Baseball Movies

[Guest The Second Spitter]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I liked "Fever Pitch." The scene where he tortures himself by showing a loop of the Mookie/Buckner moment is classic!

Fever Pitch is desecration of sacred and holy text.

[Edgy MD]

I didn't want to say, but... .

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

/Nods furiously

Nail Bull Durham all you want for being phony. (I disagree HARD, but hell... agree to disagree.)

But if you're taking it down on those grounds, don't you DARE put The Natural on the top of your list. Beautiful, empty cliche-as-mythology, rendered all the more meaningless with the "magical" revised ending.

Maybe it's growing up popless and without a single non-ninny adult ex-hippie in my life, but Field of Dreams always left me cold. If you don't like the taste of the sap, it's a dull, dull boomer strokeoff.

Give me Bad News Bears all day, every day over any of these latter two duckfarts, then Bull Durham, then Moneyball, Eight Men Out, Major League, The Rookie, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League Of Their Own, then a big pile of mostly-nothin'.

[Edgy MD]

Agreed on Bad News Bears. Number one with bullet, as my sig line might suggest.

I don't and wouldn't put The Natural on top, but of course it's less authentically natural. It's presented as mythology. Even the names --- Red, Bump, and Pops --- are archetypal.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: /Nods furiously Nail Bull Durham all you want for being phony. (I disagree HARD, but hell... agree to disagree.) But if you're taking it down on those grounds, don't you DARE put The Natural on the top of your list. Beautiful, empty cliche-as-mythology, rendered all the more meaningless with the "magical" revised ending. Maybe it's growing up popless and without a single non-ninny adult ex-hippie in my life, but Field of Dreams always left me cold. If you don't like the taste of the sap, it's a dull, dull boomer strokeoff. Give me Bad News Bears all day, every day over any of these latter two duckfarts, then Bull Durham, then Moneyball, Eight Men Out, Major League, The Rookie, Bang the Drum Slowly, A League Of Their Own, then a big pile of mostly-nothin'.

Booooooo! I love "Field of Dreams." Cinematic perfection! I was able to visit the field in Iowa and even walk around Galena, I'll, where the Chisolm scenes were filmed.

Did you know that when they are reading from Doc Graham's obit in the movie -- the hats in the closet, every kid quietly getting glasses -- that's Grahm's real obit? The only thing the movie changed was the year he died.
"

[Vic Sage]

Annie Savoy, Nuke LaLouche, Crash Davis... do these strike as you names right out of kitchen-sink naturalism?

[Vic Sage]

The Second Spitter wrote: metsguyinmichigan wrote: I liked "Fever Pitch." The scene where he tortures himself by showing a loop of the Mookie/Buckner moment is classic! Fever Pitch is desecration of sacred and holy text.

I'm sure it is; most movies either poorly represent the books they are based on or absolutely betray them. And if you're a fan of a book, it can be galling. But ultimately that is entirely irrelevant as to whether its a good movie or not. THE NATURAL, as was mentioned, totally betrays its source material to give the hero a happy ending. But given the tone, style and nature of the movie, it was appropriate and the movie stands on its own. I love the book, and I love the movie for very different reasons.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

That's one of the reasons I like "Field of Dreams." It's not only true to the book, I think it streamlines it a bit and actually improves on it. The major concession is swapping out Terrance Mann for J.D. Salinger. Now, that may be because W.P. Kinsella was involved in the script.

Kinsella's other baseball book, "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy," isn't as good.

I know "The Natural" sold out by having him hit a homer and not striking out," but I sure do like the way that scene was filmed, with the ball breaking the lights and the sparks falling on the field. Wonderful film making.

I haven't read the "Fever Pitch" book.

[Edgy MD]

Vic Sage wrote: Annie Savoy, Nuke LaLouche, Crash Davis... do these strike as you names right out of kitchen-sink naturalism?

I think the writers thought they were, yeah.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Fever Pitch is Nick Hornby's collection of autobiographical essays, each centered around a pivotal soccer match, mostly related to his beloved club Arsenal. It is an excellent book but it would be all but impossible to adapt it as a movie as it is mostly Hornby's reflections on fandom and the philosophical meaning in his life. Instead the name was used for a romantic comedy starring one of those charming English guy's named Colin. Fever Pitch the baseball movie is an adaptation of that adaptation for an American audience.

[A Boy Named Seo]

The Onion AV Club: "Bull Durham is the Greatest Baseball Movie Ever Made".

http://www.avclub.com/articles/why-bull-durham-is-the-greatest-baseball-movie-eve,96143/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=standard-post:headline:default

Bull Durham (1988) Bull Durham is the greatest baseball movie because it isn�t really about baseball, even though writer-director Ron Shelton drew on his own experience as a minor-league player and captured the particulars of that world like no filmmaker before or since. Its true subject is passion. Religious and sexual metaphors intertwine to magnificent effect: Susan Sarandon�s Annie Savoy tells us at the outset that she belongs to the Church of Baseball (her house resembles a shrine), then relates her annual tradition of selecting one promising player on the Durham Bulls as her lover for the season. Ostensibly, what follows is a lightly comic romantic triangle involving Annie�s relationships with hotheaded young pitcher Ebby Calvin �Nuke� LaLoosh (Tim Robbins, in his breakout role) and his reluctant mentor, aging catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner, in his defining performance). But what really binds these three indelible characters�and what determines which two end up together�is a stubborn, irrational ardor for the circumscribed realm they inhabit. And that�s something you can appreciate even if you have no idea what a ground rule double is. �This is a simple game,� snarls the Bulls� head coach (the late, lamented Trey Wilson) at one point. �You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.� Shelton knows better, though, and complications are Bull Durham�s lifeblood, both on and off the field. Shrugging off your catcher�s signal means having him tell the opposing team�s batter what pitch you�re about to throw, out of spite. Racking up all the all-time minor-league record for home runs only underscores the fact that you never made it in �the show.� In many ways, the film achieves the fizzy delirium of classic comedies by the likes of Preston Sturges and Leo McCarey�it�s idiosyncratic, crazily detailed, endlessly quotable, and genuinely interested in even the most marginal members of its insular community. (There are no small parts here.) Underneath the effervescence, though, lurks a poignant recognition that all of this joy and heartbreak revolves around an activity that�s arguably trivial and unquestionably ephemeral. Accepting that paradox, even embracing it, is rather like accepting and embracing life itself. Availability: Bull Durham is available for rental and purchase on DVD and Blu-ray from pretty much everybody. [youtube]DzX_K9pX3X0[/youtube]