More Cowbell

Apologies for not updating - I was away this weekend up at the Second College Grant wading in ice cold water and hiking with an ecology class. No joke. Me. Hiking.

This blog, like many of my other ones, will have something to do with baseball. But only tangentially.

The movie "Fever Pitch" is now out, and I think few Red Sox fans, or any baseball fans for that matter, have forgiven the Farrelly Brothers for letting Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore out of their cages and onto the field during last year's now legendary playoff run.

But my issue today is not with the movie, as bad as it might be. No, my issue is with the critics. Everyone can be a critic, but I'm going to take that a step further and criticize the critics.

With a movie about baseball, the easy way out in terms of writing a lead-in or an attention drawing phrase is a baseball pun or reference. It's too easy in fact, and the plethora of these are enough to make one scream. The following are but a few examples. Some are really, really . . . poor.



"In many ways, "Fever Pitch" is the Milwaukee Brewers of movies. It has some potential, but it will lose more than it wins."

""Fever Pitch is a minor league movie where a major league movie is needed and desired." - WaffleMovies.com

Okie Dokie . . . the first one is awkward enough, but the second one? Is the major league movie we all need Major League IV?

"With an all-star lineup that includes directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly . . . ." - Michael Rechtstaffen, HollywoodReporter.com

Alright, I guess that makes sense . . .

"given their source material, it should have been an easy home run. Instead they scored on a walk." - Steve Rhodes - InternetReviews.com

Now, this is a bit much. They scored on a walk? They were already standing on third with the bases loaded? If you say so.

"Sometimes hitters can get caught just looking at that curve fall in for a strike, and all they can do is wonder how they fell for something so light. Plenty of people will leave Fever Pitch with that feeling." - Ward Triplett III, KC Star

This guy seems to have problems dealing with the fact that his name is Ward Triplett the Third, but it's not much of an excuse. Metaphor is one thing. The quote above is something more monstrous.

"The Curse of the Bambino lives. And by now, it's spread to the backlot." - Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

I'm not even sure what that means . . . .

"This is, at best, a distinctly low-grade 'Fever.' If not a foul ball, barely earns a single." - Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion

I suppose this is a little better because he mixes up the punning. But still, if the movie is a bloop single, this byline is a foul-tip off the top of one's shoes. Sorry, I guess I couldn't resist either.

They go on and on if you check out rottentomatoes.com, in different incarnations of metaphor, but these are a good mix of chuckle-inducing and downright awful.

What's a good review contain then? Let's see. . . .

We need to know the stars. Check. Big name Director? Check. Everyone gets these.

It would be good to know that it's based on a book by the guy who wrote "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy". Also that it was already made into a movie starring Colin Firth a few years ago, only with soccer instead of baseball. For some reason, not everyone talks about this.

Also, the writers are pretty important in this case. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel wrote "Splash", "A League of Their Own", and some other stuff. Personally I think someone whose first name is Babaloo is probably either a witch doctor or a lounge singer, but if that's what it takes to be a good script writer, maybe I should try. Being a witch doctor lounge singer. Witch doctor by day, lounge singer by night? Or is it the other way around? I digress. . . .

Does the movie succeed in what it tries? In other words, if it's a romantic comedy, does the audience laugh? Curiously enough, some reviews don't dwell too long on WHY we don't laugh a lot, or why the movie succeeds. Some reviews go overboard on the history of baseball, others dwell too much on the writers and others on the directors. Still others bash Jimmy Fallon or the genre instead of the movie, etc. etc. In other words, a lot of critics let their own biases get in the way of writing any sort of informative review.

Finally, a take home message is optional, but pretty standard. At the worst, these include things like "This movie could have a been a home run. But it's not, making me wonder what it takes to write a good romantic comedy these days." At best, they're like the following:

"Complete with season update chapter titles, the film wraps its romance around watching baseball, without actually becoming a sports movie. Told entirely from the perspective of a normal guy sitting in the stands, it’s more a standard romantic comedy that happens to have baseball in it. The Red Sox are just this script’s chosen obsession; you could plug any old geek fantasy into it and get the same result. Ben could just have easily been a crazed Star Wars fan, or perhaps one of those freaks that’s way too into wrestling. The Sox work because the team and its fans have been in the news, and because everybody has a deluded sports fanboy somewhere in their family tree. Being obsessed with sports is more socially acceptable than dressing up as Obi Wan Kenobi, though I submit no more or less unhealthy. No one wants to date a guy wearing Spock ears, but women are willing to put up with a wardrobe composed entirely of Yankees jerseys. Life is so unfair." - Joshua Tyler, Cinemablend.com

Awesome. It's a little long, but as part of the review, it gets the job done. It's not enough of a sports movie, and too much of a standard romantic comedy. AND, it delivers a bigger message: Fanaticism is fanaticism. This movie would have been worse if it was about a White Sox fan, for example, but this one works for a reason. AND the geek commentary is humorous. Great writing.

Tyler also goes into the stars and the writers, and inserts criticism on them as well, and gives the reader a very complete overview.

Personally, I'd like to know if the movie stays away from the same sports metaphors. You know, the euphemistic talk about balls and getting to third base, etc. etc. Because if it's not, the movie might not be as painful as it could be.


That does it for that. Incidentally, did you know that in the Meatloaf song "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," the commentary is by Phil Rizzuto? If you did know that, did you know that Rizzuto didn't know what he was being asked to narrate? The narration is a blatantly sexual reference, and Rizzuto was in the dark about that until his son told him about it. (I think it was his son). Apparently, he wasn't too happy about it either.

Along the same lines, I wonder if those ads for "Sex in the City" discussing "Yogasms" were ever pulled. . . .