I Will Gladly Make a Movie About the '86 Mets for $50K Today

[batmagadanleadoff]

Brooklyn Filmmaker Launches Kickstarter For �86 Mets: The Movie�

By Chris Colton
Sports Editor, CBSNewYork.com

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) � Lenny Dykstra. Doc Gooden. Kevin Mitchell. Brooklyn filmmaker Heather Quinlan wants to explore the Mets� 1986 championship in a new way: by telling the story of the team, its fans and how the �blue-collar dirty, gritty� Scum Bunch mirrored New York of the same era. But she needs help from the fan base to complete ��86 Mets: The Movie.� Quinlan recently launched a kickstarter campaign to raise $50,000, which would help fund equipment, travel for follow-up interviews and, of course, rights to game tape. �The rights to the footage is going to be a huge financial hurdle,� Quinlan told CBSNewYork.com. �Honestly, without the footage, there�s no film. You can�t do a film about the Mets and not show Game 6.� The 39-year-old has raised just over $10,000, and has until August 22 to hit the goal. Ya gotta believe, right? �I think having the fans get behind it really, really pushes it to another level,� Quinlan said. �Especially, I think, it allows the Mets organization and Major League Baseball to be that much more inclined to be a part of it.� Quinlan said there wasn�t a bad interview in the bunch, and she praised Mitchell, known for being the baddest of the bad boys, as her favorite subject. His chat, and many others, are available on YouTube. �The one who had, ironically, the reputation for being this bad guy from San Diego was the most giving, honest guy,� she said of Mitchell. �He was coaching kids for no money. � It�s that kind of thing that you don�t know necessarily about the team or the players.� Mets fans also probably had no idea that Dykstra considered baseball to be part show business. In his interview, Dykstra admitted �Nails� was a character he played for the fans. �I did my best Barbara Walters, I guess, because I asked him, �Are Nails and Lenny Dykstra the same person?� � said Quinlan, who grew up a Mets fan. �And he was like, �Huh, no one�s ever asked me that before.�� Then there�s the friendship between Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner, whose error on Wilson�s ground ball completed the Mets� improbable comeback in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. �They do the autograph circuit. And Buckner was saying that when he doesn�t hear from Mookie or he doesn�t hang out with Mookie for a while, he kind of misses him,� said Quinlan. �And he�s a guy, so he�s not going to call him up and be like, �Hey Mookie, I miss you.� But he�ll be like, �Hey Mookie, how�s your lawn looking?� � As the film�s director, Quinlan has also interviewed teammate Darryl Strawberry and a number of Mets fans, including some notable names: actor Charles Grodin and writer Paul Auster among them. King of Queens creator Michael J. Weithorn, a former Shea Stadium vendor, is executive producer. Quinlan said she wants to turn the project into a feature-length documentary, and would like to bring some former players to the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals. The kickstarter would give those plans a boost. And it would send a message to a franchise with a reputation � fairly or not � of distancing itself from the �86 club. �It shows the organization that the fans really do want to hear this story, and that this team still looms large in their memories,� Quinlan said. �There is poetry in baseball. That includes the �86 Mets, warts and all.�

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/07/14/brooklyn-filmmaker-launches-kickstarter-for-86-mets-the-movie/

Interviews here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzqksTiunzhKRDcefM_-ZKg


Actor Charles Grodin wears a personalized Mets jersey. (credit: Heather Quinlan)


Kickstarter campaign link, incl. more interviews and quotes from '86 Mets:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heatherquinlan/86-mets-the-movie

[HahnSolo]

Maybe it's because I'm a Mets fan, but hasn't the story of the '86 Mets been told enough already? I mean more power to the director, but is any Mets fan out there thinking, "you know, I really need another documentary on the '86 Mets?"

[Edgy MD]

Now, the '79 Mets. THERE'S a story crying to be told.

[nymr83]

Good luck to her. But I don't see this as worth any money out of me.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I wouldn't go out of my way to see a documentary about
the 1986 Mets. What could it possibly tell us that we don't
already know a half dozen times now?

Edited July 16, 2014 by Guest

[Ceetar]

We're at the saturation point now where I almost feel like I was there..

..and I was 4 at the time.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I liked her disappearance-of-New-Yawk-accents documentary, if that was the same Ms. Quinlan.

How about a '98 Mets documentary? I could go for that. Hell, even a 2007 collapse one might work.

[Ceetar]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I liked her disappearance-of-New-Yawk-accents documentary, if that was the same Ms. Quinlan. How about a '98 Mets documentary? I could go for that. Hell, even a 2007 collapse one might work.

oh god too soon.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I think there's real gold in parallel stories of the 08 Met collapse with the destruction of Shea, the Lehman/Bear Stearns collapses, the Madoff thing, and the JJ Putz trade.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I think there's real gold in parallel stories of the 08 Met collapse with the destruction of Shea, the Lehman/Bear Stearns collapses, the Madoff thing, and the JJ Putz trade.

I was SO about to say that, but it almost felt TOO on-the-nose, y'know?

[Edgy MD]

I agree with that. You could totally weave a narrative of the whole world going to hell and this manical stay-the course/happy-days-are-here-again attitude prevailing in what was just a terrible time to build a new stadium and destroy a prized institutional asset.

Add in the subprime mortgage crisis, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto (and Musharraf's later resignation), the failed assassination of Hamid Karzai, the South American tensions with FARC and Venezuela and Chavez (who, let it not be forgotten, threw out the first pitch at a Mets game), ice shelf collapses, out-of-control high-seas piracy, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the phasing out of the shuttle program. It was a terrifying year. Sure, we elected a black president (and weathered the rise of Palin), but what a terrible time for anybody to assume that mantle. And here the Mets are, trying to stay the course and plow through it all, with a bloated budget and at the helm of it all, a GM whose inexperience and under-qualified-ness made our inexperienced new president seem like a revelation of professional demeanor and leaderly strength.

In 2008, the world was going to hell, we looked around, and couldn't find a grown-up to answer our cries. And the Mets were all this in a microcosm. Hell, yeah, there's a film there.