Pennant Fever: Ten October Picks
October baseball is here, and how fortunate for us that the race for the pennant happens to be one of Hollywood's favorite pitches to green light. Sometimes they make the right call, but most of the films made about baseball deserve to be designated for assignment. It's a sport that doesn't make for terribly exciting filmmaking, unfortunately, and most of the best baseball movies feature the playoffs as a mere backdrop to the main dramatic thrust of the plot. But fortunately, there's more than enough that keep the pennant race as their crux; without any further pregame ceremonies here are The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:
The Good:
Eight Men Out (dir. by John Sayles)
The film is a great ensemble piece, featuring star power of all sizes. A fact-based account of the 1919 Chicago White Sox players accused of conspiring to fix the World Series, Sayles's film examines a darker side of the American pastime. Though the more popular "curse" in pro baseball had been the one that kept Boston's Sox title-free from 1918-2004, it should be noted that Chicago's South Side drought spanned even longer (1917-2005), due in part to the actions of the men featured in this film. It's a strong period film carried by a slew of great character turns, particularly John Cusack, who enjoyed one of his first major dramatic roles, which helped him transition out of his Sixteen Candles nerdiness into an actor of leading-man caliber.
The Natural (dir. by Barry Levinson)
Sure, the famous moments have been endlessly parodied, perhaps most famously in The Simpsons when Homer becomes the Babe Ruth of his softball league. Despite the descent into cultural meme, the valiant tragedy of Roy Hobbs and his bat, Wonderboy, makes for very entertaining, if at times schmaltzy, storytelling. Using the idea rather than the full plot of Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel, Levinson and star Robert Redford craft a film that muses more often on mythology than it does baseball. As in Eight Men Out, the pennant chase is a backdrop, and though solid, it's hard to call it a baseball movie most of the time. However, just like Hobbs, the film delivers a mammoth, light-tower shattering finale that leaves only the most cynical unsatisfied.
Major League (dir. by David S. Ward)
This one's a bit of a cheat since you never see the Indians in the playoffs during the film, though the climactic game is a playoff against the Yankees that sends them to the postseason. It's hard not to have a soft spot in one's heart for the underdogs of the original Major League, and many a major leaguer has been influenced by the movie; Rick Vaughn's entrance to "Wild Thing" has been widely credit as the inspiration for the popular trend of a team's closer having his own entrance music. Mitch Williams enjoyed the nickname "Wild Thing" so much he changed his uniform number to 99 to match the one worn by Charlie Sheen's Vaughn in the film. Much of the humor doesn't hold up well nearly 20 years later, but it remains one of the only successful marriages of baseball and comedy outside of Bull Durham.
The Bad:
The Babe (dir. by Arthur Hiller)
On the surface, it seems like a can't-miss film. A salacious, though somewhat humanizing, biography of Baseball's greatest left-handed slugger (un-aided by science, of course), The Babe swings and misses mostly due to John Goodman's clumsy portrayal of the title role. To be fair, the film relies far too heavily on one performance (a frequent biopic drawback), and Goodman does take some risks and pulls off the Babe's larger than life persona with success in a few scenes. Overall, the film doesn't so much as move as it lumbers around drunkenly through the life-story of baseball's biggest star.
Rookie of the Year (dir. by Daniel Stern)
I can't quite relegate this film to "ugly" status because it does have an audience. Many moons ago, I was in that audience and I do remember finding the film entertaining. Hell, I was 13, what did I know? It is "bad" though, because it's a movie that you'll randomly catch on cable now and again and I can only stomach a few minutes at a time before moving on to the greener pastures of the Food Network. The plot is so ridiculous that I won't even go much into other than to say that you'll find the film intriguing if you believe that a botched Tommy John surgery may grant you the ability to throw a fastball at bullet train speeds. The film trips over itself, though it is nice to see Gary Busey during a period in his life when he was still clinging to sanity by a thread. Perhaps the film's greatest transgression has our young hero fist-pumping a World Series Championship ring after winning with the Chicago Cubs... only in Hollywood.
Fever Pitch (dir. by The Farrelly Brothers)
What hurts Fever Pitch so much is the fact that it could be a good film. It has a conflict that many sports-addicts can relate to (The Game vs. The Woman), and the Farrellys have demonstrated a deft touch in comedic films (though recent efforts such as The Heartbreak Kid and Stuck On You have disappointed). It even has a few funny moments, like Jimmy Fallon's Boston accent, though that may have been unintentional. Most glaring, though, is the manner in which the filmmakers crapped on a real-life moment. Many are familiar with the story of how the Red Sox actually winning the Big One screwed royally with the film's plot, forcing the Farrellys to do some quick re-shoots live from Fenway Park and Busch Stadium during the 2004 Series. Many Red Sox fans openly boycotted the film upon release due to the fact that they were subjected to live shots of Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon sucking face on the field right next to their favorite players. It may stand as one of the great examples of a baseball movie that is universally reviled by fans of baseball.
The Ugly:
Major League II (dir. by David S. Ward)
Oh, the betrayal! The second entry in the Major League franchise falls prey to so many of the traps that comedy sequels are supposed to avoid. It fails to bring back all of the stars from the original (notably, the sleight of hand that saw Wesley Snipes replaced with Omar Epps). It diversifies the cast, though not without heavily playing up racial stereotypes for comic effect. Worst of all, the film waters itself down to play to a larger commercial audience. It eschews the 'R' rating that many studios used to equate with death for comedic films, in favor of the more marketable 'PG-13.' The effect of this point comes home through the character of Rube Baker (Eric Bruskotter), a country bumpkin who's learning the major league ropes from veteran Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger). Though one chuckles at all of Baker's lame half-swears of "shoot" and "darn it," the joke becomes sad when one realizes that it stems from the fact that the filmmakers are, in fact overly concerned about the film's rating.
Angels in the Outfield (dir. by William Dear)
No one likes this movie, not even kids. It's a whimpering, cheesy and shamelessly Disney film that is only funny for the wrong reasons. One of those reasons is Tony Danza. I'm one of those people who just cannot take anything that Tony Danza does seriously, so when I see him in a film, portraying a washed-up major leaguer who is unaware that he's dying of cancer, I laugh. Then I feel sick with myself for laughing at something like that, but then I recover, because I realize that it's all Tony Danza's fault anyway. Add Danny Glover gruffly whispering his way through another film, sprinkle in Christopher Lloyd in a role more cartoony than his Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and you get a film that literally makes you cringe with embarrassment over and over again. You can't go wrong here.
Ed (dir. by Bill Couturié)
Okay, I'm cheating again. This film isn't about the major league playoffs, let alone major league baseball. It is, however, the single-worst baseball film ever made. It is worse than The Benchwarmers and Summer Catch... combined. There is no better way to describe this film than to simply say it "sucks." To describe it with any other, more elaborate language would be to waste good words. It's Matt LeBlanc and a freaking chimpanzee in the starring roles! LeBlanc doesn't even land the titular role! Even the tagline "Minor league. Major friendship," in a word, sucks. I almost feel like recommending this movie as a train-wreck that you almost can't turn away from, but the fact is I don't actually hate people enough to do that.
by Nick Olson