Moneyball review

Since football season is all about waiting for something to happen, I went to see the Brad Pitt vehicle 'Moneyball' the other night.  It's a good flick, but ultimately flawed.  Here's my review:

I wanted to love Moneyball, I really did.  The book the film is based off of was one of the defining sports reads of my life (while I still disagree with much of it), it's a baseball movie (I'm a sucker for baseball flicks), and it stars Brad Pitt fer chrissakes ('Bon-jer-no').  I am, decidedly, this movie's target audience.  And yet, in retrospect, the film wasn't all that good.

To be clear, I had a great time watching it.  I got more chuckles out of the subtle jokes than many in the theater did, I was enthralled by the machinations of a clubs front office, and I ate up the beautiful presentation of the game I love.  Unfortunately, as a film, this beast was doomed from the start.

I could sit here and get picky, that Billy Beane would never have gone to the Indians offices to discuss a mid-level trade (where, in the film, he discovers the fictitious Peter Brand) or that the A's had built the "moneyball" system into the organization in the years prior to '02, but that would be nearsighted of me.  Ultimately, this film fails because it has nothing to build to.  

The character study of Beane, the acerbic A's GM, is brilliant and compelling (mostly 'cause Pitt is a fantastic actor), but there is no larger story arc.  The A's of the early 2000's are interesting only in respect to their ability to root out a store of under-valued talent that professional baseball had essentially never tapped.  While their example ushered in a new era of player evaluation and development, they lack the ultimate success, or shocking failure, that makes for a good story.  Outside of "Billy being Billy," there's really nothing to this film.  

Pitt is fantastic as Beane, yet he's driving the film to nowhere in particular.

The movie starts with the pain of losing to the Yankees in October. The audience is treated to moaning about how unfair the system is, and that the A's of the world have no shot against the villainous Yankees and their piles of cash.  Yet, when it comes time to resolve the story, the Yankees are nowhere to be found.  Instead, the climax of the tale ends up being an early September game against the lowly Kansas City Royals, in which the A's blow a 11-run lead, only to triumphantly walk-off... against the fucking Royals.  

Scott Hatterberg, played charmingly, yet briefly, by Parks and Recreation favorite Chris Pratt, hits his "dramatic" home run off the "great" Jason Grimsley.  I'm supposed to be entertained?  It's fucking Jason Grimsley!  I cannot stress this enough.  Beating the Royals during the century's first decade, no matter the context, does not make for good drama.

Pratt is awesome, but his climactic home run struck me hollow.

Maybe that's just reality letting down Hollywood.  The 2000's A's, despite plenty of against-the-grain success, never really achieved anything.  While in the book Beane rails about how foolish "old-school" GMs like My White Sox own Kenny Williams are, Beane never really had ultimate success to latch onto (While Williams, notably, did).  The truth is that Moneyball, or essentially a new way of evaluating talent, only granted the "have-nots" a few years of sneaking into the playoffs before the "haves" caught up to what was happening.  In retrospect, maybe the story should've been about futility; the ultimate tragedy of trying to pursue the Sisyphean task of trumping the Yankees with a sub-$40 million payroll. 

Regardless, Pitt is fantastic, and the flick is compelling enough to hold your attention throughout it's over 2 hour run-time.  See it, but don't be surprised if you find the final 30 minutes to be anti-climactic.

Monday Grab Bag: Football is back in business (almost)

In case you haven't noticed, it's frickin hot outside.  In response, I'm staying inside and getting some writing done.  I'll have my full thoughts on NCAA 12 and a look at the newcomers to the basketball program up later in the week.  For now, take a look at today's bag where I'll talk conclusion of the NFL labor dispute, My Sox selling at the trading deadline, and steroids being the greatest thing ever.

Click below for the bag...

Monday Grab Bag: Oscars, Buffs Win!, and Bears spending a lot of money

After a pretty solid weekend, there's plenty in the bag to discuss...

Oscars: While not necessarily germane to the blog, I am a major movie fanatic and I watch these every year. "The Hurt Locker" rightly smashed Avatar last night. A major technical achievement does not mean it was a great movie. I would've liked to have seen a little more payoff for "Inglourious Basterds," but I recognize that Tarrantino is caught in that nebulous place where he is too established to get the fresh face love, and not long-toothed enough to get the "achievement" love. Also, J-Lo looked like she was wearing bubble-wrap.

(How did she go all evening without popping it all? From: some blog via google image search)

Big CU win vs Texas Tech: Let me start out by saying that Saturday's win vs Tech was great to be at. Dwight Thorne closed out the Ricardo Patton era out with a win (he was the last RP recruit still playing), CU clinched the 8th seed and a rematch vs Tech in the conference tournament on Wednesday, and a nice crowd got a good show as Cory Higgins dropped 30 (vaulting into the top ten of all time CU scorers) and Al Burks threw in 24 (becoming the highest scoring freshmen in CU history). There were a few defensive lapses, but CU held strong in the 2nd half and wound up scoring 101pts, which was pretty cool. It's going to be hard to repeat this type of performance on Wednesday (usually teams struggle to win in the tournament against teams they just saw and beat), but I expect Coach Bz will get the team ready for the biggest game of their season. A win on Wednesday, and the NIT should call (Not to mention, another shot at Kansas).

(I'll miss ya, DW. From: BDC)

Texas Tech has 8 coaches: That's right, 8 coaches. They don't even list them all on their website, but there they sat on Saturday, 8 strong. It looked like a clown car was emptying when they came out of the locker room. All-in-all, Tech brought 8 coaches, 2 trainers, 3 broadcasters, and a towel boy (In addition to, you know, the players). I'm not entirely sure what they all do, after all, there's only so much coaching one person can provide. Hasn't Pat Knight ever heard of diminishing returns? Think of it this way: Tech scored 90 points on Saturday, so that's an average of 11.25 points per coach. Not very spectacular, especially when compared to CU's 20.2 points per coach (CU had 5 coaches on bench). Tech's 8 coaches sure haven't helped them much this year: Tech went from being ranked in the pre-conference season, to barely finishing over .500 overall. Just saying...

(That'd be them in the red polos. From: Me)

Cory shows his inner MJ: It's widely known that Cory Higgins practices over the summer with his father's friend and boss Michael Jordan. Knowing this, it's easy to notice a little of the MJ has rubbed off on him. On two occasions on Saturday, Cory drove down the baseline, and dunked over a defender that had been grabbing onto him. He'd hang on the rim while glaring at his opponent, as if to say "keep grabbing". Those were two spectacular FU dunks (The Jordan special). Usually, Cory appears to be a little laid back on the court. But, if you piss him off, he's got a fire and a glare that only MJ could've taught him.

Cubs Tax: I don't want to get to heavily into this topic, but essentially the Cubs are close to getting the State of Arizona to impart a tax on tickets for the rest of the Cactus League to keep them in Mesa, Arizona and build a new spring training facility. This past week, 4 teams (The White Sox, Reds, Angels, and Dodgers) boycotted some league-wide kick-off breakfast to protest this tax. You'd think that I'd be ready to burn down the Arizona Capitol over this, but, honestly, I don't care. My beloved White Sox already screwed over Tucson to move closer to Phoneix, and then had the gall to massively hike ticket prices (which, in turn, will keep me from attending Spring Training in the near future), so they don't have much of a leg to stand on. The only problem I have is the Cubs forcing the fans of other teams to pay for their new facility, rather than the other clubs. (The other clubs reap a big benefit from the traveling Cub fans going to the "road" spring training games). Do notice that now the Cubs are screwing over other fan bases, and not just their own.

The Bears sign every free agent: Over the weekend, the Bears made a big splash in the free agency market by scooping up TE Brandon Manumaleuna, RB Chester Taylor, and DE Julius Peppers. Lots of money going out of Virginia McCaskey's pocket there. It's nice to see the normally frugal Bears try to utilize free agency to actually improve the team (after trading away their entire draft last year in the stupid Cutler trade, did they have any other option?), but where's the wide receiver that is so badly needed? I guess getting a new receiver would just get Cutler to sulk some more, as he would surely throw even more interceptions trying to find his new play-thing down field.

(Someone's got a case of the Monday's)

MLB 2k10: I only have a x-box 360, so my sole baseball video game option is the 2k series. (Widely regarded as the superior baseball sim, MLB: The Show is a PS3 exclusive) I haven't been buying baseball video games over the past few years, but I decided to give this one a shot. I really like the pitching mechanics (you use your right stick to perform pitch specific motions), and the hitting system is O.K (I prefer the stick version to the button mashing of other series). The "My Player" mode (where you create a player and them try to take him from minors, to majors, to the HOF) is also kind of nifty. The opponent A.I, however, is a disaster. You have hitters swinging at 3-0 breaking balls, fielders not covering the line with 2 outs, and pitchers swinging away all the time. It's as if the makers of the game have no idea how baseball is actually played. I'm sure the game will provide hours of enjoyment, but, honestly, it's crap until they can make an A.I. system that actually plays professional baseball, and not sandlot crap.

Have a happy Monday!