s and the AFI’s best comedies, also ranking #1 as the greatest sports movie of all time by Sports Illustrated.
EIGHT MEN OUT
Adapted from Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book, this 1988 film is written and directed by John Sayles and features a lineup of stars including John Cusack, Cliffton James, Christopher Lloyd, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D.B. Sweeney and Michael Rooker. EIGHT MEN OUT is a dramatized account of the scandal brought on by the Chicago White Sox who took bribes from the mob to throw the 1919 World Series. The film carefully details what led to the infamous Black Sox scandal and who was involved.
THE PRIDE OF ST. LOUIS
In 1952 Dan Dailey starred in THE PRIDE OF ST. LOUIS, the story of Jerome “Dizzy” Dean, a major-league baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in the 1930s and 1940s. Dailey, usually seen in Hollywood musicals, made Dean, a backwoods hillbilly, into a cheerily sympathetic figure, A fine baseball film and a real tribute to an American success story.
THE BAD NEWS BEARS
After skewering all-American subjects such as politics (THE CANDIDATE) and beauty pageants (SMILE), director Michael Ritchie naturally set his sights on the national pastime for this classic about the nastiest, most incompetent, foul-mouthed little leaguers ever. Who better to motivate them to victory than boozy Morris Buttermaker (AKA “Coach Boilermaker”) played to surly perfection by Walter Matthau. But he’s got a ringer in diamond diva Tatum O’Neal (fresh off her Oscar win for PAPER MOON). The flick was such a hit it inspired two quick sequels (THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING and THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN coached by William Devane and Tony Curtis!), a short-lived TV sitcom starring Jack Warden, and a 2005 remake with Billy Bob Thorton. Look for “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” TV star Brandon Cruz as an opposing player in the crucial final game.. Hard to believe, but the flick delivers nearly as many laughs as the poster from Mad Magazine artist extraordinaire Jack Davis!
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
When the armed forces snatch up all the able-bodied baseball players to serve in World war II, what are the team owners gonna’ do? Why, send in the ladies! This inspiring feminist story (based on true events) was a big surprise box office smash back in 1992. It reunited director Penny Marshall with her BIG star Tom Hanks who plays boozy ex-Cubbie Jimmy Dugan, the coach of the Rockford Peaches whose roster includes competing sisters (Geena Davis and Lori Petty) alongside team mates played by comedienne Rosie O’Donnell and pop queen Madonna. Look for scene stealing turns by SNL vet Jon Lovitz as a wise guy recruiter and Penny’s big brother Gary as Cubs owner Walter Harvey. Be sure and stick around for the end credits which features footage of many real players from the era. There’s lots of laughs and more than a few heart-tugging moments. But remember the words of Coach Dugan, “There’s no crying in baseball!!”.
BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY
Fantastic picture about a Cy Young caliber pitcher, Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty), who befriends a lesser known catcher, Bruce Pearson (Robert DeNiro), who was just diagnosed with cancer prior to the 1972 baseball season. DeNiro and Moriarty have excellent chemistry throughout the movie. The supporting cast is excellent featuring many familiar faces. Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, Selma Diamond (Night Court), Ann Wedgeworth (Three’s Company), and Phil Foster (Laverne and Shirley).You will not be disappointed.
FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
Before this film, Sam Raimi played solely in the realm of genre fare, with horror, a Western, superheroes, and even slapstick. So teaming up with Kevin Costner for a down-to-Earth baseball drama was quite a change in direction for him. This movie features Costner as an aged pitcher whose final day on the mound takes an unexpected turn when it begins to look like he may pitch a perfect game. At the same time, he flashbacks to his relationship with his girlfriend (Kelly Preston), and realizes What Really Matters in Life (TM).
PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
This 1942 classic is mostly known today for the iconic line, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth,” and not much else, and there’s good reason for that. It’s competently done, featuring a pleasant lead performance from Gary Cooper as famous Yankees player Lou Gehrig, whose admirable life and career were tragically cut short by ALS.
IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING
After winning an Oscar for the dark 1945 drama THE LOST WEEKEND, actor Ray Milland starred as Professor Vernon K. Simpson AKA “King” Kelly in this 1949 sports fantasy comedy. When a baseball (naturally!) crashes through his lab window, an untested pesticide formula becomes a liquid that makes objects repel wood (and this was a dozen years before Disney started the “Flubber” flicks!). This turns the timid prof (Milland resembles George reeves as TV’s Clark Kent) into a pitching wizard, and helps him earn enough money to wed the college dean’s daughter (Jean Peters). Because Major League Baseball did not co-operate with the film makers there’s no official team mascot or ballpark names, so Simpson plays for St. Louis at St. Louis Stadium! The MLB didn’t want to condone cheating since the ball was coated with the formula. Ah, the simpler days! Look for future USS Minnow skipper Alan Hale as college varsity catcher.
THE FAN
THE FAN (1996) is a great dark satire of baseball. Robert DeNiro plays Gil Bernard an odd knife salesman who loses the visitation rights to be with his son. Bernard vents his rage by following his San Francisco Giants religiously. Gil becomes obsessed with Bobby Rayburn, the Giants’ new top paid center fielder. Rayburn believes in jinxes and wants his lucky jersey number back to end a slump. Gil gets it for him by killing his teammate. Gil confronts Rayburn who says his change of luck was due to his not caring anymore. Gil goes berserk and threatens to kill Rayburn’s son if he doesn’t hit a homer for him. Directed by Tony Scott, the disturbing story concerns a troubled man’s disintegration into insanity with murderous results.
MAJOR LEAGUE
Let’s see… A movie where Charlie Sheen is WINNING?! SCORE! MAJOR LEAGUE is a clever movie from 1989 that really lets the underdogs shine. When the new owner of the Cleveland Indians trys to put together a losing team, they take her by surprise and pull together a winning season. Wild Thing! Wild Thing! Wild Thing!
61*
This 2001 HBO movie was made shortly after the Mark McGuire/Sammy Sosa single-season home-run battle, where both were trying to beat the record set by Roger Maris in 1961. The movie portrayed a similar home run battle between Roger Maris (Barry Pepper) and Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane), who in 1961 were both trying to beat Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs. Maris is the underdog, minimized by sports writers and fans because of his plain-spoken demeanor. Mantle is a fan favorite and league golden boy. The baseball commissioner announces that Ruth’s record stands unless it is broken within 154 games. Any record set after 154 games of the new 162-game schedule will have an asterisk. The film follows the two on and off the field, their friendship, the stresses and frustrations, and Maris’ desire to play well, win, and go home.
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE
Clint Eastwood provides another variation on his crotchety old man act in freshman director Robert Lorenz’s TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, a captivating saga about an aging Atlanta Braves baseball scout whose contract is up for renewal. Basically, the movie concerns the generation gap and the difference between the way men conduct business with either first-hand information or second-hand information. It’s sort of a baseball rebuttal to MONEY BALL, pitting Clint against younger guys who prefer to base their scouting decisions strictly on the statistics that they juggle on their laptops. Though predictable, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE has a lot of balls and throws them in a variety of ways. Amy Adams co-stars as Clint’s adult daughter who has spent most of her life away from her single father living with relatives. Part of the conflict occurs between the two have been apart so long that they don’t function together well when they are in each other’s company. One of the best films of 2012.
THE BABE
You don’t have to be a hard-core baseball fan to see that The Babe, starring John Goodman as America’s legendary slugger, turns the life of Babe Ruth into a whitewashing that is genially sweet . Despite a few attempts to present Ruth’s darker side (i.e., women and booze), it tidies up his more disreputable adventures and gives him a heart of gold to boot. The movie understands the rich comedy of Ruth’s appeal, the fact that the grandest athlete of the 20th century was, in one sense, barely an athlete at all. He was, instead, a kind of carnival showman, a big, soft, dumpling-shaped guy who knew how to perform one trick of genius, and who did it over and over again. The fans never got tired of it, and neither did he.
THE SANDLOT
There are some great stories reminiscing about childhood baseball games, but this one is my favorite by far! Scotty Smalls takes us back to the summer of 1962… a summer of friendship, leaning, love and baseball. This movie is the perfect combination of “coming of age” tale and nostalgia. Just don’t hit the ball over the fence, or it will remain the property of The Beast!
COBB
Here’s something different from the usual baseball biopic. COBB concerns one of the sport’s early superstars whose prowess on the field was almost overshadowed by his reputation as a really unpleasant guy. Most of the film is a road trip that Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones) made to Cooperstown New York with sports writer Al Stump (“Arliss” TV star Robert Wuhl) in 1959. Included are flashbacks to Ty’s glory days illustrating many of the legends surrounding him ( sharpening the bottoms of his cleats in order to injure opponents, pulling a heckler out of his wheelchair for a beating during a game). After the high spirits of BULL DURHAM, writer/director Ron Shelton gives us a hard look at the dark side of baseball history.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1994)
Disney remade ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD in 1994, this time using the California Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels) as the team. This updated version has Danny Glover as the feisty manager whose team gets some help from above and 13-year old Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the boy whose wish sets the plot in motion. A heart-warming crowd-pleaser which was a surprise hit in 1994 and spawned two direct-to-video sequels: ANGELS IN THE ENDZONE and ANGELS IN THE INFIELD.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1951)
Speaking about the original, ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1951) is the one of the best comedies about the sport. It’s the story of baseball manager (Paul Douglas) who loses his temper too much until he hears an angel’s voice (James Whitmore), who makes a deal with him. He and his other angels will help the baseball team win games if the manager stops losing his temper. When the deal is set, the manager’s life changes. The filming locations were old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, home of the triple A Los Angeles Angels before the Dodgers arrived. Forbes Field in Pittsburg and Yankee Stadium were also used in this 1951 film. Some popular ballplayers from that time can be seen as well. It’s a fun movie to watch, especially for a baseball fan.
DAMN YANKEES
Here’s a film genre rarely associated with baseball : musical comedy. This 1958 film hit the big screen with the original 1955 Broadway cast almost intact. Who would have thought of a light-hearted sports romp inspired by Faust. The Yankees of the title are from NYC and the guy constantly damning them is Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd. He strikes a deal with Mr. Applegate (future favorite TV Martian Ray Walston) and the middle-aged slug becomes the youthful super sportsman Joe Hardy ( movie addition hunky blonde beefcake Tab Hunter). Helping out Applegate is the ultimate femme fatale Lola (Gwen Verdon). Be sure and catch the Mambo number between Verdon and future hubby choreographer supreme Bob Fosse. The musical may be best known for the songs “Whatever Lola Wants” (which became the film’s title in certain markets) and “Heart,” about trying your best even when losing. Hmm… wonder if they sing that ditty in the home locker room at Wrigley Field?
FEAR STRIKES OUT
FEAR STRIKES OUT (1957) is based on the life of troubled Boston Red Sox pitcher Jimmy Piersall, It compellingly charts his life from a boy with a love for baseball to his dream of making it in the big leagues. Piersall suffered from schizophrenia, a condition he blamed on his father’s aggressive and autocratic behavior. The pressure finally got to Piersall who went nuts right on the field and spent time in a mental institution. FEAR STRIKES OUT is a strange psychological look at the game grounded by a terrific sensitive performance by Anthony Perkins as the young Piersall and a scary turn by Karl Malden as his father.
MR. 3000
After getting his 3000th hit, Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) retires right in the middle of the Milwaukee Brewers’ pennant race thinking he will be a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. But now, just as the cocky star is about to be voted into Cooperstown, the media happily uncovers that Ross only managed to get 2,997 hits. So close to the landmark number, Ross has only one choice – rejoin the Brewers for the most unlikely comeback a sport has ever seen. Directed by Charles Stone III. With Angela Bassett and Paul Sorvino. Did you know that at the start of the film, when Stan Ross is walking to the plate with 2,999 hits (the first time), the announcer says “Will this be the at bat…” then states the date…”that Stan Ross hits number 3000?” TV announcer Joe Buck asked an almost identical question when St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire was sitting on 61 home runs. McGwire stepped to the plate and hit number 62, breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, set in 1961.
MR. BASEBALL
What do you get when you mix Tom Selleck when he was still rocking the ‘stache, a washed up baseball player, and Japanese Baseball? One of the best Baseball comedies of all time! Tom Selleck plays Jack Elliot who gets traded from the Yankees to the Chunichi Dragons, even though he “led the team in 9th inning doubles in the month of August”! He moves to Japan and gets accustomed to baseball in a different form.
FEVER PITCH
The timing on this one was tailored made – a romantic comedy revolving around the Red Sox’s fairy tale 2004, World Series Championship season. On October 27, 2004, Game 4 of the 2004 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox, the finale of this film was shot. After the last play of the game in the bottom of the ninth during the Red Sox celebration, stars Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon were filmed also celebrating together on the field. A brief shot of the filming could be seen live on the Fox broadcast of the World Series. Rewritesby Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly had to be done immediately following the World Series game 7 clincher of the ALCS against the New York Yankees to include the historic 2004 Boston Red Sox post-season. Several fans who appeared in the 2004 documentary, “Still We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie,” were given roles in the movie.
FIELD OF DREAMS
After all these years the life-equals-baseball masterpiece still packs an unexpected kick, even after you know all its tricks and charms from repeat visits. Like all great sports movies, FIELD OF DREAMS isn’t really about sports. It’s about a quest, a yearning so deep it rules the characters’ lives. FIELD OF DREAMS is the perfect family pick and you won’t find a better film to clue your children into how important their parents will seem to them as they grow older. We know it did for us.
FIELD OF DREAMS is adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s book SHOELESS JOE. Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella an Iowa corn farmer who’s farm is failing, but instead of tending to business, he listens to a voice in his head that says: “Ease his pain. If you build it, he will come.” Ray plows the corn under and builds the most beautiful amateur field ever made, providing the backdrop for a reconciliation with exiled baseball star “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
But there are other heroes who want to come play ball on Ray’s field, and one of them may be his father. Packed inside the movie are road trips with Terence “Terry” Mann (James Earl Jones) and Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), each vignette showcasing Costner’s ability to play well with other strong actors on the big screen. Your kids might not cry, but we can almost guarantee that you will. FIELD OF DREAMS gets the tears flowing year in and year out.
Disney’s MILLION DOLLAR ARM might not bat 1000, but it’s certainly a high hitter that will leave you entertained and inspired.
MILLION DOLLAR ARM tells the true story of sports agent JB Bernstein (Jon Hamm). With his career going south he takes a shot in the dark and travels to India in the hopes of finding a cricket pitcher with MLB potential by holding a contest called “The Million Dollar Arm.” After discovering two young athletes with potential, Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and Rinku (Suraj Sharma), he brings them back to the Los Angeles to begin training for a MLB tryout. Things, however, don’t always go according to plan. The boys have never lived outside of their small village, so JB is forced to take them in and care for them, shaking up his bachelor lifestyle. With the help of his guest house tenant Brenda (Lake Bell), the boys learn the fundamentals of baseball, and JB gets a lesson in teamwork, family, and love.
First off, I’m glad that they cast an actual baseball / sports fan as JB Bernstein. Jon Hamm’s knowledge of the game, although not showcased enough, made for a convincing portrayal of the sports agent. We all know that Hamm can play the asshole rather well, as showcased in his portrayal of Don Draper on AMC’s ‘Mad Men’ and as Bernstein in this film, but he also shows audiences JB’s warm, fun-loving side, which I’m sure was difficult to pull off. It’s hard to make a character likable after they are presented as a jerk, especially when that jerk is crying all over his expensive suit while driving around in a Porsche, but somehow Hamm does it. The only thing about his performance that I found somewhat unlikeable for this St. Louis Cardinals fan was seeing Hamm in a Los Angeles Dodgers hat (See photo at top of this article). I had to tell myself “It’s just a movie! It’s just a movie!” I kid. Well, kind of… Cards fan for life!
Jon Hamm is complimented on-screen by the hilarious Lake Bell. The two have an incredible chemistry, and are no strangers to working with one another (You can catch Hamm guest starring on Adult Swim’s ‘Children’s Hospital’). Bell shows us more than just laughs as the goofy, somewhat annoying Brenda in the film. She also shows heart. I can’t wait to see her in different types of roles. Also, it would be pretty cool to see the two of them do a ‘Thrilling Adventure Hour’ together, because their ‘back and fourth’ is hilarious.
Rounding out the cast are Suraj Sharma (LIFE OF PI) and Madhur Mittal (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE). The two do an incredible job of playing Rinku and Dinesh, who went on to become pitchers for the Pittsburgh Pirates. One of my big problems with this film was how little they focused on the story of the boys. I know that the film is more focused on Bernstein, but I would have liked for them to have delved deeper into these characters. They left their families, and went from poverty to a life of luxury. This had to be an incredibly difficult adventure to go on. I would have liked them to showcase more of that! We’ve already seen that Sharma and Mittal are incredible actors, why not give them a chance to really shine? They didn’t utilize their talents nearly enough, which is disappointing.
The overall feel of the film had a bit of that ‘made-for-tv” vibe. If you were alive during the 80’s and 90’s you know what I’m talking about. Disney has had a long run of making TV Disney Channel Original Movies revolving around sports such as DOUBLE TEAMED, BRINK!, RIP GIRLS and MOTORCROSSED. MILLION DOLLAR ARM shows a glimmer of the same wholesome, inspirational beat that it showcases in all of their films. Is it cheesy and predictable? Yes. Does it still warm your heart? You bet. I would have liked for things to be shaken up a bit, but hey… it’s based on a true story. There isn’t going to be some crazy M. Night Shyamalan twist. Sorry folks.
The best sports movies are really just movies about people living their lives. MILLION DOLLAR ARM does a pretty decent job of pulling this off with likable characters in a PG version of this story. I’m sure that there is a ton to this story that we don’t know, but hey, it’s Disney. It’s refreshing to see a movie that kept families in mind while making it, because I’m willing to bet that this film could have easily been made with a PG-13, or even an R rating.
Despite the predictability, and the lack of character development for Sharma and Mittal’s characters, MILLION DOLLAR ARM is a family friendly film that is worth a trip to the theaters.
Is there anything more American than baseball and zombies? Sure, that’s not how you’re normally used to hearing such a question, but since we’ve learned that neither applies or pie are truly American in their origin, we need to replace it with something. Anymore, it seems, zombies fit the bill fairly well.
I imagine asking myself, “what two things have never been put together on film,” and then I realize what writer and director Jeremy Gardner must have realized at some point when he developed the idea for making THE BATTERY. This is a film that combines these two very American things, baseball and zombies, doing so in a simplistic way that preserves the core essence of both. You won’t find any rage-induced superhuman zombies or off-the-wall pseudo-scientific explanations for the cause here.
Gardner sets out to tell a story about survival, not unlike that of THE WALKING DEAD, but with a much smaller cast of characters and a much smaller budget. The film centers around two baseball players, Mickey and Ben. They have found themselves wandering through rural Connecticut by foot, or, when the opportunity arises, by abandoned vehicle. Months ago, while in the midst of a baseball game, when the world succumbs to a zombie plague.
Mickey, played by Adam Cronheim, was a relief pitcher in his former life, now a whining, lazy crybaby who feels deprived of life’s amenities that disappeared along with so much of the human population. Mickey is weak, somewhat useless by choice and a liability to Ben, but they are all each other have in what’s left of the world. Ben, played by Jeremy Gardner, was a starting catcher, in control but wild and fun-loving. Ben is capable of taking care of them both, knowledgeable enough to live off the land and scavenge for the rest while Mickey mostly sits around and blows through precious batteries listing to his portable CD player.
THE BATTERY sets in with as much character development, portraying the two somewhat opposing personalities with a minimally confrontational mood. It quickly becomes apparent that they need each other for their own reason, whether they realize it or not, which ultimately proves to be the very heart of Gardner’s film. Only later on, when they encounter the first character outside themselves does the truth of this begin to set in for themselves and for the audience.
The film is shot (Christian Stella) mostly handheld, grainy and immersed in a sort of endless amber glow of the golden hour, as though to suggest the inevitable end of days. This fits splendidly with the backdrop of the rural landscape of Connecticut as Ben and Mickey venture blindly across fields and down lonely stretches of two-lane highway. Accompany this with an appropriately somber and folksy soundtrack and equivalent score (Ryan Winford) and you’ve got a very down home, personal approach to surviving a zombie apocalypse.
As the relationship between Ben and Mickey develops, like so many buddy comedies but with a bit more drama, the zombie epidemic is but a backdrop itself. Only on a few occasions are the zombies scene, until the end and even then as more of a visceral audio presence that serves as a psychological mind f*ck for our central characters. The special effects are minimalistic and far from groundbreaking, but effectively used in a story not truly about the undead to begin with. Armed only with a six-shooter revolver and a baseball bat, Ben and Mickey do their share of damage on the zombies while picking at each others’ nerves as well.
The game of baseball serves as a wonderful icebreaker, and binding agent and a metaphorical storytelling device for Gardner. THE BATTERY blends this in with the zombie survival story nicely, with moments often resembling those between BULL DURHAM’s Nuke and Crash, while others seem a bit more reminiscent of Shaun and Ed from SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Fully realizing a blend of baseball and zombies may seem too random and ridiculous to work, I suggest going into this film with an open mind. Accept the understandable absurdity of the concept and embrace it, then allow Gardner to show you just how well it works when the story itself has little to do with either baseball or zombies.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again.” – FIELD OF DREAMS.
No truer words were ever spoken about America’s Pastime. Baseball began this past Spring with 30 teams vying for the chance to become World Champions and now it’s been decided. The San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers will play ball in the 2012 World Series. Before the final hurrah of nine innings, stats, bases and 3 strikes you’re out, WAMG has compiled a list of the Best Baseball Movies. Did we leave any in the dugout or are there some that should be sent to the showers? The Fall Classic begins Wednesday, October 24. See ya at the old ball game!
THE NATURAL
Adapted from the 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud, THE NATURAL tells the story of Roy Hobbs, a fictional baseball prodigy who rises from nowhere, only to have his career nearly cut short when a woman shoots him down. The story is rumored to based loosely on real-life baseball players Eddie Waitkus or Billy Jurges, but this has never been confirmed. The 1984 film, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert Redford as the talented ballplayer, with Robert Duvall and Glenn Close, was nominated for a Golden Globe and four Academy Awards.
BULL DURHAM
Based on the experience of writer/director Ron Shelton, this 1988 film focuses on the antics and comedic drama between the team’s veteran catcher “Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner), the wild rookie pitcher “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) and the sultry baseball groupie/guru Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon). The film was a commercial success, a hit with critics and ranks in the top 100 of both Bravo’s and the AFI’s best comedies, also ranking #1 as the greatest sports movie of all time by Sports Illustrated.
EIGHT MEN OUT
Adapted from Eliot Asinof’s 1963 book, this 1988 film is written and directed by John Sayles and features a lineup of stars including John Cusack, Cliffton James, Christopher Lloyd, Charlie Sheen, David Strathairn, D.B. Sweeney and Michael Rooker. EIGHT MEN OUT is a dramatized account of the scandal brought on by the Chicago White Sox who took bribes from the mob to throw the 1919 World Series. The film carefully details what led to the infamous Black Sox scandal and who was involved.
THE PRIDE OF ST. LOUIS
In 1952 Dan Dailey starred in THE PRIDE OF ST. LOUIS, the story of Jerome “Dizzy” Dean, a major-league baseball pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in the 1930s and 1940s. Dailey, usually seen in Hollywood musicals, made Dean, a backwoods hillbilly, into a cheerily sympathetic figure, A fine baseball film and a real tribute to an American success story.
THE BAD NEWS BEARS
After skewering all-American subjects such as politics (THE CANDIDATE) and beauty pageants (SMILE), director Michael Ritchie naturally set his sights on the national pastime for this classic about the nastiest, most incompetent, foul-mouthed little leaguers ever. Who better to motivate them to victory than boozy Morris Buttermaker (AKA “Coach Boilermaker”) played to surly perfection by Walter Matthau. But he’s got a ringer in diamond diva Tatum O’Neal (fresh off her Oscar win for PAPER MOON). The flick was such a hit it inspired two quick sequels (THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING and THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN coached by William Devane and Tony Curtis!), a short-lived TV sitcom starring Jack Warden, and a 2005 remake with Billy Bob Thorton. Look for “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” TV star Brandon Cruz as an opposing player in the crucial final game.. Hard to believe, but the flick delivers nearly as many laughs as the poster from Mad Magazine artist extraordinaire Jack Davis!
THE ROOKIE
One of the best baseball bio-pics to come along over the years, The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid, tells the true story of Jim Morris, a man who finally gets a shot at his lifelong dream-pitching in the big leagues. A high school science teacher/baseball coach, Morris’ players make a bet with him:if they win district, he tries out for the majors. This family feel-good movie has heart and a great cast, including Rachel Griffiths and a young Angus T. Jones of Two and Half Men fame.
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
When the armed forces snatch up all the able-bodied baseball players to serve in World war II, what are the team owners gonna’ do? Why, send in the ladies! This inspiring feminist story (based on true events) was a big surprise box office smash back in 1992. It reunited director Penny Marshall with her BIG star Tom Hanks who plays boozy ex-Cubbie Jimmy Dugan, the coach of the Rockford Peaches whose roster includes competing sisters (Geena Davis and Lori Petty) alongside team mates played by comedienne Rosie O’Donnell and pop queen Madonna. Look for scene stealing turns by SNL vet Jon Lovitz as a wise guy recruiter and Penny’s big brother Gary as Cubs owner Walter Harvey. Be sure and stick around for the end credits which features footage of many real players from the era. There’s lots of laughs and more than a few heart-tugging moments. But remember the words of Coach Dugan, “There’s no crying in baseball!!”.
THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY
This 1950 biography of Jackie Robinson, the first black major league baseball player in the 20th century, is one of the best and most convincing baseball biopics ever filmed. Brooklyn Dodgers second baseman Jackie Robinson plays himself and Ruby Dee as his wife Rae in THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY. Dee would later play Robinson’s mother in the 1990 TV movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson. In April 2013, Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures are teaming up with director Brian Helgeland for 42, the powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. 42 will star Academy Award(R) nominee Harrison Ford (“Witness”) as the innovative Dodger’s general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show, and Chadwick Boseman (“The Express”) as Robinson, the heroic African American who was the first man to break the color line in the big leagues.
Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. In 1997, Major League Baseball “universally” retired his uniform number, 42, across all major league teams; the first pro athlete in any sport to be so honored. Since that time, Major League Baseball has adopted a new annual tradition, “Jackie Robinson Day,” in which all players on all teams wear #42.
BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY
Fantastic picture about a Cy Young caliber pitcher, Henry Wiggen (Michael Moriarty), who befriends a lesser known catcher, Bruce Pearson (Robert DeNiro), who was just diagnosed with cancer prior to the 1972 baseball season. DeNiro and Moriarty have excellent chemistry throughout the movie. The supporting cast is excellent featuring many familiar faces. Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello, Selma Diamond (Night Court), Ann Wedgeworth (Three’s Company), and Phil Foster (Laverne and Shirley).You will not be disappointed.
FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
Before this film, Sam Raimi played solely in the realm of genre fare, with horror, a Western, superheroes, and even slapstick. So teaming up with Kevin Costner for a down-to-Earth baseball drama was quite a change in direction for him. This movie features Costner as an aged pitcher whose final day on the mound takes an unexpected turn when it begins to look like he may pitch a perfect game. At the same time, he flashbacks to his relationship with his girlfriend (Kelly Preston), and realizes What Really Matters in Life (TM).
PRIDE OF THE YANKEES
This 1942 classic is mostly known today for the iconic line, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth,” and not much else, and there’s good reason for that. It’s competently done, featuring a pleasant lead performance from Gary Cooper as famous Yankees player Lou Gehrig, whose admirable life and career were tragically cut short by ALS. But it’s also bland and hagiographic, a repetitive cavalcade of “isn’t this just a swell guy” moments, which isn’t just dull – it’s anti-dramatic.
IT HAPPENS EVERY SPRING
After winning an Oscar for the dark 1945 drama THE LOST WEEKEND, actor Ray Milland starred as Professor Vernon K. Simpson AKA “King” Kelly in this 1949 sports fantasy comedy. When a baseball (naturally!) crashes through his lab window, an untested pesticide formula becomes a liquid that makes objects repel wood (and this was a dozen years before Disney started the “Flubber” flicks!). This turns the timid prof (Milland resembles George reeves as TV’s Clark Kent) into a pitching wizard, and helps him earn enough money to wed the college dean’s daughter (Jean Peters). Because Major League Baseball did not co-operate with the film makers there’s no official team mascot or ballpark names, so Simpson plays for St. Louis at St. Louis Stadium! The MLB didn’t want to condone cheating since the ball was coated with the formula. Ah, the simpler days! Look for future USS Minnow skipper Alan Hale as college varsity catcher.
MONEYBALL
This 2011 Best Picture nominee from writers Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zallian and director Bennett Miller, stars Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who in 2002, attempted to put together a baseball club on a budget to go up against powerhouse clubs like the New York Yankees who had an unlimited budget to buy the best players and win championships, by using a computer-generated analysis to acquire new players. Beane hires Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) who evaluates players using the statistical approach. Beane assembles a team of no-names who, on paper, can get on base and score runs. But is this approach enough to take the A’s all the way to the 2002 World Series and turn convention baseball wisdom upside down?
THE FAN
THE FAN (1996) is a great dark satire of baseball. Robert DeNiro plays Gil Bernard an odd knife salesman who loses the visitation rights to be with his son. Bernard vents his rage by following his San Francisco Giants religiously. Gil becomes obsessed with Bobby Rayburn, the Giants’ new top paid center fielder. Rayburn believes in jinxes and wants his lucky jersey number back to end a slump. Gil gets it for him by killing his teammate. Gil confronts Rayburn who says his change of luck was due to his not caring anymore. Gil goes berserk and threatens to kill Rayburn’s son if he doesn’t hit a homer for him. Directed by Tony Scott, the disturbing story concerns a troubled man’s disintegration into insanity with murderous results.
MAJOR LEAGUE
Let’s see… A movie where Charlie Sheen is WINNING?! SCORE! MAJOR LEAGUE is a clever movie from 1989 that really lets the underdogs shine. When the new owner of the Cleveland Indians trys to put together a losing team, they take her by surprise and pull together a winning season. Wild Thing! Wild Thing! Wild Thing!
61*
This 2001 HBO movie was made shortly after the Mark McGuire/Sammy Sosa single-season home-run battle, where both were trying to beat the record set by Roger Maris in 1961. The movie portrayed a similar home run battle between Roger Maris (Barry Pepper) and Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane), who in 1961 were both trying to beat Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs. Maris is the underdog, minimized by sports writers and fans because of his plain-spoken demeanor. Mantle is a fan favorite and league golden boy. The baseball commissioner announces that Ruth’s record stands unless it is broken within 154 games.Any record set after 154 games of the new 162-game schedule will have an asterisk. The film follows the two on and off the field, their friendship, the stresses and frustrations, and Maris’ desire to play well, win, and go home.
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE
Clint Eastwood provides another variation on his crotchety old man act in freshman director Robert Lorenz’s TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, a captivating saga about an aging Atlanta Braves baseball scout whose contract is up for renewal. Basically, the movie concerns the generation gap and the difference between the way men conduct business with either first-hand information or second-hand information. It’s sort of a baseball rebuttal to MONEY BALL, pitting Clint against younger guys who prefer to base their scouting decisions strictly on the statistics that they juggle on their laptops. Though predictable, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE has a lot of balls and throws them in a variety of ways. Amy Adams co-stars as Clint’s adult daughter who has spent most of her life away from her single father living with relatives. Part of the conflict occurs between the two have been apart so long that they don’t function together well when they are in each other’s company. One of the best films of 2012 so far.
THE BABE
You don’t have to be a hard-core baseball fan to see that The Babe, starring John Goodman as America’s legendary slugger, turns the life of Babe Ruth into a whitewashing that is genially sweet . Despite a few attempts to present Ruth’s darker side (i.e., women and booze), it tidies up his more disreputable adventures and gives him a heart of gold to boot. The movie understands the rich comedy of Ruth’s appeal, the fact that the grandest athlete of the 20th century was, in one sense, barely an athlete at all. He was, instead, a kind of carnival showman, a big, soft, dumpling-shaped guy who knew how to perform one trick of genius, and who did it over and over again. The fans never got tired of it, and neither did he.
THE SANDLOT
There are some great stories reminiscing about childhood baseball games, but this one is my favorite by far! Scotty Smalls takes us back to the summer of 1962… a summer of friendship, leaning, love and baseball. This movie is the perfect combination of “coming of age” tale and nostalgia. Just don’t hit the ball over the fence, or it will remain the property of The Beast!
COBB
Here’s something different from the usual baseball biopic. COBB concerns one of the sport’s early superstars whose prowess on the field was almost overshadowed by his reputation as a really unpleasant guy. Most of the film is a road trip that Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones) made to Cooperstown New York with sports writer Al Stump (“Arliss” TV star Robert Wuhl) in 1959. Included are flashbacks to Ty’s glory days illustrating many of the legends surrounding him ( sharpening the bottoms of his cleats in order to injure opponents, pulling a heckler out of his wheelchair for a beating during a game). After the high spirits of BULL DURHAM, writer/director Ron Shelton gives us a hard look at the dark side of baseball history.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1994)
Disney remade ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD in 1994, this time using the California Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels) as the team. This updated version has Danny Glover as the feisty manager whose team gets some help from above and 13-year old Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the boy whose wish sets the plot in motion. A heart-warming crowd-pleaser which was a surprise hit in 1994 and spawned two direct-to-video sequels: ANGELS IN THE ENDZONE and ANGELS IN THE INFIELD.
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1951)
Speaking about the original, ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1951) is the one of the best comedies about the sport. It’s the story of baseball manager (Paul Douglas) who loses his temper too much until he hears an angel’s voice (James Whitmore), who makes a deal with him. He and his other angels will help the baseball team win games if the manager stops losing his temper. When the deal is set, the manager’s life changes. The filming locations were old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, home of the triple A Los Angeles Angels before the Dodgers arrived. Forbes Field in Pittsburg and Yankee Stadium were also used in this 1951 film. Some popular ballplayers from that time can be seen as well. It’s a fun movie to watch, especially for a baseball fan.
DAMN YANKEES
Here’s a film genre rarely associated with baseball : musical comedy. This 1958 film hit the big screen with the original 1955 Broadway cast almost intact. Who would have thought of a light-hearted sports romp inspired by Faust. The Yankees of the title are from NYC and the guy constantly damning them is Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd. He strikes a deal with Mr. Applegate (future favorite TV Martian Ray Walston) and the middle-aged slug becomes the youthful super sportsman Joe Hardy ( movie addition hunky blonde beefcake Tab Hunter). Helping out Applegate is the ultimate femme fatale Lola (Gwen Verdon). Be sure and catch the Mambo number between Verdon and future hubby choreographer supreme Bob Fosse. The musical may be best known for the songs “Whatever Lola Wants” (which became the film’s title in certain markets) and “Heart,” about trying your best even when losing. Hmm… wonder if they sing that ditty in the home locker room at Wrigley Field?
FEAR STRIKES OUT
FEAR STRIKES OUT (1957) is based on the life of troubled Boston Red Sox pitcher Jimmy Piersall, It compellingly charts his life from a boy with a love for baseball to his dream of making it in the big leagues. Piersall suffered from schizophrenia, a condition he blamed on his father’s aggressive and autocratic behavior. The pressure finally got to Piersall who went nuts right on the field and spent time in a mental institution.FEAR STRIKES OUT is a strange psychological look at the game grounded by a terrific sensitive performance by Anthony Perkins as the young Piersall and a scary turn by Karl Malden as his father.
MR. 3000
After getting his 3000th hit, Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) retires right in the middle of the Milwaukee Brewers’ pennant race thinking he will be a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame. But now, just as the cocky star is about to be voted into Cooperstown, the media happily uncovers that Ross only managed to get 2,997 hits. So close to the landmark number, Ross has only one choice – rejoin the Brewers for the most unlikely comeback a sport has ever seen. Directed by Charles Stone III. With Angela Bassett and Paul Sorvino. Did you know that at the start of the film, when Stan Ross is walking to the plate with 2,999 hits (the first time), the announcer says “Will this be the at bat…” then states the date…”that Stan Ross hits number 3000?” TV announcer Joe Buck asked an almost identical question when St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire was sitting on 61 home runs. McGwire stepped to the plate and hit number 62, breaking Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, set in 1961.
FEVER PITCH
The timing on this one was tailored made – A romantic comedy revolving around the Red Sox’s fairy tale 2004, World Series Championship season. On October 27 2004, Game 4 of the 2004 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox, the finale of this film was shot. After the last play of the game in the bottom of the ninth during the Red Sox celebration, stars Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon were filmed also celebrating together on the field. A brief shot of the filming could be seen live on the Fox broadcast of the World Series. Rewritesby Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly had to be done immediately following the World Series game 7 clincher of the ALCS against the New York Yankees to include the historic 2004 Boston Red Sox post-season. Several fans who appeared in the 2004 documentary, “Still We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie,” were given roles in the movie.
FIELD OF DREAMS
After all these years the life-equals-baseball masterpiece still packs an unexpected kick, even after you know all its tricks and charms from repeat visits. Like all great sports movies, FIELD OF DREAMS isn’t really about sports. It’s about a quest, a yearning so deep it rules the characters’ lives. FIELD OF DREAMS is the perfect family pick and you won’t find a better film to clue your children into how important their parents will seem to them as they grow older. I know it did for me.
FIELD OF DREAMS is adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s book SHOELESS JOE. Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella an Iowa corn farmer who’s farm is failing, but instead of tending to business, he listens to a voice in his head that says: “Ease his pain. If you build it, he will come.” Ray plows the corn under and builds the most beautiful amateur field ever made, providing the backdrop for a reconciliation with exiled baseball star “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.
But there are other heroes who want to come play ball on Ray’s field, and one of them may be his father. Packed inside the movie are road trips with Terence “Terry” Mann (James Earl Jones) and Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), each vignette showcasing Costner’s ability to play well with other strong actors on the big screen. Your kids might not cry, but I can almost guarantee that you will. The results of the World Series may have you blubbering but FIELD OF DREAMS gets the tears flowing year in and year out.
Another year has come and gone and with it passes another year of movies, good and bad, but today we focus on the best films to have hit theaters in 2011. Of course, the very phrase “best of…” is subject to widely varying opinions, which is why we choose to do things a little differently. While we do consider these the best films, that’s merely how they’re seen in our eyes. You may, heck… we even encourage you to disagree. For what it’s worth, here’s our Top Ten list of the Best Films of 2011.
How it works: We five Movie Geeks each have compiled our own lists of the top ten films of 2011. From these lists, we’ve tabulated votes based on a point system, resulting in our Movie Geeks Top Ten Films of 2011. Each of the individual geeks’ lists can be found at the end of our compiled list. *Our lists are based on the selection of films released theatrically in Saint Louis during the 2011 calendar year. (*This is why you will not see SHAME represented on our list.)
