Sugar

[Guest sharpie]

Movie about a Dominican pitcher making his way from a baseball academy to spring training to a minor league team in Iowa. Main actor is a Dominican wanna-be baseball player, not an actor.

I can't think of another film that had as real a baseball feel as this one and with none of that mythic stuff. Plus our "hero" was seriously flawed. Liked it a whole lot.

[nymr83]

really want to see this. will review whenever i do

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Teen pitching prodigy from Dominican Republic is assigned to a single A outfit in Iowa.

Hijinks ensue.

[Guest sharpie]

Um, I already put up a poll for this one. Use that. Delete this.

[Guest sharpie]

Here's the original Sugar poll with hardly any respondents but still...

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I thought there was a poll but I did a search and came up empty. Sorry about that.

[Edgy MD]

It seems our search capacity is dampened. Searches don't seem to return posts or threads that originated under the old software.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Gosh. Even the same lumps joke!

(some spoilers to follow below.....)
















Anyway, nice movie, and not what I thought it was gonna be, necessarily. I said to Ms. Bucket as the film started "you know, I hear a lot of these guys wind up in upper Manhattan" not knowing I pretty much spoiled the ending. How very un-sports-movie like of them. I also liked that the baseball footage refused to provide us any of the angles you get watching a game on TV. At one point I was thinking, man, "they must have a camera right there in the infield" then realized, oh, yeah. Movie. I also enjoyed the montages illustrating the little bits of the game -- the locker room, a rain delay, a road trip, etc etc. So the baseball stuff looked better than most bb movies.

My complaint about it was that it in order to become a movie about immigrants, they had to jam a lot of baseball life experiences into a slim timeframe. In reality, Sugar's experience probably plays out over a period of years and not months. I was thinking, this kid showed enough promise to come back or the least be assigned to a lower league no matter what and probably should have. But I understand, it would have taken too much time to play out.

[metirish]

I reactivated my Netflix and Sugar is coming in the mail.

[Edgy MD]

I can merge the three threads if you all don't mind.

[A Boy Named Seo]

You can nuke mine.

[metirish]

Three seperate threads , it's got to be good with that.

[Frayed Knot]

I plan to see this movie next week and then immediately start a brand new thread to discuss it.

[Edgy MD]

Well, I fixed my merger, but I'm pretty sure I kefuffled the voting in the bargain. Please re-submit your votes and accept my apologies. I now know how to responsibly use their merge tool. I think.

[Frayed Knot]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: My complaint about it was that it in order to become a movie about immigrants, they had to jam a lot of baseball life experiences into a slim timeframe. In reality, Sugar's experience probably plays out over a period of years and not months. I was thinking, this kid showed enough promise to come back or the least be assigned to a lower league no matter what and probably should have. But I understand, it would have taken too much time to play out.

Not sure what was so time-condensed.
He was about 19/20 y/o during the movie and it was implied that he was and had been in the Dominican League when we join the story. Starting out in America at the low-A level at his age would be logical. Whether he'd get frustrated and/or burned out enough to chuck it all after less than one season is, I suppose, questionable but I didn't see that as unreasonable.

'Bridgetown' was a stand-in for Davenport, Iowa - not that they tried all that hard to disguise it. You could see a sign that said Davenport in the background of one scene and 'The Swing' is the real Midwest League team in 'Quad Cities' (Davenport, Bettendorf, Moline, Rock Island). That bridge in the background of the stadium is one that crosses the Mississippi.

Liked the Spanish language version of 'Hallelujah'

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

He went from unknown, to confident young prodigy, to All-Star caliber talent, to injured, to healed, to paranoid steroid user, to reformed athlete with crippling doubts in his own ability, to former player, in less than a single season, since he bailed sometime in August. That's a lot of things to be in one year, for one team, in less than one season.

I'd guess that in real life those events would tend to be spaced out over a couple of seasons at least (you know, prodigy in Kingsport, success in Savannah, doubt-riddled user in Port St. Lucie, or whatever). I also felt like the player they showed us at the beginning of the movie appeared determined enough to at least stick it though the end of the year in baseball. But to make it play out over a "more realistic" term would be a dramatic challenge for the filmmakers, so I understand why they did it.

[soupcan]

So I finally saw this. Netflix'd it and brought it on vaca with me to watch on the plane.

I dug it the most.

Bittersweet - reminded me a lot of 'Moscow On The Hudson'.

[nymr83]

I liked it, more for the lack of Disney-ending than anything else. I'm also glad to have finally watched it after it sat on a shelf for 2 years.

What were the pills he took? Someone said steroids but I thought they were something else,the sudden results plus the way he suddenly gets dizzy or whatever doesn't say steroids to me, he took something that numbed the pain in his foot but he clearly overdosed (the guy tells him to take half a pill and I think he downed 2 or 3),