Moe: Hey, Joe? It's me, Moe. Your turn to make a movie suggestion. Been to any good movies lately?
Joe: Yeah, I've seen several worthwhile pics. What are you in the mood for?
Moe: Oh, something with some action – probably not anything you'd call sweet.
Joe: Well, how much of a baseball fan are you?
Moe: Not much at all. Why?
Joe: Actually, it doesn't really matter whether you love baseball or not. This new movie Moneyball has baseball as the subject, but it's really about perseverance and dedication.
Moe: Is that the one with Brad Pitt?
Joe: Yeah, Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, who's the general manager of the Oakland Athletics – has been for more than 10 years.
Moe: So what's it about? Is it a true story?
Joe: Basically it is. Beane was hired to get the A's out of their funk. Beane then hired a young assistant named Peter Brand who had some radical new ideas about running a baseball team. Brand thought it was worthwhile to abandon the traditional basically intuitive approach to running a team and concentrate on numbers – to find guys who could get hits and get on base and help win games. So that's what Beane did. He traded a couple of prima donna players and put the new plan into effect. Everyone hated it at first, including the club manager, but Beane wasn't intimidated. The fans were really critical for a while, too. But then the A's started winning – and kept winning.
Moe: Sounds pretty interesting. How does Brad Pitt do in the role?
Joe: Quite well, and so does Jonah Hill, who plays Peter Brand. Brand was a young guy who'd never had a baseball job before. Actually he was fresh out of college and had never really had any kind of job before. Anyway, both Pitt and Hill do effective acting jobs.
Moe: So what about the title? Why is it called Moneyball?
Joe: Well, I think it's because Beane wasn't really interested in the money aspect of the job. He'd been offered a really lucrative job with the Boston Red Sox but turned it down. Money plays a big role in the baseball business, but it wasn't the important thing for him. He wasn't a moneyball type.
Moe: Is there anything Christian about it?
Joe: Not in so many words, no, but it has a good reflection of some Christian values. Beane is divorced and only sees his daughter part-time, but he thinks the world of her – so the whole movie emphasizes the idea of being an active father. And then there's the idea of making a commitment to something and sticking with it no matter what. Remember the scripture that says, "Many are called; few are chosen"? It turns out that Billy Beane was regarded as a major prospect for playing major league baseball, but when he actually got on a team, he just couldn't perform. But that didn't stop him from finding another part of the game he could excel at. He persevered.
Moe: Any negatives to the movie?
Joe: Yeah, the language. I heard a couple uses of the f-word and a bunch of examples of the s-word. There are other crude parts too. But if you can get past those things, you should enjoy it. It's up for several Academy awards.
Moe: OK, Joe, you've convinced me. How would you rate it?
Joe: I'd say about 3 ¼ stars. It's rated PG-13, so you could take older kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment