Since we’re at the All-Star break, it’s time to take another look at my list of 10 Best Baseball Movies.
Eight Men Out
Best Sports Movies
Both of my recommended surfing films are mentioned in my Best Sports Movies. I have a list of 10 Best Sports Movies and also a top movie for each sport. What’s my top pick for a basketball movie? Or football? Or wrestling? Or skateboarding? Or rowing? Or shuffleboard? Is shuffleboard a sport?
Here’s a clip from my pick for best bodybuilding movie. You will probably recognize this guy.
Movies To See Right Now
The “must see” films in theaters remain Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3. Winter’s Bone has been out for a while, so, if you haven’t seen it in a theater, you’d better see it soon. For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
It’s summer vacation, so I am letting people catch up with my most recent DVD recommendations: Eight Men Out, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl on the Train, John Adams and The Deep End. For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.
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The Crying Game
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Movies on TV include The Crying Game and Before Sunrise on IFC this month. Freaks, Soylent Green and 12 Angry Men are coming up on TCM.
The Golden Age of Baseball Movies
More excellent baseball movies were made between 1984 and 1994 than in any other period: The Natural, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, Field of Dreams, Major League, A League of their Own, Angels in the Outfield, The Scout, Cobb and Ken Burns’ Baseball.
Why didn’t this trend continue? My guess is that Major League Baseball lost the hearts of Americans during the MLB Strike of 1994-95. That Strike even forced cancellation of the entire postseason, including the 1994 World Series.
Before the Strike, my kitchen and auto radios were always tuned to the station that broadcast my favorite baseball team; those radios are tuned to NPR now. I was familiar with every regular player, starting pitcher and key reliever in the National League; I’m not any more. The Strike made me go cold turkey and killed my baseball habit.
By the measures of revenue and attendance, MLB has been even more successful since the strike, but I don’t believe that it is loved as much as before.
It was also a key time in American sports culture – as baseball was being eclipsed by soccer as a youth sport and by the NBA and NFL as a spectator sport. Baseball did not understand how vulnerable its place in American culture was.
Americans have been burned once – and severely burned – by baseball. We will go the ballpark as an entertainment event, but no longer from devotion to the sport and our favorite teams. That devotion – which so warmly received the baseball movies of 1984-1994 – is no longer there.
This week's Movies To See
The “must see” films in theaters remain Winter’s Bone and Toy Story 3. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is good, too. For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.
My DVDs of the week are Eight Men Out (for the MLB All-Star Game) and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (because its sequel The Girl Who Played With Fire has been released. For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.
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Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise
Movies on TV include The Firemen’s Ball, The Crying Game and Before Sunrise and on IFC this month. Freaks, Soylent Green and 12 Angry Men are coming up on TCM.
DVDs of the Week: Eight Men Out and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
This week, I have two recommended DVDs.
At the All-Star break, it’s time for a baseball movie, so I recommend John Sayles’ 1988 Eight Men Out, which tells the true story of the Black Sox Scandal – the Chicago White Sox players who fixed the 1919 World Series. Sayles used actors, not baseball players, but the baseball scenes are totally authentic. The characters of star players Eddie Cicotte, Buck Weaver and Shoeless Joe Jackson and owner Charles Comiskey vividly come alive.
Also, because its sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire is opening in theaters, there’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, one of my Best Films of 2010. It’s a rock-em, sock-em feminist suspense thriller built around the very original character of damaged, angry, master hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). Lisbeth makes Dirty Harry look like Bishop Tutu. The Swedish title was Men Who Hate Woman, and there’s lots of violence against women in this film, satisfyingly avenged. This is a whodunit with layers of romance, suspense, and sex, with even some Nazis thrown in.