Baseball movies, damn it, BASEBALL MOVIES!

"Field of Erroneous Scorekeeping, more like."

http://flipflopflyball.tumblr.com/post/8740392528/field-of-dreams-opened-in-cinemas-on-april-21

Cint Eastwood to play a scout SLOWLY GOING BLIND!

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Matthew-Lillard-Joining-Clint-Eastwood-Trouble-With-Curve-28893.html

the BP staff gives some dubious recognition to baseball films like Bad Lieutenant and The Fan (SPOILER!):

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15939

next year's Robinson pic 42... look who's playing Branch Rickey

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453562/combined

I guess that means Spike Lee's long-rumored Jackie film has been abandoned?

afaik it was when Denzel got too old

Doesn't really look like an actual baseball movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdJPvXLemVs

Laughed at all the non-joke content.

"We need to appeal to white men over the age of 80 and Justin Timberlake fans."

"You don't know anything about the game--a computer can't tell if a kid's got instincts."

Somebody didn't like Moneyball.

someone actually wrote the line 'it's feng schmay, dont u know anything'

Really liked Knuckleball. (The directors were supposed to be there but cancelled.) Minor quibbles: maybe a little more history on the pitch, Wilhelm especially, and the music's lousy. Larger quibble: I don't think it gets as deep into the psychology of throwing the pitch as Bouton did in Ball Four. Where it's great: "the fraternity." It's another one of those documentaries where I think, "What an obvious film to make--how did it take this long?" There's like seven living knuckleballers of any stature, and they interview them all. And most of them are friends--more than friends. The scene where Wakefield, Dickey, Hough, and Niekro all go golfing is pretty much the best thing I've seen this year. Dickey is such a likeable guy--I feel silly for having ignored his story till the big streak earlier this season, but I'll be rooting for him to win the Cy. Wakefield is much quieter, and it's genuinely moving when he gets his 200th.

Salon review of Knuckleball:

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/14/pick_of_the_week_baseballs_secret_zen_fraternity/

Again: excellent.

my review:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/knuckleball/6522

I'd seen it in June, so I was remembering bits this time just before they played out, like the Texas contract withdrawal with Dickey. You can't write stuff like that.

That Eastwood/Timberlake movie looks dire.

belongs to Amy Adams, apparently

"looks dire" and "belongs to Amy Adams" are one and the same to me

Nice review, Morbius. I think we basically saw the same thing, I just loved the secret-society angle more than you, and wasn't especially bothered by the first half-hour. Agree that the music was awful. I can't think of another baseball film that's much like it.

"the secret-society angle" is about 15 mins of the film tho. And they keep going back to that one awful Boston sports guy.

I didn't time it or anything, but it sure felt like more than 15 minutes--in any event, it sent me home inexplicably happy, and pushed aside everything else about the movie. Niekro's story about has dad was priceless.

Huh, if Eastwood had directed Curve, it would've been worse, but it would've been better, y'know?

It's a "baseball movie," of course it's crap.

"looks dire" and "belongs to Amy Adams" are one and the same to me

― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Tuesday, September 18, 2012 2:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

what the christ

She's given a good movie performance precisely once: The Fighter. Presumably David O. castigated it out of her.

LOLed pretty hard when Amy Adams was on ESPN promoing. Had seen the trailer twice and a number of ads and had thought it was Pam from The Office finally getting her first star turn. Had no idea.

what I hate about this thread resurfacing

She's great in Catch Me If You Can!

xp unbookmarked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hww-Xxbud0

Ford looks too old to play Rickey

of the two baseball flicks out now i think i'll stick to the docu

The Worst Baseball on Film

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=18426

haha that is great

Haven't watched it yet, but you can see Donald Brittain's 1974 documentary on Fergie Jenkins at the NFB site:

http://www.nfb.ca/film/king_of_the_hill

Another one from the NFB site: Sleeping Tigers: The Asahi Baseball Story, about a Vancouver PCL team that won championships before being sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor.

http://www.nfb.ca/film/sleeping_tigers_the_asahi_baseball_story

sounds cool

I had no intention of seeing Trouble with the Curve, but this makes it sound so monumentally bad, I just might catch it on second-run now:

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.ca/2013/01/trouble-curve.html#more

Batting average as an avatar of the new!

From Neyer:

"If you're reading this and you're a film buff, you probably know that Gary Cooper, who played Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees (entire movie here, free) had a real tough time learning to bat and throw left-handed. The filmmakers' solution? Outfit Cooper in a "backwards" Yankees jersey, have him run to third base after hitting the ball ... and then simply flip the images for the finished movie."

Someone (Tom Sheiber) went through the film shot by shot to figure out if this was really true. I'm with Neyer, this is an incredible piece of research:

http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/the-pride-of-yankees-seeknay.html

The Pitch that Killed reportedly in pre-production.

http://www.stwnewspress.com/local/x986706511/Oklahoma-State-professors-Pitched-That-Killed-gets-the-Hollywood-treatment

hiphop on the TV ads will propel 42 to b.o. glory.

potentially amusing: John McGinley as Red Barber (deep South accent?), Chris Meloni as Leo Durocher (way too large).

im feelin 42. looks p good to me

From Neyer:

"If you're reading this and you're a film buff, you probably know that Gary Cooper, who played Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees (entire movie here, free) had a real tough time learning to bat and throw left-handed. The filmmakers' solution? Outfit Cooper in a "backwards" Yankees jersey, have him run to third base after hitting the ball ... and then simply flip the images for the finished movie."

Someone (Tom Sheiber) went through the film shot by shot to figure out if this was really true. I'm with Neyer, this is an incredible piece of research:

http://baseballresearcher.blogspot.co.il/2013/02/the-pride-of-yankees-seeknay.html

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 4:08 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark

damn

i saw trouble with the curve btw. it was awful. amy adams was the only good thing about it, she was almost too good for this movie

Neyer on #42 and Hollywood, incl a YT link to The Jackie Robinson Story starring JR, which I remember seeing on TV the week he died.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/4/8/4176250/jackie-robinson-movies-history-42

42 was bleh, but the baseball scenes are sick. alan tudyk plays ben chapman and i had to struggle not to laugh during his exuberantly racist comedy routine from the dugout

http://meadowparty.com/blog/2013/04/10/42/

keith law's take

alan tudyk plays ben chapman and i had to struggle not to laugh during his exuberantly racist comedy routine from the dugout
it took me a bit to remember where i recognized the actor from. also, i started cracking up at the routine after a bit too.

I'm not surprised that Law didn't like it, he slammed Moneyball too. He basically hates anything that's the least bit Hollywood-ized.

Posnanski wrote about it on his blog:

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.ca/2013/04/42.html

I'm pretty wary of this film--and disappointed that Spike Lee didn't get to do it--but I'll see it.

I'm not surprised that Law didn't like it, he slammed Moneyball too. He basically hates anything that's the least bit Hollywood-ized.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Monday, April 15, 2013 5:15 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

he's pretty much right about both of them though. 42 could've been so much better if it was even as good as Walk The Line (which is no masterpiece but at least its characters have arcs and get to display a range of emotions and experiences)

im not opposed to hollywoodized stuff, though this version was probably the least interesting take on JR you could've told. wesley morris' grantland review does a good job of explaining why helgeland's approach was antithetical to good drama

i did like things about the movie, dont get me wrong. its not terrible.

the pos's take is actually otm too, he just happened to like the movie