Soderbergh, Pitt roll with 'Moneyball'
Director, actor circle Columbia's adaptation
Source: Variety
Steven Soderbergh is in early talks to direct "Moneyball," the Columbia Pictures adaptation of the Michael Lewis book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game." Pic will star Brad Pitt and is being adapted by Steven Zaillian.
Soderbergh is looking to make the picture his next directing assignment. He had been expected to next direct "Cleo," the musical about the fatal romance between Egyptian queen Cleopatra and Roman general Marc Antony.
Soderbergh had lined up his "Traffic" star Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the title character, and had Hugh Jackman in his sights for Antony. Though he set his financing, Soderbergh decided to push back the film until next year, after Jackman dropped out because of scheduling problems.
Pitt, with whom Soderbergh has worked in all of the "Ocean's" films, has been circling "Moneyball" since last year, when Zaillian signed on to adapt the book. "Marley & Me" helmer David Frankel had been attached.
The book focuses on Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, as he used sophisticated computer analysis system to piece together a team that regularly contended for the World Series despite possessing a payroll dramatically lower than big-market rivals like the New York Yankees.
Michael De Luca and Rachael Horovitz are producing.
Soderbergh has always wanted to make a sports film, and sparked to the opportunity to re-team with Pitt.
Soderbergh, currently rolling out "Che," most recently completed "The Girlfriend Experience" for 2929, and the Warner Bros. comedy "The Informant," which stars Matt Damon.
Sounds interesting
Oh interesting, I heard about this guy on a Fresh Air podcast or something like that a while ago. I guess it'll be another of those underdog sports movies.
Demetri Martin catches 'Moneyball' role
Steven Soderbergh's pro baseball drama stars Brad Pitt
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Demetri Martin has been cast opposite Brad Pitt in "Moneyball," a pro baseball drama Steven Soderbergh is directing for Columbia.
Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay, which adapts Michael Lewis' nonfiction book about Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, who assembled a contending ballclub despite a payroll much lower than other major-league teams.
Martin will play Paul DePodesta, a Harvard graduate who is into stats and probabilities and helps Beane (Pitt) develop his system.
A summer start is being eyed.
Michael De Luca and Rachel Horovitz are producing.
Matt Tolmach, Jonathan Kadin and DeVon Franklin are overseeing for the studio.
Martin, a rising actor and comedian, headlines Comedy Central's "Important Things With Demetri Martin," which sees him wearing actor, writer, composer and executive producer hats.
Last year, he scored a role in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," an ensemble drama starring Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
EXCLUSIVE: Steven Soderbergh To Use Animated Bill James Character In 'Moneyball'
Source: MTV
Steven Soderbergh is making a big push toward realism in his new movie, "Moneyball," adapted from the best-selling Michael Lewis book that followed the Oakland A's and their general manager Billy Beane (to be played by Brad Pitt), who used an innovative, statistics-based approach to build the team's roster and win the 2002 MLB American League West Division title.
To that end, Soderbergh will be casting real life participants to play themselves, filming at American League ballparks around the country and inserting actual MLB game footage into the film. One area in which the Oscar-winning director will not be striving for realism, however, will be with Bill James, the stats guru who has a key role in Lewis' book and whose body of work Beane applied to his management of the A's.
"My current plan is to animate him," Soderberg revealed to MTV News while promoting his Tribeca Film Festival entry, "The Girlfriend Experience."
James has become something of a mythic individual for sports fans and baseball execs because of his early advancement of so-called sabermetrics, a conventional wisdom-defying approach to evaluating talent that favors statistics such as on-base percentage over traditionally promoted stats like batting average. Since Beane valued players differently than his peers, he was able to stack the A's relatively cheaply and beat the pants off big money, large market teams. James is currently a senior advisor to the Boston Red Sox.
"We have this sort of oracle character that appears throughout and declaims various issues and he's essentially supposed to be Bill James," Soderberg said. "He's your host in a way.... The background will be real but the person who is supposed to be him will be animated."
Why the switch between realism and animated fantasy in this case? "It needs a gimmick," Soderberg explains. "It needs something to make it not Masterpiece Theatre. His writer voice is so big, I thought to literalize it is going to actually harm it. I need to make his voice funny and when he comes on you're happy to see it."
Columbia balks with 'Moneyball'
Pulls Brad Pitt baseball drama set to shoot this week
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Just days away from the start of shooting, Columbia has taken Steven Soderbergh's baseball drama "Moneyball" starring Brad Pitt off the field.
Pulling the plug this close to production is extremely rare for studios but sources said Columbia's co-chairman Amy Pascal wasn't comfortable with the script, which had changed considerably since the movie was greenlit.
The decision, which was made Friday, mystified many since the pic was crewed up and scheduled to start shooting this week, with some wondering how issues with the script could give a studio cold feet so late in the game.
Soderbergh wrote the screenplay -- the most recent version, drawing from Steven Zaillian's previous drafts, is barely a week old -- adapting Michael Lewis' nonfiction book about the Oakland Athletics and their GM Billy Beane, who assembled a contending ballclub despite a payroll much lower than most other teams.
Pitt and comedian Demetri Martin were the major actors cast, with other roles to be played by actual baseball players. Soderbergh also shot interviews with real baseball figures, which were going to be interspersed between the narrative.
Pascal had not seen the interviews and some insiders suggest there was a disconnect about the kind of baseball drama the exec and the filmmaker wanted to make. Pascal was leery, the sources said, fearing the film lacked emotion.
Pascal is a big fan of the book and allowed Soderbergh to shop the project over the weekend to Warner Bros., which once housed Soderbergh's shingle Section Eight, and Paramount, home to Pitt's Plan B. The companies would have to act fast as the production and its staff can only sit idle so long. If no one snags the package, Columbia could take another crack at it, and try to sync up Soderbergh's and the studio's vision.
God Damn It! This sucks.
Sony's Amy Pascal speaks out about 'Moneyball'
Source: Los Angeles Times
It's never an easy decision when a studio head has to pull the plug on a big movie, as Amy Pascal did last week when she shut down "Moneyball," a $58-million Steven Soderbergh film that was set to star Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the maverick general manager of the Oakland A's who almost singlehandedly reinvented the way baseball scouts and develops young talent.
The movie, based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis, wasn't just in pre-production. It was literally five days away from filming when Soderbergh turned in a new version of the script that Pascal and her Sony team found unacceptable. The decision was so abrupt that the film's producer, Michael DeLuca, got the call about it while on his honeymoon in Paris. As a courtesy to the talent, Pascal gave them an opportunity to try and set the film up elsewhere, but no other studio has shown any interest. So the movie remains at Sony, but will it ever get made? Will Pitt stick with the project? And what exactly went wrong?
Although stories about the film's abrupt demise have appeared everywhere -- with Variety getting the original scoop -- Pascal hasn't talked about the decision until now. To hear her tell it, Soderbergh delivered a script that was inventive but a radical departure from the film Sony thought he was going to make. It was, put simply, more of a dramatic re-creation than a feature film.
"I've wanted to work with Steven forever, because he's simply a great filmmaker," Pascal told me today. "But the draft he turned in wasn't at all what we'd signed up for. He wanted to make a dramatic reenactment of events with real people playing themselves. I'd still work with Steven in a minute, but in terms of this project, he wanted to do the film in a different way than we did."
Soderbergh's last-minute revisions represented a huge change from the shooting script I read when I was working on a story about the film during its pre-production. The script, written by Oscar winner Steve Zaillian, was a baseball movie, but it was loaded with great comic moments and dazzling dialogue that captured the frenetic energy of Beane, a strikingly good-looking former phenom who washed out after a brief stint in the majors, only to resurface as a general manager who operated more like "Entourage's" Ari Gold than the buttoned-down insiders who normally run big-league teams. Beane was a born hustler, always wheeling and dealing, staying one step ahead of his rivals as he scouted unlikely unknown minor leaguers to replace the high-priced free agents a small-market team like the Oakland A's couldn't afford.
Soderbergh wouldn't talk to me about all this, but it seems clear that he became obsessed with authenticity, replacing many of Zaillian's inspired scripted set-pieces with actual interviews with the real people who were involved in the events. The Soderbergh aesthetic, according to one source close to the film, was simple: If it didn't happen in real life, it wasn't going to be in the movie. That might make for an intriguing art film, but it clearly was no longer a film that any studio would spend $58 million to make, especially with baseball films having virtually no appeal outside of the U.S.
"Steven wanted to tell the story through these interviews with the real people, as they commented on Beane," Pascal explains. "But there are lots of ways to tell a true story. We were just more comfortable with what we thought was a wonderful draft from Steve Zaillian."
What did Soderbergh do that managed to get Sony to pull the plug on a go movie? Keep reading:
Some changes to Zaillian's script were subtle, others were dramatic. At one point, Beane signs Scott Hatteberg, a journeyman catcher with a bad arm whom Bean can get for peanuts and turn into a first baseman. Beane loves Hatteberg's ability to get on base, but his staff is appalled -- he just can't turn anyone into a slick-fielding first baseman overnight. In Zaillian's script, one of the coaches watches Hatteberg taking ground balls at a Little League field, his wife armed with a plastic laundry basket full of baseballs. She hits the balls to her husband off a tee, with their 4-year-old daughter backing him up down the line. One ball takes a bad hop and goes between Hatteberg's legs. When his daughter scoops it up, the coach quips: "Maybe we should sign her."
Soderbergh cut out the joke because it was the screenwriter's invention -- the coach had never actually said it. He also cut out a scene where Beane gives a tongue-lashing to Jason Giambi, one of his departing free agents, again because it didn't actually happen. Zaillian's script was anchored by on-screen monologues by Bill James, the oddball guru of modern-day baseball statistics (who today works in the Boston Red Sox front office). James functioned as a Greek chorus for the film, offering wry, Yoda-like explanations about the complexity of the game.
Zaillian's deft renditions of James' maxims were funny and always to the point, allowing the audience the opportunity to see inside the game. In one monologue, James says: "If you score three runs and the other team scores four, you can be inspired as all hell but you still lost. The numbers represent the ineluctable sum of victories and defeats, and that cannot be made one iota larger or smaller than it is by PR campaigns, personal animosities or any of the greater and lesser forms of B.S." But in Soderbergh's draft, the James material had all vanished, presumably to be replaced by interviews with Beane's real-life associates.
The Sony production team and Soderbergh ended up having a summit meeting after everyone had read Soderbergh's draft of the script. Pascal wouldn't discuss what was said, but other sources close to the project say that Soderbergh asked the Sony executives to trust him, saying that even if what they wanted wasn't on the printed page, he would find a way to capture the drama and the humor of the story when he was on the set, filming interactions with the real-life baseball people.
Studios get nervous when directors say "Trust me." Sony was especially concerned, wondering if the end result would be one of Soderbergh's "experimental" films, like "Bubble" or "The Girlfriend Experience," not one of his more polished gems, like "Out of Sight" or "Ocean's Eleven." For now, the project remains in limbo, with Sony having sunk nearly $10 million into the film already. The studio still needs to find out whether Pitt, who is intensely loyal to Soderbergh, will stay with the project. As Pascal put it: "We really hope we can still make this with Brad Pitt."
Sony would also have to find a new director who is not only a good fit for the material but would pass muster with Pitt, who has director approval on his films. To find a director with enough stature or buzz to attract Pitt won't be easy. The most likely options would be for the studio to go in more of a comic direction -- possibilities being Jay Roach or Jason Reitman -- or toward a more dramatic choice, like Gary Ross or even George Clooney, who is putting the finishing touches on a two-year production deal with the studio. (My own pick would be someone with a sharp, subversive edge, like Pete Berg.)
Pascal insists there's no bad blood between her and Soderbergh, saying the two plan to meet in the coming days to discuss other possible projects. In the meanwhile, she remains an ardent believer in the film. "We love this movie, we always have and we still want to make it. It's a completely innovative way to tell a baseball story. It's about wanting to believe in magic, which is what baseball is all about."
I'd still say that makes "Moneyball" a longshot. Or to put it in baseball terms, this is a project that will need to stage a big late-inning rally to put a win up on the scoreboard.
Wow, that Zaillian draft sounds not very good at all.
I love how the article presumes that Soderbergh wanted to cut out that one joke just because it wasn't a real-life quote, when it seems more likely that he wanted to cut it because it's a terrible, obvious joke.
The Zaillian script just seems very safe (no pun intended) and straight forward. And who the fuck wrote this article? Why are they pontificating and sprinkling in the names of shitty directors to helm the project? Jay Roach? Pete Berg? What the fuck are you talking about? And who really cares what shots in the dark you have?
I think the irony here is that this movie is about making a great team out of cheap, unheard of players, and because of Brad Pitt's price tag, the budget is $58 million and too big to let Soderbergh try something that sounds pretty damn interesting.
Sony still game for 'Moneyball'
Soderbergh out as director; Pitt still attached
Source: Variety
Sony is still game on making the baseball pic "Moneyball," tapping Aaron Sorkin to polish an early script by Steve Zaillian.
Brad Pitt is still attached to star in Columbia Pictures' adaptation of Michael Lewis' nonfiction bestseller "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game," but Steven Soderbergh will no longer direct the pic.
Production on "Moneyball" was set to start last month, but studio topper Amy Pascal wound up pulling the plug on the pic just days before lensing was to begin when Soderbergh turned in a new version of the script the studio didn't want to make.
Pic was put into limited turnaround at the time, giving other studios the chance to pick it up.
But Sony is keeping hold of the project, and Sorkin's changes will be more in line with the version the studio favored all along, with the focus on Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who assembled a contending baseball club on a shoestring budget by employing a sophisticated computer-based analysis to draft players.
Soderbergh's draft and production plans took a more documentary approach that the studio felt wouldn't cross over commercially with moviegoers.
Sorkin is expected to be completed with his revamp by August.
Sony is high on Sorkin after recently picking up his script "The Social Network," which revolves around the formation of Facebook. David Fincher is attached to direct that pic.
"Moneyball" also fits in well with Sorkin's previous experience as the creator and writer of ABC's drama "Sports Night."
Michael DeLuca, based on the Sony lot, is producing both "Moneyball" and "The Social Network."
Sony initially optioned Lewis' book in 2004. Stan Chervin penned the initial draft of the script.
I'm confused - how did I get a notification without a post?
Brad Pitt Predicts Ninth Inning Rally For 'Moneyball'
Source: MTV
A few months ago, it was one of the most talked about projects in Hollywood. Then "Moneyball" fell prey to script conflicts, a studio that pulled the plug days before cameras were to start rolling and a world-class director -- Steven Soderbergh -- who quit in protest. Since then, the smoke and noise seems to have faded, along with the film itself.
But Brad Pitt is still convinced that he'll soon suit up and play ball.
"My gut says yes," the star said of "Moneyball" on Monday, when we caught up with him on the red carpet at the premiere of his August 21st Quentin Tarantino flick "Inglourious Basterds."
For those who weren't keeping up on the news reports earlier this summer, "Moneyball" is based on the bestselling book about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane. He effectively transformed the game of baseball in the late '90s with his outside-the-box methods for assembling a winning small-market team. Frequent Pitt collaborator Soderbergh (director of the "Ocean's" heist series) had a grand vision for the statistics-heavy baseball geek bible. It's a vision which included casting real players in key roles, having Pitt play Beane and even employing a little bit of animation.
Now, the film finds itself with a near-$60 million budget, a plot about baseball statistics and no director. But the world's biggest movie star told us that he's still very much attached, and he expects "Moneyball" to rally for a ninth inning comeback.
"It's a weird climate right now," Pitt explained, blaming the economy for making it difficult to land financing for such a risky project.
"But we're still trying to re-mount it," he insisted, saying that he very much wants to portray Beane. "I hope we get to do it soon."
Bennett Miller to direct 'Moneyball'
'Capote' helmer in talks with Col for Brad Pitt starrer
Source: Variety
Columbia Pictures is handing the ball to helmer Bennett Miller for its pic "Moneyball."
The "Capote" director is in negotiations to take the helm of the Brad Pitt starrer.
Real-life story is based on Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who defied conventional wisdom and even his own scouts by fielding a baseball team of castoffs to create the ultimate underdogs en route to one of the most unlikely winning streaks in the history of professional sports.
Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin penned the script, which is based on Michael Lewis' best-selling tome. Stan Chervin wrote an earlier draft.
Steven Soderbergh had been attached to direct the pic, which is considered a tricky sell overseas given baseball's limited appeal outside of the U.S. Columbia has been working to get the project back on track after studio topper Amy Pascal pulled the plug on the film just days before lensing was going to begin after reading Soderbergh's rewrite.
With indie-weaned Miller in the director's chair, project's budget will likely be downsized, though no decision has been made yet.
Insiders say that after Soderbergh fell off the project, studio targeted two indie directors for the job: Miller and "(500) Days of Summer" helmer Marc Webb.
"Moneyball" is being produced by Michael De Luca, Scott Rudin and Rachael Horovitz. Matt Tolmach and Jonathan Kadin are overseeing for the studio.
Jonah Hill Says He Won't Ruin 'Moneyball,' Feels He 'Earned The Part'
Source: MTV
Jonah Hill has certainly made a name for himself on the comedy circuit with roles in "Superbad" and the upcoming "Get Him to the Greek," but he's a significantly lesser known quantity when it comes to dramatic film fare. But Hill is taking the plunge away from comedy by signing on to star opposite Brad Pitt in director Bennett Miller's "Moneyball," currently speculated to shoot in June.
Hill is well aware that there's some skepticism from fans about his involvement in "Moneyball" as Paul DePodesta, but the actor has a hard time believing that his participation will ruin the film.
"Aaron Sorkin wrote the script, Bennett Miller who directed 'Capote' is directing it, and Brad Pitt is the other star besides me in the movie — and somehow, I've ruined the movie without even having done anything in it," he joked in an interview with MTV News at this weekend's South by Southwest festival. "That's how powerful my crappiness is. I mean, come on."
Clearly, Hill has some confidence in himself when it comes to "Moneyball," as the actor said that he worked very hard to land the role of DePodesta after Demetri Martin dropped out of the movie.
"I earned the part," he said. "Every guy who is in their twenties and making movies was after that part, and it was a very tough thing. I'm really proud to have earned it, you know?"
If nothing else, Hill is very confident in the movie itself, saying that "Moneyball" is going to be well worth the wait.
"It's going to be a remarkable movie," he said. "I couldn't be more thrilled to be doing that next."
'Moneyball' finds actor to play David Justice
Stephen Bishop cast as ex-MLB player in baseball-themed pic
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Stephen Bishop will suit up as slugger David Justice in Columbia's "Moneyball."
Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in the Bennett Miller-directed baseball project, which begins shooting in two weeks in Los Angeles. Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca are producing.
Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin scripted the film, which is based on Michael Lewis' 2003 nonfiction book about Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane and his strategy for building a successful team without paying players enormous salaries.
A longtime member of the Atlanta Braves, Justice played his final MLB season, 2002, for the A's, who made the playoffs that year.
Repped by the Henderson Hogan Agency and manager Margie Weiner, Bishop has appeared on TV's "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost," "Brothers and Sisters" and "Girlfriends" and the features "The Rundown" and "Friday Night Lights."
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First Look: Brad Pitt & Jonah Hill In 'Moneyball'
After a year of debacles and false start the baseball drama "Moneyball" is finally shooting and we thought we'd never see the day. And here's your first look at Brad Pitt as Oakland A's GM Billy Beane standing next to an unidentified A's team member in the dugout. We assume that's not the coach, because Art Howe is a ) white and b) being played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. There's also a second look here at Jonah Hill who plays untested Harvard grad and Beane's assistant Paul DePodesta.
The drama behind "Moneyball" is the stuff of near Hollywood legend, though in many ways it's just the typical m.o. of a film's development. David Frankel ("Marley & Me") was first attached to direct, then Steven Soderbergh took the reins and his version of the project had its legs kicked out from under it by Sony head Amy Pascal three days before production was going to start in May of last year. Multiple fingers pointed at different directions of blame, but nothing became too publicly clear other than the auteur being thrown under the bus by the studio. Our main take away, which you can read into how you like, is that Soderbergh and his "Ocean's" star Pitt will likely never work together again.
Five writers worked on the screenplay at one time or another (including Stan Chervin, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson). Most recently Steve Zaillian (Academy Award winner for "Schindler's List," writer of David Fincher's upcoming "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo") was rehired to rewrite the Aaron Sorkin draft based on the original draft Zaillian had already written (got that?) Sorkin was then supposed to do a polish on the rewrite of his rewrite, but that never happened and was only reported as such to make everything look on the up and up, but several sources close to the project tell us that Sorkin overwrote himself to the point where no one was happy with his final draft including the always important Pitt (and it's a bit of a shame as one Sorkin draft we read was funny and great).
As if the picture couldn't get any more bad press, the film's would-be cinematographer Adam Kimmel was arrested on charges of sexual assault of a minor in May.
Whatever, the thing is shooting, right? A dramedy of sorts and even a buddy picture in one draft we read, "Moneyball" centers on Billy Beane (Pitt) and Paul De Podesta (Hill), the GM and assistant GM that made the 2002 Oakland A's a highly competitive Major League Baseball team (Beane took them to a AL West Division title) using a modern analytical sabermetrics system, despite having a completely budgeted, low-rent team that were initially the laughing stock of baseball early on in their season.
Directed by Bennett Miller ("Capote"), "Moneyball" stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robyn Wright, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Kathryn Morris ("Cold Case") Stephen Bishop and Chris Pratt ("Parks & Recreation." No release date is set for the picture yet, but we would imagine next spring or early fall to capitalize on baseball season (but in the heart of the summer a pic like this would be likely lost).
Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-LwHbld4)
Don't know anything about baseball but seems like a pretty good story if true.
Must be why sodonebergh was originally attracted to it, but here it feels like they just did the best they could with the pieces they were left with after he abandoned it. It looks like a conventional baseball "makes you believe again" kind of story, instead of Field of dreams it's Team of dreams, if you build it they will come becomes "if you assemble it you will make money".
Speaking of making money, I don't see this making any outside of America, which from what I understand is typical for baseball movies. But it makes me wonder if Pitt can afford starring in another flop after tree of life. Though if his buddy cloondog can survive the american't and the upcoming alexander payne snoozefest I'm sure he's got nothing to worry about.
I'm way over the completely overblown and largely fictitious Billy Beane mythology, but I expect this to be an entertaining movie regardless.
Yea, Billy Beane may be the most arrogant GM in baseball. The moneyball theory is famous because it was novel and got a book written about it, but the Athletics haven't done shit. The furthest they ever got was to the ALCS in 2006 and my Detroit Tigers trounced them. Other lesser market teams with less money have done better than the Athletics and they all did it with good scouting. However, Billy Beane always will find a way to get in the media and remind people of his supposed brilliance. There are some good national sports writers who spit on this guy's name every time he says something and while I don't go that far, I also don't blame them. It's actually understandable why they do it.
Still, I do want to see this movie because it can be completely fictional and be fun. I also want a movie that actually does try to get a whiff of baseball life today. Baseball has funnier and more unique anecdotes than any other sport and there should be better movies to highlight that.
So nobody has seen or cares much about this?
Thought it was great. Brad Pitt's Jerry Maguire.
It was good but critics are overrating this big time. Like Jerry Maguire.
For some reason this just strikes me as this year's The Blind Side.
Quote from: Sleepless on October 20, 2011, 02:32:31 PM
For some reason this just strikes me as this year's The Blind Side.
Naw, that's The Help.
Is actually a smart sports movie, with some great dialogue and very good Brad Pitt performance. Jonah Hill is good too. Pitt's performance is Jerry Maguireish in that it enables him to use all his charisma and acting chops without going to the dark side at any moment.
Phil Hoffman is almost wasted.
I expected A LOT MORE from this film.
Moneyball is a home run!
But seriously, I really liked this flick. The acting is kind of weak, but it's a fluff film, so who cares? The real stars are the writing and editing. It makes crunching numbers interesting. Wasn't expecting much, just a way to kill an evening, but I was thoroughly entertained. PSH is basically wasted. Figuratively and literally. He does nothing but look drunk and fat through the whole movie. Luckily him and Jonah Hill don't share any screen time, cause, ya know, poor screen.
I grew up with the Oakland A's so this film hit home to me that many baseball films hadn't ever done before. I think perfect casting all around but PSH is wasted which is sad but I think it was purposely done that way.. This just really hit my heart and I almost started to weep tears by the end. It really made me want to love baseball again.
I'm a bit mystified by all the adoration of this movie. It's average, and there's not much to say about it.
It was marketed (and reviewed) as a sports movie that's not really about sports and doesn't really contain any sports. This turns out to be a complete lie. The big "emotional" moments and supposed narrative climaxes of the movie have to do with winning or losing games, and it's handled with all the trappings of a conventional sports movie. Nothing special.
I actually thought PSH was quite good. He's not "wasted" just by being in a minor role... that's 2/3 of his career. After recently seeing The Ides of March and now this, I'm once again baffled by his ability to just churn out distinct characters one after the other. He's not even taking on different accents or extreme behaviors. They are all very subtle performances, and the differences are small but massive. It's even more mystifying than the critical success of this movie.
Billy Bean's daughter is annoying, and that stupid freaking song she sings is even worse. It's also an anachronism... the song was released in 2008.
As if that's not sufficiently annoying, they had to include Robyn Wright in the cast to meet some unspoken annoyance threshold.
But Jonah Hill was good.
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on March 15, 2012, 12:07:31 PM
But Jonah Hill was good.
But good enough that the phrase "Academy Award Nominee Jonah Hill" shouldn't make me want to take a nap on a railroad track?
I agree wholeheartedly. He was good in that he surprised me with his ability to play a character and not be annoying (likely a mathematical necessity given the Robin Wright / annoying daughter offset). I'm not sure we should be tripping over ourselves to reward him the first time he demonstrates basic acting proficiency.
This movie was really good. I don't think the daughter was as annoying as the song (and when you consider the age of the daughter, it makes sense that she would like a dumb song like that). This is a solid fucking script that I completely disagree with Jeremy on its being a "sports movie". Sure, winning games is a big part of it, but the guy doesn't even go to the games.
And Jonah Hill is totally good in this. It's not his fault he got nominated by an Academy that is always amazed when a comic actor plays a straight role.
Quote from: RegularKarate on March 19, 2012, 02:42:50 PMI don't think the daughter was as annoying as the song
Well, that's true.
Quote from: RegularKarate on March 19, 2012, 02:42:50 PMand when you consider the age of the daughter, it makes sense that she would like a dumb song like that
Maybe, but did they have to showcase it and attempt to end the movie in a dramatic/poignant fashion with that garbage?
Quote from: RegularKarate on March 19, 2012, 02:42:50 PMThis is a solid fucking script that I completely disagree with Jeremy on its being a "sports movie". Sure, winning games is a big part of it, but the guy doesn't even go to the games.
The main character may not "go to" games (except for one), but he listens to them on the radio and obsesses about them while they're happening. The games are also played out on screen for us (which is what actually counts, right?) through TV clips and plenty of actual gameplay footage.
How is this
not a sports movie? The movie devotes 90% of its attention to baseball gameplay, baseball statistics/probabilities, baseball politics, and the "drama" of winning or losing games. Maybe 10% is devoted to characters and character stories, separate from the "drama" of winning or losing games (and I'm being generous).
why are you separating the "characters" from what they do, what they love, and the world they live in?
Because "what they do, what they love, and the world they live in" apparently consists entirely of winning or losing games. Which is the cheapest and dullest source of drama imaginable.
Just arguing that this is a sports movie, that's all.
It's absolutely a sports movie. I don't understand why that's a bad thing, beyond it succumbing to the usual sports movie troupe of them winning in the end.