I have no prior relationship to this movie. I've known about it, but just never got around
to watching it during its heyday. I
didn't watch an R-rated movie until I was a teenager, and we were into Nicolas
Cage's action period by then, so a sports movie with a raunchy reputation
didn't register. I clearly missed the
right period to watch Major League. This
did not work for me at all. It's just a
sports movie, marketed as some kind of breaking-all-the-rules story with
F-words. It follows the same
patterns,
same jokes, same big moments. I have no
idea why you all have rated it so highly.
Was this movie supposed to be funny? I kept a running total of times I
laughed. It was once. I laughed once. Early in the movie, when there's a quick
montage of Cleveland-ers talking about how bad the team is, the Japanese guys
got a chuckle out of me. That was it. The announcer interplay was alright, but it
was all in Uecker's delivery, not anything funny he was actually saying. Compared to his blernsball announcing career,
this was a footnote. Wesley Snipes's
dancing around was solid physical comedy, but that was more an admiring smirk
than a laugh. How could this be so
devoid of humor? I've got comedies in my
all-time top 50. I have a good sense of
humor. Where was any of that here? The average episode of Breaking Bad has more
laughs than this, and that's one of the most depressing shows ever made. How is this regarded as a classic comedy?
If the comedy side is a near-failure for me, how about the
sports side? Better, but still not great. The owner-as-villain is a fine idea, but the
stakes are whether or not she's going to be able to move the team to
Miami. In the late 80's, that sounds
like a great idea. Forget Cleveland, go
to Miami, by all means. There's so many
Latinos down there, they should have a baseball team. Setting aside my disinterest in the stakes,
building the team had some potential, but it's all start and finish with no
middle. Vaughn's got an arm but no
control, Hayes has running speed but no bat, Cerrano has power but can only hit
easy pitches. Raw talent and no polish. I'm with the movie here. Talent will only get a person so far, but
they have to layer the technique on top of it.
The movie walks away from this because there's too many players to
service and everything just gets magically solved. There was a real movie in bridging the gap
between talent and technique, but just slap some glasses on Vaughn, Cerrano
curses Jo-Bu, and everyone's an all-star.
This made it look incredibly easy to be a professional player. The actual beats of the movie could not be
more predictable. Of course Dorn's going
to encourage Vaughn on the mound. Of
course they're going to play the Yankees at the end, and each player will get
their big moment. It was so transparent
that it became boring.
Back on the stakes, the goal line isn't win a pennant; it's
sell greater than 800,000 tickets. The
ticket mark gets totally lost. The
journey of the movie shouldn't be about winning pennants; it should be about
making the city love them. The players
have either seen better days or they're scruffy outsiders, overlooked by
everyone else and hoping for another chance to play the game they love. There's a solid metaphor in there about the
decaying Rust Belt, but instead, it's just generic Let's-Win-It-All
boilerplate. Semi-Pro nails this kind of
movie, though it has other problems.
That team isn't going to win anything, but what they can do is give
Flint, MI a little bit of pride for one night.
That's a movie that is putting a twist on the sports genre, instead of
riding every cliched thing about it into the ground.
So, I didn't like it as a sports movie either. Any memorable characters or relationships in
there? I've praised Uecker's voice
already, so there was that. Vaughn is a
non-entity, a supposed bad-boy who doesn't do anything in the movie to earn the
reputation. Hayes is probably my
favorite, but apparently, all he needed to become a professional was a bunch of
push-ups. He's not developed any further,
and he somehow is hitting .291 by the end.
Taylor is pretty much a hangdog douchebag. We talked about stalking in the Fisher
King. At least Parry just tailed Honey
Bunny. Taylor walks into what he thinks
is Rene Russo's twice. No knock, no
call, no buzz. He just walks in. That is creepy as hell, and I'm not rooting
for him to finally get it together. The
manager is a standard, gruff authority figure.
This movie has a difficult relationship with what's viewed
as acceptable today. I can't decide if
everything around Cerrano is racist or not.
The owner slapping his naked ass and the jungle music behind him are
pushing things in one direction. Holy
shit, how did this manage to get made without Indian protests? Uecker uses every euphemism and stereotype in
existence to liven up his broadcasting, plus the imagery of fat white people
dressing up in feathers, red face paint, and rain dances. The depiction of the owner is pretty rough,
especially the cut-out of her that they slowly remove pieces from. Apparently, there's an alternate ending in
which she's revealed as a die-hard fan who voluntarily placed herself as the
villain to rally the team. She personally
scouted all these deep cut players, and has to make excuses for the shitty
planes and buses because the team was actually bankrupted by her useless dead
husband. That is such a better movie,
and it solves the problem of how these players are all so good so suddenly, but
test screening revealed that audiences liked the character better as a
vindictive bitch, so that's what they went with. Wonder what's going on there.
It wasn't a total wasteland.
An epic shot of Vaughn getting off his motorcycle was fine, and I hate
Charlie Sheen. There's a prescient line about
celebrity that very much applied to the Sheen of the late 2000's, full of
cocaine, domestic abuse, and tiger blood.
Cerrano's big home run is stirring, but the movie doesn't get a lot of
credit for that, because that moment can only be stirring. I actually laughed twice. In a big climactic moment, the director cuts
to a yawning kid. Probably an accident,
and not really earned by the movie, but I enjoyed that fuck-up. Vaughn's red ticket and Taylor's bunt were
nice twists. That's all the good I have
to say about this. Completely
forgettable. Not funny. An utterly average sports movie, which is a
genre I'm not a big fan of already. Get
out of the top 30, Major League. You're
a D+.
I’m taking a different angle with this review than most of my past reviews. Rather than spending the bulk of my time discussing the various plot points and what-not of this movie, I want to revisit a couple things Kissel said. Most specifically, his opening line:
ReplyDelete“I have no prior relationship to this movie. I've known about it, but just never got around to watching it during its heyday.”
I think this is a very important thing to remember for Kissel’s review. I can already see a handful of you bashing Kissel’s review and questioning his sense of humor. We haven’t picked a comedy in my time in the group (mainly b/c Kissel said we should avoid them… Yet here we are, discussing a comedy he picked), so I haven’t gotten to rant on my main hypothesis with regards to the genre. “Major League” and Kissel’s review help to prove this hypothesis: comedy doesn’t age particularly well, and movies like “Major League” garner their positive reviews primarily from nostalgia.
Personally, I find “Major League” pretty damn funny. Then again, I saw it for the first time in 1995. Until then, there hadn’t been a lot of raunchy comedies, especially in sports; maybe “Bad News Bears” and a handful of others, but not many. I’m well aware that most of my laughs came from the fact that I’ve seen the movie multiple times. Hearing Harry call Vaughn’s horrific pitch “JUUUUUUST a little outside” and Jake saying he’s back with the Indians b/c he “couldn’t cut it in the Mexican league” will make me laugh every time. That’s probably because I’ve seen those scenes 20 or 30 times. I’m actually not surprised Kissel hated it – movies with goofy characters rely on multiple viewings to be funny, b/c everything becomes more funny when the context of the character is fully known. A perfect example of this is “Anchorman.” I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed leaving a theater. Now, it’s one of my favorite comedies of all time, and it benefits from the audience knowing the beats.
Which brings me to the bigger point: time. Comedy is constantly being iterated on. Limits are pushed further and further each year and there is a heavy reliance on pop culture. Stuff that was crazy at the time is tame by today’s standards. Ooooooh they said “fuck” a lot. Big fuckin’ deal now. How about that “You Know Us” American Express commercial? Who under 28 knows what those even are? Comedy simply does not age well. Did anyone here fuck up and see “Animal House” after seeing “Old School?” If you’re like me, you probably thought “Animal House” was an over-hyped piece of hot garbage. It takes an extremely special comedy to age well. “Major League” is not extremely special, but it’s very good to those of us who caught it when it was still in the zeitgeist.
That's a good point about Anchorman. I felt pretty much the same way as you did on first watching, and I feel the same way now. It's possible the same thing could be happening now with Major League, but I'm not optimistic. The comedy in Anchorman is so much more joke-dense compared to Major League, which has whole sequences without anything approaching jokes.
DeleteThe 'no comedies' is just a recommendation, because like you said, it's ultra-subjective and can be harder to talk about.
I actually avoided Anchorman for a long time because everyone hated it. I only rented it because I saw a special on a flight to Japan that shared that it was almost entirely improv. I was all in. And that movie delivered.
DeleteAs an aside, comedy isn’t the only thing that suffers from this. The same can be said for music. Whenever anyone under 37 tells me their favorite band is The Beatles, I always ask the same two questions: 1) Are your parents huge Beatles fans and 2) Do you go to a lot of concerts. I almost invariably get the same two answers: yes and no. That tells me they just aren’t a big fan of music in general and they’re purely tapping into nostalgia. They choose the Beatles b/c it’s a fairly inoffensive answer and they don’t have much more to draw on. I got bad news for you: The Beatles have been iterated on. If you asked an alien to listen to the Beatles and Oasis and asked the alien who the better band is, it would pick Oasis. Same applies to (and you have no idea how much this hurts me) Led Zeppelin and Wolfmother. And Animal House and Old School. And probably Major League and… Man, do they even make baseball comedies anymore? My point remains – classics are iterated on. If this was a bad thing, we’d all still be driving Model T’s. End of rant.
ReplyDeleteOnto the movie itself, and Kissel brings up several good points here. I like Kissel’s idea of trying to get the town to root for them. The writers tried to generate tension within the team to fill the void between baseball scenes, but it was mostly extremely cheap and didn’t help to further… well, anything. Same can be said for every female character involved. You could have cut every female (save the owner) and had the same movie. Adding tension within the team was pointless, and adding worthless romantic subplots were probably just there for “cross appeal.”
I also thought the movie relied too heavily on “characters.” I love several of the periphery characters, like Pedro Cerrano. He’s on screen for the right amount of time. Wild Thing is a great one-note character too, but he should not be someone I’m seeing on screen for 85% of the movie. Jake is the only character that can handle that load, and he’s stuck with that nutty stalker subplot. There were far too many fluff scenes with characters that should have been part of a larger ensemble.
But this movie has several things going for, nostalgia notwithstanding. The baseball scenes are very good. Charlie Sheen can actually throw an 85 MPH fastball. Anyone who watched Eastbound and Down knows not to take good sports scenes for granted. The movie also passes the “channel surfing test” with flying colors. If I’m flipping channels and stumble across this on cable, I’ll stick around and wait for a scene I like. This movie as several great scenes… it’s the fluff in the middle that kills it from being great.
I enjoy “Major League” but I understand why anyone who has never seen it would have issues. The humor is very effective with multiple viewings, and once you know the characters, you’re laughing at their mannerisms moreso than any one-liners. There are some major plot issues, as the writers clearly didn’t care how they got from scene to scene. This movie is an A+ in channel surfing, but definitely suffers when trying to sit down and watch it.
+ Hilarious if you caught it when it was in
+ Great cast of characters
+ Baseball scenes are fantastic
- Plot is a mess
- Heavy reliance on one-note characters
Grade: B
First, it's "Juuuuust a bit outside." and I use that line all the time. It's in my top 3 movie lines of all time. Might be my number 1!
ReplyDeleteI'm not just being a baseball homer here either. For the Love of the Game and Trouble with the Curve are terrible movies.
The most important part of Major League is that the baseball part works fantastically. I think one could argue its baseball scenes are among the most realistic. Phil already mentioned Sheen can throw. Dorn can actually field and had to purposely make errors. http://www.bromygod.com/2014/04/10/15-fun-facts-movie-major-league/
Bob Uecker steals the show in this one. I'm probably entirely bias here as I like baseball on the radio more than on TV and almost as much as being there. Through and through his commentary is spot on and hilarious.
I could watch this scene on repeat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_wc9JvTXGc . Funny counts...
1) Bad bounce to the face
2) "Nice throw dickhead"
3) Talking to your bat
4) "Vaughn a juvenile delinquent in the offseason"
5) "Juuuust a bit outside. He tried the corner and missed."
6) "Ball 4, ball 8"
7) "How's your wife with my kids?"
8) "No way, too high"
Now I just happened to youtube one of the best scenes but I think it's fairly representative of the entire movie. The players are funny, the coach is funny, and the fans/staff are hilarious.
I'm happy to forgive the Jake Taylor (catcher) scenes because watching a washed up baseball player chase his dream and his girl is worth watching in the same way the movie "Sugar" is worth watching. This one is just a bit cheesier.
One of the unheralded parts of the script is that they don't win it all. Too many movies (especially sports) always have supreme happiness at the end.
I'm super excited for the commentary on this one as it's one of my top 20 movies of all time. I could watch it over and over and over.
Response to above:
"Who the hell is Wolfmother?" and shouldn't that be two words? My problem with the Tweedle Dee's reviews is a lot of being told things rather than opinion. Beatles aren't my favorite, but I like them and I don't go to concerts because they're not as good as the Beatles :-)
I mentioned this on FB, but complaining about how did they improve during a 2 hour movie is a bit strange. Also, things are pretty tidy in terms of opponent and clutch situations, but having witnessed entirely too many professional sports seasons, Major League, is well within the range of possibility.
Stopping because I refuse to ever write a 2 part review.
Way to not state a grade for the 2nd straight review Hartman. I know it's on the spreadsheet, but what if someone stumbles onto this blog one day without access to that spreadsheet? WHAT THEN?!?!
DeleteI know, I know.
DeleteAnyway, our spreadsheet is probably more valuable than all of Netflix's review data.
For me, accurate baseball scenes just aren't going to register. I'm not going to recognize them for what they are, and I don't think it matters a lot anyway. All kinds of movies strive for realism. There's a movie called Primer that feels very accurate to garage science and engineering, but that's a pretty boring process and can't make an interminable, confusing movie any better. My problems with Major League are structural. Accurate baseball scenes are like a well-decorated bathroom in a falling-apart house.
DeleteBut that well-decorated bathroom does give the house whatever bit of value it can. If dubbing can bring down a grade, when it's not even the original/intended audio, then how can well shot and accurate sports scenes in a sport's movie not boost the grade some?
DeleteNow sure, if it's something don't even recognize, you can't use it in your grade... but it's still part of the movie that is done right and adds value to it.
Like you said, Bobby, I didn't recognize the strength of the baseball scenes, so it didn't affect my grade.
DeleteFirst and foremost, Jon, I am appalled and aghast at your displeasure of Major League. Then again, why is that shocking? We agree on very little; matter of fact, I could probably tell you where we agree: our passion for FIJI, James Buchanan's Presidential evaluation, desire for good discussion, and the awesomeness of boobs. That just about sums it up so with that in mind, I shouldn't be disappointed or surprised you hated this film. It clearly had something to do with your bias against Charlie Sheen. You (attempt to) cover it up by saying how you liked Platoon and both Hot Shots but it is pretty clear. It is ok. You can admit it.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with Phil about comedies and their inability to age well. There are a few that continue to stand the test of time but we can argue about those another time. That also may play a role in Jon's lackluster grade.
Is it the best movie of 1989 or sports film? Absolutely not. The answer to both questions is clearly Field of Dreams but Major League has incredible, witty one - liners that are quotable to this day. Current baseball announcers still use the "juuuuust a bit outside" line. Its reciprocity into our culture speaks to its importance to the culture. If you don't like a batter, a Dorn reference is made. "Strike this mother fucker out." Harris to Cerrano, "You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?" Brown to Dorn: "C'mon Dorn, get in front of the damn ball. Don't give me this 'ole' bullshit."
The point being made is its being quoted throughout sports and other aspects of our culture. I quote Major League in class. It is as culturally important as Caddy Shack.
Does all that make it a good movie? No because it isn't a good movie, but it is a pretty good comedy. Quite a bit of subtle humor that Sheen and Snipes bring out.
Memorable lines, good cast, good baseball scenes, and referenced today. I enjoy watching it when it's on. Solid entertainment.
Grade: B
"You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?" Brown to Dorn: "C'mon Dorn, get in front of the damn ball. Don't give me this 'ole' bullshit."
ReplyDeleteI chuckle just reading these lines.
A, debating an A+
Major League >>>> Field of Dreams
Major League ages spectacularly as professional teams still debate moving for money.
Couldn't disagree more. Field of Dreams is all about the complicated father/son relationship and paints it in a beautiful manner. Way better movie.
DeleteIf you like napping during movies.
DeleteYou need to watch good movies when you're awake and not half asleep.
DeleteYou need to recommend movies that don't take one from fully awake to half asleep.
Delete1. Major League
Delete2.The Natural
3. Bull Durham
4. Field of Dreams
104. For the Love of the Game. Totally agree with Bryan on that snoozefest
This counts as a 2nd part. Welcome to the 2 part review club!
DeleteI'll go:
Delete1. Field of Dreams
2. Bull Durham (although I blame this movie for baseball's unwritten rules BS)
3. Major League
4. The Sandlot (pure nostalgia here)
5. The Natural
6. Homer at the Bat
7. A League of Their Own
8. Bad News Bears
9. 8 Men Out
10. 42
Should Not Be Watched
Trouble with the Curve
Mr. 3000
Summer Catch
Mr. Ed
The Scout
I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen Major League by now... but even watching it now, I still laugh, early and often. From Lou in the tire office, Rick on the prison phone, to most of what's going on during the first day of spring training. I think through out the movie there are enough laughs and smiles to hold off any issues with the plot.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are definitely plot issues. As noted, there probably should have been more focus on the attendance and city. And while we're given the sporadic fans around the city reactions, it really doesn't ever revisit the clause in the contract that everything is based around to begin with. Besides, if you want to limit attendance for a team, just jack up the prices to ridiculous levels. 800,000 people aren't going to pay $500 a ticket to see the Indians! Maybe it's because they had the alternate ending in mind, which I think would have been a little better. What kind of test screen groups did they have? Then there is Jake's side story, which is boring and pretty useless.
Other than the humor, there were some film making positives for me as well. The rivalry between Roger and Rick is introduced early, and set up for how it goes down later. Even Dorn's reaction... his confrontation with Cerano over the 'hats for bats' shows that he's all talk. Even after his spring training joke, he's crying to Lou more than anything. So even if the season wasn't on the line... Dorn's character was set up to react with no more than verbal threats.
Also, I love the baseball scenes. They were well shot and felt real. It's nice to see when the actors can actually display enough ability to make sports shots seem genuine. Speaking of realism... Jon pointed out Hayes' batting average implying that it was unrealistic and that he didn't develop as a player.. this made me wonder!
ReplyDeleteTime to bore some of you with a bit of baseball analysis, so feel free to skip this paragraph! We just so happen to have a player in real life now who mights as well be Willie Mays Hays in Billy Hamilton. Hamilton just hit .250 in his first full season, which is reasonable for a player with tons of speed, but iffy plate discipline. He hit the ball on the ground 50% of the time, but also 37% in the air. More balls on the ground go for hits in general, add in the elite speed those guys have and it's amplified. So it wasn't about the pushups/developing, but utilizing his best tool. If Hamilton had 22 more hits in those 152 games, he would have hit .291... only 22. A few flyballs turned into linedrives or groundballs, a few better jumps out of the box, etc. So we can probably assume Hayes' contact rate and groundball % was slightly better (thanks to the focus on it), and .291 is more than reasonable, or at least not unrealistic by any means!
Anyway, there isn't much left to say that hasn't been talked about already. Jake's bunt despite his knees was a great way to bring home the inevitable win, especially with those knees being a major topic all season. The movie is full of memorable lines... "you may run like Mays, but you hit like shit," "you saying Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball?" "Don't give me this ole' bullshit!" and of course, "JUST a bit outside!" among others.
This is simply a fun movie... with some entertaining characters and baseball. As long as you go into this movie willing to laugh, you will. I know there are plenty of movies/shows (or anything really) that I go into with a certain expectation.. and if it's negative there's a very good chance that's exactly how my experience will be. There may be a few surprises sometimes, but you normally set the tone before you even start a movie. From the first time to whatever time this was... I've been ready to laugh and it never fails.The horrible plot line keeps it from being a A-range movie, but my B+ stands.
What part(s) of the plot bothers you?
DeleteMy issue with Hayes is that he doesn't even get an invite to training camp. Whoever Billy Hamilton is, he likely had years of training in high school, college, the minors, or all of the above. Hayes just shows up, the movie doesn't give anything about his past (unless I missed something), and after one year, he's batting .291. Knowing very little about baseball, the equivalent in my head is scoring 10-15 ppg in the NBA. Fair assessment?
DeleteI liked the thread of raw talent at training camp, but I think the movie squanders it by not even having a montage of them getting better. They're simply better by the end. It wastes an opportunity to make the manager or the coaching staff more respectable. What does the manager do besides give an occasional speech and make Hayes do push-ups?
This is again a problem of stakes. They don't need to win the pennant, they just need to be beloved by Cleveland. If the stakes were what they were supposed to be, then Hayes doesn't have to be a world class base stealer, and Vaughn doesn't have to lead the league in strikeouts. The movie chooses to make them a great team, so it needs these training camp bums to suddenly be all-stars.
There's no reason to assume Hayes never played any kind of organized baseball. There are nearly 1500 players drafted every season, many get cut, some find their way back on to the radar via free agency, etc. NBA comparative....Rafer Alston went from And 1 to the NBA, eventually averaging 10-15 ppg, of course, he played in highschool and college, and he didn't do it in his rookie season (didn't get the playing time). It's reasonable to think Hayes played baseball in highschool, likely college or the low minors... that he was cut or was simply an undrafted free agent. Both happen. We really don't get any career background on anybody except for Jake (he was an all-start) and a tidbit on Dorn perhaps.... all of the new talent is left to the viewer's imagination. Some other coach at some level probably should have told Hayes to kit the ball on the ground, maybe they did and his ego didn't listen. And if you give absolutely no leeway in movies, you'll be left disappointed most of the time.
DeleteAgreed, they could have used some of the wasted Jake storyline to pay more attention to the baseball aspect, but I'm guessing they didn't want the entire movie on the field or in the clubhouse. And I wouldn't even call the Indians a great team... more so a bunch of motivated individuals with some skills that won a division, but nothing beyond that.
I do agree with the stakes, as they totally botched that plotline... but like many comedies, the plot really isn't vital for the enjoyment of the movie, at least for most people.
Great teams don't sneak into the playoffs and lose the division series. They're a good team with a great comeback.
ReplyDeleteIs it the execution of the plot or the plot itself bothering you two? To make Cleveland love the Indians they have to win, no way around it.
FYI. The real Indians were last in attendance tho year.
Is there anything about the plot that is positive?
DeleteThe team supposedly needs 800,000 fans tickets sold to stay in Cleveland. They've sucked for years, so sucking more probably isn't the issue. If she REALLY wanted to stay under the number she could have in a number of ways. Price point would guarantee it. So the plot itself is a bit iffy.
Then, they don't even go back to the attendance figures, do they? It's all based on a number of wins... which is what we do in Simulation baseball, but not how it necessarily works in the bigs. They would have either known long before the final game, if they were drawing 10,000 fans per game, and a division title wouldn't have mattered. So the execution of the already iffy plot didn't help either.
Major League is a classic, albeit flawed, movie. And that is fine. But I think how you view this movie is important in appreciating it. It's not a pure sports movie. It's not a pure comedy. It's a hybrid of both, though I think it leans more comedy.
ReplyDeleteThe movie has a lot going for it outside of simple nostalgia. First, the characters are interesting for the most part, though some don't ever get past being one-dimensional walking jokes.
Captain Jake Taylor is our everyman hero here. Unlike some other sports movies made in the Major League era, Taylor has some personality flaws. He parties too much. He's not smart. But goshdarnit, he's likable. He's relatable and an easy person to root for. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Ricky Vaughn's character is similarly interesting. An ex-con kid who can throw heat? Seems plausible. We end up seeing his youth being taken advantage of by Dorn's wife and for the most part his character makes sense. He's in a bit over his head and has no idea.
Roger Dorn is actually a person in this movie as opposed to in Major League II. He's a dick, though.
As a kid I always loved Willie Mays Hayes. That hasn't changed. Snipes pulls off uber cocky and athletic. And I'm not just saying this because of Blade Trinity.
I think James Gammon as Coach Brown is the guy who steals the show. His timing and gruff voice are perfect for the role.
Of course, even though he's pretty quotable, Cerano is a one-trick pony. He's just a scary foreigner, but at least he's good for some laughs and minor conflict. Team owner Rachel Phelps falls in this category as well (as does her assistant). I've never liked the Pehlps character and I've appreciated her less and less as I've gotten older. Chelcie Ross does what Chelcie Ross does best as grizzled veteran Eddie Harris: Character acting!
The sports scenes and knowledge really hurt this movie to me. Guys look out of place throwing and catching. The way spring training and whatnot was structured drives me nuts. Games barely make sense.
But I can get past that because this is mostly a comedy. Even in the climax of them winning, we get a laugh when Dorn slugs Vaughn and then picks him back up. Bob Uecker consistently kills it as the announcer. He gives us some narration that fits in with the movie and in each game. Sports movies often drive me nuts when they have announcers at events that should never have announcers. The Little Giants needed an announcer? Come on.
We also need to appreciate this era of when it was made. This movie counted as lewd and raunchy. As a generation that grew up on American Pie, it's hard to see Major League as risque.
Anyway, this is not a very good review because I'm tired after having family in town. But I'm settling on a solid grade here.
B
I like the way spring training is portrayed. It simply looks like an organization that has no clue what they're doing... which was Phelps plan (at least, with the ending we're given!). What about the games don't makes sense? Maybe I'm always too distracted to notice...?
DeleteTaylor's easy to root for until he just walks into his ex-wife's apartment uninvited. I'd bet in Ohio, she could have legally shot him.
DeleteI'm going to add that line to all my reviews.
DeleteIn Frances Ha when she made the whole restaurant wait for her to go to the ATM, in New York, they could have just shot her.
In Butch Cassidy, when he takes that other guys girl in the bike ride and steals the apple. In the wild west, they could have just shot him.
In Sea Inside when he bangs his head on the rock, it's Spain, could have just shot him.
P.S. Sometimes I think I'm hilarious.
ReplyDeleteP.P.S. I need more probability questions for tomorrow's test.
ReplyDeleteBetter late than never right!
I'll just address a few things you guys had problems with and why they aren't actually problems.
Rachel Phelps wants to move the team based on bad attendance and replace all the losers and ass-clowns she has assembled. You guys raised concerns that the attendance figure isn't brought up again and the players winning it all or not doesn't equate to "the stakes" Kissel likes to bring up in many of his movie analyses. The movie needed a villain to galvanize the team- when the team learned of her plot they looked around and recognized themselves as a collection of has-beens and guys who had never received or had earned a legitimate shot. It's the classic us against the world, nobody believes in us galvanizing mentality that so many real life sports teams rely heavily on and use to propel themselves to greater heights and gain an edge and enhance team chemistry. Hell, it’s part of Bill Simmons' sports gambling manifesto. These players don't care if the team ultimately moves to Cleveland they are aware this is the one last shot or only shot any of them will ever get and they strive to make the most of it. The movie isn’t about a city down on the dumps needed a shot in the arm, if you want that watch The Best of Times with Robin Williams and Kurt Russell about a city replaying a High School football game. This movie is about a ragtag group of ballplayers who come together and become a team that is greater than the sum of its parts. Kissel’s stakes argument doesn’t hold water because it’s not about the tickets, Phelps is only established as a villain to bring the players together.
The one liners throughout the movie are great and have been mentioned by everyone so I won’t go more into that. Just wanted to piss on Jon’s argument like Coach Brown pissed on Dorn’s contract. Now I want you to do some fucking situps tonight.
I’m sticking with my A
Sure... we can say the movie is about all of that (because the bulk of it was)... but then they shouldn't start the film with a montage of Cleveland with a song... about Cleveland, and set up the plot with an arbitrary attendance number if it wasn't actually going to play a part it in.
DeleteWhy not? The montage builds connection to the team. The relationship between the fans and the team is part of the movie.
ReplyDeleteIt he montage and the shit song is only to relate Cleveland to losing for those viewers who have never met Andrew Karl or heard the phrase "mistake by the lake" or are familiar with city championship droughts.
ReplyDelete*the montage not iit he.
DeleteDamn pastic covered iPad!!
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