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Friday, September 23, 2011

For the sake of not having to write the same intro a million different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull process of full film reviews and instead opts to break things down based on what I thought going in, what happened while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.  Thanks for reading!




The Breakdown - Moneyball

The Impression:

It’s no wonder this film has been kicking around the first-rate director pool for going on three years now, Michael Lewis’ non-fiction account of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane’s experiment with statistical baseball is a riveting read but for a select group of stat-crunching sports nerds. Soderbergh is just weird enough to have turned it on its head, but can Capote helmer Bennet Miller bring a similar take to the tale?



The Reality:

Bennett Miller’s filmography is rife with internally tormented geniuses. Tim "Speed" Levitch and Truman Capote are both insanely talented individuals fighting with the torments of their past and the oncoming crush of the future. Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane plays nicely with these fellows. A one-time first round draft pick who was unable to make anything of his playing career, Beane became a scout and then eventually the general manager of the economically challenged Oakland A's. As Moneyball starts the A’s are limping out of a 102 win season, gutted by free agent losses and struggling to figure out a way to be relevant in the coming season. Enter Paul Brandt (Jonah Hill), a student of sabremetrics who reinvents the team under the auspices of statistical reasoning. Synopsis stated though, this is a film that uses baseball only as a sandbox. The opening of Billy Beane is the film’s true subject and Bennett Miller, Aaron Sorkin and Brad Pitt do an amazing job of bringing that vision to the screen. Pitt’s portrayal is of a charming, rash, exceptionally talented individual who needs to make amends for his poor decisions in life. He’s obsessed with fixing not only his team, but the egregious class differences of professional baseball. At the heart of the film isn’t Beane’s managerial style though, instead its about a man who has for most of his life hid behind the tragic moments of his life. Baseball is the cure for Billy Beane, and Moneyball tracks his recovery.

Aaron Sorkin’s script is just the right amount of fast talking Sorkin-speak, heart-felt moments, and ball-busting baseball talk for it to feel appropriately sports-film-like but still have a glistening edge. The true star of the movie though is Bennet Miller, who, with a masterful camera, tracks in on Brad Pitt’s increasingly craggy face, catching every up and down of one of the true geniuses of baseball’s oncoming arrival.


The Lesson:

Baseball fan or not, this is a great film.



- Noah Sanders -



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