Blogorium Review: Moneyball

 I'm a little perplexed by all of the attention Moneyball received during "Awards Season." It's not that the film isn't good (because it is) or entertaining (which it is as well), but the movie is inherently anticlimactic, and by necessity can't actually go anywhere at the end for any of the main characters. I get that the combination of Academy Award winners Steve Zallian (Schindler's List) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) with Academy Award nominee Bennett Miller (Capote) is going to get the attention of Academy voters, and they all do fine work. The cast also does fine work, and the story - based on Michael Lewis' Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, itself based the true story of Oakland A's manager Billy Beane - is an intriguing one.

  Beane (Brad Pitt) is facing the prospect of rebuilding the Atheltics after a crushing defeat that cost them a spot in the World Series, coupled with the loss of his three star players: Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen to teams that can pay them more. With no budget to work with, Beane is trying to make desperation deals with the Cleveland Indians when he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale economics graduate working for the organization. Brand has a different notion of how to build talent on a team, based on statistics and on base percentages, and Beane likes it. Almost immediately, they run into resistance - from the scouts, from manager Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), and from sports media insiders and pundits. Despite the pressure to do otherwise, they pick up Jeremy Giambi (Nick Porrazzo), David Justice (Stephen Bishop), and Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), all of whom have been given up on by other teams. But Howe refuses to play the lineup that Beane and Brand put together, and things don't go south quickly. Can the unlikely strategy turn around the Oakland A's and allow them to compete with teams who money to spend, or is Beane looking at his swan song as general manager of the team?

 In fact, the story behind Moneyball the film is almost as interesting as the actual story of Billy Beane's experiment on Oakland: the film was, up until 2009, a project Steven Soderbergh planned to direct, starring Brad Pitt with Demitri Martin playing Beane's actual assistant, Paul DePodesta (Peter Brand is a composite character). Soderbergh also wanted David Justice and Scott Hatteberg to play themselves, but Sony put the film on hold and let Soderbergh go, replacing him with Miller and hiring Sorkin to rewrite Zallian's draft.

 You don't necessarily need to know anything about the Oakland A's or Billy Beane to watch Moneyball, and I guess if you don't know anything about baseball at all - maybe the combination of Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and (to a smaller degree) Phillip Seymour Hoffman brought you in - then it might be surprise how it ends. That surprise, alas, doesn't seem to be one that people are really happy about. Moneyball is a somewhat atypical version of the "underdog" subgenre of sports pictures. A rag-tag group of misfits get together and try to do something different because what's in place doesn't work. They fail at first, but then against the expectations of everyone else, they begin an improbable journey to proving everybody wrong. You've seen it before, and Moneyball is basically that film, just based around the management side of baseball and less about the players.

 Except that (I guess this is a SPOILER) the Oakland A's don't win. They do break the single season record of 20 consecutive wins, but lose in the first round of the postseason to the Minnesota Twins. Like their loss to the Yankees the year before, it's a hard pill to swallow for Beane, but it does get him an interview with the Boston Red Sox, the team that hired away Johnny Damon the year before. They want him to come on board, and he decides to stay with Oakland. Two years later, the Boston Red Sox, using Beane's example, broke their 86 year long championship drought. They did it with a combination of the payroll that Beane didn't have and the sabremetric system (see link above).

 A few friends of mine have rightfully pointed out that it's just as rough for viewers as it is for the fictional Beane that not only does the precedent he put into practice not work for him, but the team that does use it successfully is the very team that took one of Oakland's star players. There's even a title card at the end of the film to tell us this, as Moneyball doesn't really know quite to to finish the story: Peter shows Billy footage that metaphorically describes what happened and then Beane drives through Oakland listening to a song his daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey) recorded for him. Moneyball's ending isn't ambiguous in a way that makes much of a difference, because the stark black and white title cards break the bad news to anybody watching the film that thought "well, maybe next year!"

 I don't actually like having to point out that Moneyball is a tease of a movie, one that is eternally heading in a direction it can't actually go, and one that the film itself has to grudgingly admit hasn't happened before the credits roll. Moneyball is a solid film with great dialogue, understated performances, and is compelling even when you know how things end. I like that Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane as kind of a dick, an aloof general manager who doesn't like traveling or associating with the players because he's going to need to trade them. He's not exactly a likeable character but you like him anyway, because he makes the best of a bad situation. He's also almost always eating something: I feel the need to point this out because I began to notice it halfway through the film and then couldn't stop paying attention to the fact that Pitt is constantly chewing on something during Moneyball.

 Jonah Hill is also very good and I guess un-Jonah Hill-esque as "Peter Brand," a guy who spends the first half of the film in awe of Beane and the second half trying to keep him engaged with the team's success. While I thought he was good, I don't exactly understand the nomination of "Best Supporting Actor" as the only real difference between Moneyball Jonah Hill and every other Jonah Hill performance is that he isn't cracking sarcastic jokes. It's a little like his character from Cyrus - a movie I really didn't like - but without the manipulative streak in that film. Hill was as good as Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Howe as a guy that doesn't get or approve of what Beane is doing but instead of being a jerk because he can, also makes the best of a bad situation. He thinks he's on the way out because Beane won't discuss renewing his contract, but instead of being vindictive, he plays the team that will help him get a job next year. Why Hill was nominated and Hoffman wasn't, I couldn't say. They're both as good as Pitt, who was also nominated for reasons I don't quite get.

 Now this sounds like I'm knocking Jonah Hill or Brad Pitt, and I'm not. I liked Moneyball, and I liked everybody in Moneyball and will probably watch it again, but I didn't see why the film was Academy Award material. There are really good movies that don't need to be nominated for Academy Awards, or aren't nominated, I guess I should say, and I'd put Moneyball in that category. It wouldn't make my "Top" list from 2011, but it would be in that bracket with Bridesmaids and Attack the Block and Conan O'Brien Can't Stop. To be fair, that's where I'd put The Artist, too, so that shows how much I understand about Academy Awards politics. What I'm saying is that you should check out Moneyball, even if you aren't into baseball, but understand that like real life, sometimes things don't work out, or necessarily end.

After all, Billy Beane is still in Oakland and this season he's decided to sign Manny Ramirez to a minor league deal with the option to play for the A's. Manny Ramirez played for the Boston Red Sox when they won the World Series in 2004 (and again in 2007). You never know - there might be a Moneyball 2 someday...

2010 Year End Recap, Part Three

An important note from the Cap'n: While every review available is included as a link, the placement of the film on these "year end" lists may not appear to reflect the review. As time passes, I have the opportunity to reconsider films, revisit initial reactions, and every now and then, change the way I feel about movies.

Finally, we come to day three, my favorite films of 2010. This comes with the caveat that I have not yet seen Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, a film that seems evenly split between ridiculously enthusiastic reactions and equally dismissive pans. Does that mean I should put the list on hold for Black Swan? Well, no, and here's why: I have a list of movies - a fine list, might I add - of films released in 2009 that I didn't see until 2010. They always, without fail, end up in what I call the "Lost in the Shuffle" list*. They have individual reviews, but I do not revise year end recaps to insert them into the conversation. With one exception, this list is comprised of films I saw in 2010 and reflects the year 2010.

These are, for me, the best films I saw in 2010. That may not make them the "best films" of the year, and I can assure you many of them won't be mentioned come "Awards Season," but they entertained, challenged, and confounded me long after the first viewing. As usual, links to the reviews will be provided, along with an asterisk (*) for films that had festival showings prior to 2010 but were not widely available until last year.

I hesitated putting these in an "order," but what the hell. You should see all of them, but since there are fifteen films, I'll put them from "favorite" to "very favorite" just to spark discussion. From the best to the best of the best:

15. Double Take* - The more I think about Double Take, the more I'm willing to overlook the artificiality of Grimonprez's "recreation" of the Hitchcock double meeting, not only because he announces the artifice by introducing the audience to the physical and vocal "doubles" early in the film, but because it's beside the point. This film, experimental in its storytelling, its premise, and its juxtaposition, does stick with viewers after the initial confusion wears off. A film that can do that belongs with the best of the year.

14. I’m Still Here - A film that would be higher on the list, were it not for an even more ballsy attempt at blending reality and fiction that doesn't show its hand. All the same, whether you view Joaquin Phoenix's downfall into misery and drug addiction as a "document" of true events or a film that rides the fine line between real and fantasy, it succeeds in making viewers uncomfortable, yet unable to turn away.

13. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus* - We may never be able to see what Terry Gilliam originally planned for audiences in 2009, but the end result - finished after the death of Heath Ledger - is nevertheless a valiant and visually fertile attempt to pick up the pieces and tell the same story. There's so much to recommend in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - the battle of wits between Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits, the execution of the inside of the Imaginarium, the ability of Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell to stand in as Tony - that I'm willing to overlook the scattershot manner the film tells its story. Gilliam, even when compromised, is always worth a look, and this is a step above The Brothers Grimm and Tideland by a long shot.

12. Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy - This documentary sets the bar for covering a series of films, and I sincerely doubt anyone will ever top it. As somebody who watched His Name was Jason, Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, and any other so-called "comprehensive" doc covering horror films, Never Sleep Again blew me away. At four hours, anything you could possibly want to know about the Nightmare on Elm Street series is covered, and that's not including the extra disc of content that covers EVEN MORE stories never before told. Even without Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette, and Frank Darabont, Never Sleep Again is so comprehensive, so addictive, and so frank about the making of this series that even casual Freddy fans will be able to keep it on for the duration. I guarantee this is the one film on this list least seen, and with as many horror addicts as there are that visit the Blogorium, I want to change that.

11. Piranha 3-D - A shameless explosion of gore, gratudity, mayhem, and B-movie acting, from the director of High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes. You won't come out of this film feeling smarter, or even with a greater critical acumen, but as 3-D exploitation goes, you're going to have to search long and hard to to better than Piranha 3-D.

10. Get Him to the Greek - In almost every way superior to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, of which this film is a spin-off. Get Him to the Greek never forgets that it has to be a rock and roll comedy, and as the wild rocker lifestyle of Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) spins out of control, so too does the film... but never to the point that it loses its heart, the bewildered but surprisingly balanced Aaron Green (Jonah Hill). More to the point, writer / director Nicholas Stoller never forgets that a comedy is supposed to be funny, and Get Him to the Greek is in abundance.

9. Shutter Island - The hate for Shutter Island astounds me, but it's there. People bag on Scorsese for making The Departed, and now are deriding his decision to embrace a technicolor laden exercise in pulp film-making. The twist is apparently the final straw, but I'm going to be honest with you: despite having guessed the twist before watching the movie, I was nevertheless riveted as the story unfolded. I don't understand why people hate the film, either as an exercise in homage or as a spiritual sequel to Cape Fear that nobody knew they needed. Give it a shot - either it will work for you or it won't.

8. The American - Since my initial review, I've seen a series of write-ups that insist Anton Corbijn is commenting on American foreign policy with this film. You could make the argument that yes, the concept of "I make the weapons but I don't use them and I get very defensive when you use them on me" is a direct criticism of the United States military complex. Fair enough, I suppose. Either way, The American can be appreciated as a excellently told story with fine performances, or as a critique masked as cinema.

7. Waking Sleeping Beauty - I don't really want to add too much more to the review. Waking Sleeping Beauty is exactly the documentary the Walt Disney company needed right no; its honesty is refreshing, its story is too amazing to be real, and its execution is refreshing in a world of "talking head" true stories.

6. MacGruber - I haven't laughed at a film this hard all year. Period. If you're still avoiding the MacGruber because it "looks stupid," or because somebody told you it probably sucked, rent it and find out for yourself. Then, after you buy it, show it to everybody you know that didn't see it.

5. Inception - I'm terrified to watch Inception again. So much of the film relies on allowing Inception to unfold in front of you, knowing nothing of what's to come, that any familiarity with the twists and turns could tumble the whole house of cards. That said, Christopher Nolan made a wildly ambitious film with ideas that stick around after the film is over, not to mention some set-pieces I've never seen before. It's technically impressive, well-acted, with an understandable "heist" narrative that kept audiences from feeling lost, but never holds your hand after setting up the rules. I'm not going to pretend its wholly original - nor will I play into the many "Inception stole from" arguments - and I really hope that this film is more The Prestige than Memento, where multiple viewings hold up.

4. Exit Through the Gift Shop - Did Banksy create Thierry Guetta? Does Mr. Brainwash really exist? How much of Exit Through the Gift Shop is designed and how much is document? I have no idea, and I don't care. The discussions that this film generates will be fascinating once more of you see it, but regardless of that, it doesn't matter unless Exit Through the Gift Shop can't hold up on its own, and it does.

3. True Grit - There have been reasoned, well argued points about my reaction to the potential racism in True Grit in the comments of my review, but I'm still not convinced that the individual instances don't point to a larger comment. That being said, I'm not saying Joel and Ethan Coen are engaging in racism so much as their ironic detachment in comedy is raising a point about systemic racism (at least in post-Civil War Arkansas). What I can't deny is that True Grit is an extremely well made film, a very entertaining movie that pushes violence beyond the PG-13 rating, and a film that, despite its history as a novel and very well known prior adaptation, manages to stand on its own in the Coen brothers body of work.

2. Best Worst Movie* - Best Worst Movie has been traveling from festival to festival since 2009, but had I seen it then, it would have been on my top films of 2009 list. As it was, I caught a screening of Best Worst Movie in New Mexico shortly before its DVD debut (the way almost everyone else saw the film) in 2010, so here it is. It's not necessary to have seen Troll 2 before you watch Best Worst Movie; if you see it on its own, chances are you'll seek out Troll 2 afterward. This is a fantastic "personal essay" film (my working moniker for documentaries where the filmmaker is central to the narrative) covers the cultural phenomenon of the "best worst movie" through the eyes of Troll 2's cast, crew, and fans, but particularly dentist George Hardy, who was in the film and moved on with life. Hilarious, disturbing, touching, and embarrassing, Best Worst Movie is easily my favorite documentary in a year of excellent non-fiction films.

1. The Social Network - Broadly speaking, the only thing I fear about seeing The Social Network again is a faint concern that Aaron Sorkin's dialogue might be "too" perfect: the scathing comebacks, the one-liners, the returning phrases throughout the film - I fear an off-chance it feels too clever for its own good. But even so, I can't wait to pick up The Social Network next week. I have no misgivings in recommending this film to anyone, and especially to people who think it's just "the Facebook movie." Trust me, it's not. The Social Network wasn't a movie made because it was temporally appropriate; it's a fully realized character study that covers events we lived through and weren't necessarily paying attention to. David Fincher's assured hand as a director marries with Sorkin's dialogue, and the cast - from Jesse Eisenberg to Andrew Garfield to Armie Hammer to Rooney Mara to Justin Timberlake - are pitch perfect. Does it have small faults? Yes, it does. Do they keep me from considering The Social Network from being my favorite film of 2010? Not even a little.




* For the 2009-10 list, that would include The Road, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Big Fan, A Serious Man, Black Dynamite, The House of the Devil, The Informant!, and the unfortunate An Education and I Sell the Dead.

Blogorium Review: The Social Network

This review arrives too late for the party, and for that I apologize. My decision to stick strictly with horror for the month of October meant that The Social Network, which I saw on October 3rd, was going to have to wait another four weeks before it could go up. The good news, as I see it, is that my two cents weren't necessary to keep people going to see what is, in fact, an excellent film; The Social Network has consistently appeared in the top ten Box Office performers since it was released, enjoys a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.4 rating on IMDB. This makes me happy, for reasons I'll discuss momentarily, but in order to justify reviewing The Social Network, the Cap'n will direct my comments to regular readers of this blog, many of whom I know haven't seen the film.

When I mentioned having seen The Social Network to friends of mine, there were invariably two reactions: 1) "Oh, I hear that's really good!" or 2) "Really? The 'Facebook' movie?" By now, most of them (and you reading) already know the background information - the film is based on how (and why) Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) created Facebook, how he, with the help of Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), effectively screwed Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) out of co-ownership of the company, and how Divya Nirendra (Max Minghella) and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (Armie Hammer) accused Zuckerberg of ripping off their idea.

You also probably have had someone bend your ear about how the Winklevoss twins (or, as Mark calls them, the Winklevi) are actually played by Armie Hammer and Josh Pence, who provides the body for Tyler with Hemmer's face digitally mapped over Pence's. You may have heard about the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, or you may simply know the film from its (in my opinion, effective) trailers, utilizing a cover of Radiohead's "Creep" and Kanye West's "Power." At the very least, everyone I've talked to knows that David Fincher directed the film, and some are aware it was written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Charlie Wilson's War). There are, however, also a few misconceptions about the film I've noticed.

The first seems to be tied to a strange backlash on David Fincher, based solely on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - which almost nobody saw, but apparently everyone seems to hate. It can't be residual hate from Panic Room, because people don't seem to remember Panic Room, and most of the people I talked about The Social Network to either really like or love Alien 3, Seven, The Game, Fight Club, and Zodiac. Since I didn't hate The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (it's not great, and probably wasn't an Oscar contender, but it's not the disaster everybody painted it as) I must confess that carrying this over to The Social Network seems a little harsh.

If the problem is Fincher's typical underlit, visually acrobatic aesthetic, then I feel the need to point out that The Social Network is anchored by that other force, namely Sorkin's script. For those not familiar with Aaron Sorkin, he writes dialogue that goes on for pages, filled with the kind of effortlessly clever banter you wish you had come up with but know isn't within you. Sorkin's gift is that he can fill a series (or a film) with nothing but characters who do that and still keep you emotionally invested. The Social Network is set up as a series of flashbacks, told during Zuckerberg's dual depositions with the Winkelvoss and Saverin legal teams. There's a lot of verbal jousting, and Fincher doesn't indulge in many crazy camera tricks, although it would be unfair to say the film is uncharacteristic Fincher. I'd refer you to Zodiac, which is also based on a true story.

Speaking of which, many of the people who call it "The 'Facebook' movie" have also expressed disinterest to me because they feel they already know the story: socially awkward geek creates social network - isn't it ironic, don't ya think? That's maybe the kernel of the story, but Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg is so far from interested in "fitting in" once the film gets rolling that you're invested in him, Saverin, the Winklevoss twins, and (to a degree) Parker that the levels of subterfuge, betrayal, and shades of gray on everyone's part become fascinating.

It's also important to point out that, in The Social Network at least, Zuckerberg is ultimately less interested in the actual networking than he is the programming and potential of Facebook as a concept. There is one shot of Mark adding a "friend," tied directly to an argument he has with his girlfriend at the beginning of the film, Erica Albright (Rooney Mara), the only thread in the film which I found problematic. It does make it possible for the easy characterization of The Social Network, and in some ways it undermines the original argument in the first place.

Albright and Zuckerberg are having a conversation where the two of them are operating on different levels, and the inability to bring those threads together is what splits them up. But that's not because Mark is awkward and Erica isn't; it's because what they want out of Harvard are at odds with each other. When she leaves him, Albright says "You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole," which is at the center of almost every conflict that Mark has during the film. Does he use the Winklevoss twins? Does he betray Saverin? Does he put Parker's connections above his business partners? Yes, but there are moments in the film where Eisenberg plays regret and betrayal at the flip side of those questions.

Let's move on to the acting, briefly, because I do want to talk about the film itself and not simply defend it from generalizations. Slowly and quietly over the last few years, Jesse Eisenberg has become an actor to keep an eye out. The first time I saw him, in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, I hated him (by virtue of the character he played), and during the rise of Michael Cera after Arrested Development, comparisons seemed to be everywhere. Honestly, I haven't seen Scott Pilgrim (or many of Cera's movies), but I think I'll take Eisenberg. If nothing else, he's more versatile and takes the "asshole" in Mark Zuckerberg, complete with Sorkin zingers, and invests you in his story. Zuckerberg could easily be the villain of The Social Network (and a lot of people argue that he is), but Eisenberg shifts that distaste halfway through one of the Saverin depositions.

Andrew Garfield has a very similar track record with the Cap'n, in that I disliked his character so much in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus that the news he would be the new Spider-Man gave me no sense of interest whatsoever. I'm actually much more on board with Garfield because of his Eduardo Saverin, who has the "put-upon friend" role and is saddled with one of the worst Facebook related scenes in the film (the dreaded "relationship status update"), and gives him life and depth. Eduardo puts a lot on hold because of Zuckerberg, and his abandonment doesn't make much sense to either of them.

It happens because of Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker, the creator of Napster and a character that seems to be more of a huckster at first. What's so impressive about Timberlake is that he never overplays the dubious side of Parker (which would be very easy considering where Parker ends up in the story of Facebook) and for a while, you genuinely believe his enthusiasm for Zuckerberg's idea is altruistic. And, as Sorkin writes it, it is. He's just also has paranoid delusions and has a bad habit of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This review is getting long, and I haven't even scratched the surface; the fantastic Armie Hammer, who plays Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss so distinctly that you never doubt that both of them exist on-screen; Rooney Mara, who has a lasting impression on the film that almost erases the bad taste she left in my mouth after A Nightmare on Elm Street; the crackerjack deposition scenes; Fincher's use of light to punctuate the typical "dark, fluorescent" visual palette of his other films; the way Sorkin's screenplay slowly doles out information that would change impressions of earlier scenes.

I was very impressed by The Social Network, in just about every respect. Yes, there are one or two things that don't quite work, and there's definitely a slightly misogynistic undertone to the film, but I don't feel that it's fair to characterize The Social Network as just "the 'Facebook' movie." It's like saying Zodiac is just "the 'serial killer' movie," which it's not; it's the backdrop of a far more interesting character study. That is, by the way, an absolutely fair comparison, because each one is very much a David Fincher film. None of you jumped on Fincher for the pre-millenial angst of Fight Club, which is as (arguably) on the nose as making a film that takes place seven years ago, as The Social Network does. So go against those gut instincts to avoid the film; I really do think you're going to be surprised, even if you go in with pre-conceived notions. Well written, acted, and directed films can have that effect on you*.


* Although I have to admit that I feel somewhat hesitant to include this review as a "Status Update" on Facebook.