'Moneyball' Is Right On

Moneyball was so good Cinema Siren feels like she's been hit over the head with a baseball bat. Who knew this baseball geek-fest would turn out to be so exciting or have me rooting like I was in the stands myself?  

What looks appealing about Moneyball? Cinema Siren knows less than nothing about baseball. Brad Pitt looks nothing like he did in the oft-youtubed naked Troy scene. Why will the general public care? Why not ask why so many non-computer geeks flocked to and appreciated Social Network? Because it was about way more than Facebook.

No matter the subject, when a movie is really good, it's universal. Moneyball is the ultimate underdog story, not just about the 2002 unlikely winning streak of the Oakland A's. This is not one of those baseball films with a series of big games… Baseball fans will still enjoy the exciting scenes on the field, and find fascinating the hot headed trading talk in the boardroom, but this movie is about much more than America's pasttime. It celebrates the under-appreciated, undervalued, and the seemingly washed up, working together to show the world their worth.  

As Billy Beane, the nerve-wracked, failed major leaguer with a hunger to redeem himself, 20 million dollar actor Brad Pitt is at his best. He appears looking fully his age, and bone-tired to boot. His Beane is vibrating loneliness and yearning.  

"It's hard not to be romantic about baseball," Beane says in the film, and he's right.

On the surface, this plan seems antithetical to any formula that might lead to baseball's best moments… Don't most revered and repeated stories in baseball involve superstars with stellar stats?

Beane is left in a bad predicament when his best three players get poached by teams with more money. In replacing them, he knows he can't compete with teams wealthy enough to hire the big names. He compensates for the loss of these high priced and highly visible athletes by building a composite of them with a careful selection of undervalued and less popular players.  

The plan is to create a winning team based on statistics, measuring players' performances beyond looks, batting average, and popularity, focusing on solid consistent playing and getting on base.  

His right hand geek and numbers cruncher Peter Brand calls the idea baseball's "island of misfit toys". He may be the guy an older scout nicknames "Googleboy", but he holds steadfastly to his stats, and has the ear of the man choosing the team. As Brand, funnyman-du-jour Jonah Hill shows he has strong serious acting chops.

The film is well cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman as manager Art Howe is like an immovable stone statue of stubbornness , and makes Pitt's character seem like an annoying Jack Russell terrier nipping at his heels. As Beane's 12 year old daughter Casey, Kerris Dorsey plays it sweet and beyond her years worried for her overworked dad.  

Who knows what director Bennett Miller has been up to since his 2006 Oscar nom for Capote? We are all lucky he stepped in after two other directors fell by the wayside, David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) who dropped out, and Steven Soderbergh (Pitt's director in the Oceans trilogy), who got the plug pulled by Sony just before shooting started. Miller keeps the pacing true to Sorkin's writing style, flipping between fast and intense and reflective and tense. We have little to go on as to how he works with actors, but if Capote and Moneyball are representative, he'll only become more sought after.  

Moneyball is showing at the  at 1:30‎ - ‎3:25‎ - ‎4:25‎ - ‎6:25‎ - ‎7:25‎ - ‎9:25‎ - ‎10:20pm‎.