MONEYBALL
120 minutes
PG-13
Writers: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin, Michael Lewis
Director: Bennett Miller
Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt
They’re just nine players short of a dream team.
-MAJOR LEGUE: BACK TO THE MINORS
(Tagline)
In eighth grade, the day after ‘take your kid to work day’, a teacher asked if anyone wants to share what they did on the previous day.
I raised my hand, and blurted out ‘I saw MAJOR LEAGUE III'.
The look on his face was priceless.
I always seem to know what the least appropriate thing to say is. I did learn one thing about the working world: Scott Bakula will alway be able to find work…somewhere.
The Oakland A’s have an interesting history.
MC Hammer is a former ball-boy for the Athletics.
Do you know about my city (Oak-towa-wan)
City of O (Oak-towa-wan)
O-don’t you know
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1995) was filmed at the Oakland Collusium (presenly named Overstock.com Coliseum).
Look at Jose Canseco, right now he is a player/manager for the Yuma Scorpions.
Cast
Billy Beane (Pitt)
Coach Art Howe (Hoffman)
Peter Brand (Hill)
Scott Hatteberg (Pratt)
So why was this movie made?
My Theory
Brad Pitt is secretly envious of baseball managers, they don’t have to care of 10 adopted children.
They say star athletes make bad coaches. This man proves the rule, Billy Beane turned down a scholarship to Stanford to play professional baseball. He failed miserably, yet he retains his romantic attachment to this game.
‘You sir, have the the boorish manners of a Yaley.’
Peter Brand, an Ivy Leaguer, who has never really played the game, all he has is a degree in economics. A poster of Plato hangs in his bedroom. He believes in a detached, dispassionate, scientific approach to team building; which is challanging; baseball is like time, the variables are ever changing.
Watch any 80s movie: jocks and geeks don’t mix, period. This film is no exception, the old timers are skeptical of this new egghead mathematician. Just who in the hell does he think he is?
In the end, Peter and Billy Bill Beane balance each other out, building a talented team for very little money.
Most baseball movies are unwatchable (with exception of that movie with Matt LeBlanc). MONEYBALL is the best baseball movie since AIR BUD: SEVENTH INNING FETCH (2002, and PRIDE OF THE YANKEES (1943).
I like this movie, but it is far from perfect. To use a baseball analogy: they hit this one out of the park, and the ball killed an orphan in the parking lot.
Final Verdict: 84 out of 100
Sidenote: the bad sports cliches are intentional.