Everyone’s Hero

Posted on September 11, 2006 at 11:20 am

A+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated G
Profanity:	Mild schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, but no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, understated portrayal of segregation
Date Released to Theaters:	January 1, 1970
Date Released to DVD:	January 1, 1970
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000MNOX9E

The indomitable spirit of Christopher Reeve shines through this little story of a boy who will not give up his quest to retrieve the baseball bat belonging to the greatest player ever, Babe Ruth.

Ten-year-old Yankee Irving (that’s his name) loves baseball, but when he stands at the plate, the kids in the outfield jeer, “Easy out!”

He loves the game and dreams of playing in the major leagues. But he is ready to give up trying to play when he finds a talking baseball (voice of Rob Reiner) in the sandlot. He brings it home and then takes it with him to bring dinner to his father, who works at Yankee Stadium. While he is there, Babe Ruth’s bat Darlin’ is stolen by a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. But Yankee Irving’s father is blamed, and he is fired. Yankee and his talking baseball go out to bring it back home.

They have many adventures and encounters along the way, most notably with a young girl who teaches him to throw a ball. When he tells her he needs to get to Chicago to give the bat to the Babe, she sends him to her baseball player father so he can travel on the team bus, where he gets some lessons about balance and hitting a ball. He finally makes it to Chicago, where he gets a chance to make his grandest dreams come true.

The animation is uninspired, except for a couple of lively moments, most notably a chase scene when Lefty the cheating Cubs pitcher has to dodge a barrage of hazards. And the voice talent adds some warmth and character, especially Whoopi Goldberg as Darlin’ the bat, William H. Macy as Lefty, and the world’s most instantly recognizable “surprise guest star” as the choleric head of the Cubs. The late Dana Reeves is quietly lovely as the voice of Yankee’s mother, and the poignance of her loss as well as her husband’s adds to the movie’s theme of never giving up on dreams.

Parents should know that this movie has some mild schoolyard language and potty jokes. The issue of the segregated Negro League is handled in a respectful, understated way, but parents should be prepared to talk with children about why whites and blacks played on different teams.

Families who see this movie should talk about who in the movie is everyone’s hero? Why? What does it mean that “it’s not the bat, but the batter” and “just keep swinging?” Have you ever had something that made you feel lucky? Why were the bullies so mean to Yankee at the beginning of the movie? What will they be like when he gets home? Families with very young children will want to remind them that in real life children are not allowed to go off without their parents.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Chicken Little and some of the many wonderful films about baseball, especially It Happens Every Spring (a professor becomes an unbeatable pitcher when he invents a chemical to put on the ball that repells wood), Angels in the Outfield (the original is the best version but the remake is pretty good, too), Take Me Out to the Ballgame (with Gene Kelly as a dancing ball-player), Damn Yankees (a Washington Senators fan sells his soul to the devil to beat the Yankees), Rookie of the Year, The Sandlot, and The Rookie. Older audiences should watch Ken Burns’ 9-part series Baseball. They might also like to visit the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

Crossover

Posted on August 31, 2006 at 3:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some language.
Profanity:	Some strong language, including the n-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, references to drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Car accident, character injured, punch in the nose
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000LRZHR8

This is one air ball of a movie, a talented cast and an appealing idea stranded by a clunky script. It shoots. And it shoots and shoots and shoots, but it never scores.

Tech (Anthony Mackie) works in the mall, studies for his G.E.D., hustles money at the basketball court, and plays “street basketball” under the direction of Vaughn (Wayne Brady). The losing team gets $1000 each, the winners get $2000, the high-rollers get to place bets and see some X-treme b-ball, with every basket a dunk and only “flagrant fouls” prohibited.

Tech’s best friend is Noah Cruise (Wesley Jonathan, “Sweetness” in Roll Bounce), planning to go to college on a basketball scholarship, and then to med school. He will lose his eligibilty for the scholarship if he plays for money. But Tech, remininding Cruise that “you owe me,” persuades him to join the team, Enemy of the State” for one game. They lose to the champions, led by the arrogant Jewelz (Philip Champion).

Tech and Cruise meet two girls, Eboni and Vanessa and quickly become involved. They bring the girls with them to LA for Cruise’s college orientation and Tech’s chance to shoot hoops in a television commercial. But things begin to go badly, and by the time one final streetball game against Jewelz’ team a great deal is depending on the final score.

There are a couple of good ideas here. An early shot shows girls seated at computer terminals managing the betting line in an understated parallel to the many similar set-ups in movies about drug dealers. It’s nice to see the portrayal of a character whose highest aspiration is not an NBA contract. And the cast does its best with what it has, especially Jonathan and Lil JJ as Tech’s young friend Up.

But the dialogue is deadly, either clunky exposition (“Joe’s in jail and he didn’t pay the light bill!”) or faux “street” (“I can’t front. I’m feeling you. But I can’t put myself out there unless I know if you’re for real.”) the only person who can sustain this kind of melodrama mashup is Tyler Perry, and this doesn’t have anything close to the sincerity that anchors his films. The tricked-up MTV-style quick cuts are tired. So I’m not fronting when I say that I’m not feeling it. None of the characters or relationships or situations or dialogue is for real, you hear what I’m sayin’?

Parents should know that this movie includes strong language, a graphic car/motorcycle crash, and sexual references and non-explicit situations. Couples have sex the same day they meet, with consequent issues of betrayal and trust. A strength of the movie is its portrayal of values of loyalty and independent thinking, taking responsibility for your actions, and the importance of education.

Families who see this movie should talk about how far you must go and how much you must risk to repay a friend who does you a great favor. They should also talk about why Cruise trusted Vanessa and why Tech did not trust Eboni, and about the ultimate choices Cruise and Tech make about their futures.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Fast and the Furious. This film lifts many of its plot developments from better movies, including An Officer and a Gentleman, Body and Soul, and Angels with Dirty Faces.

Invincible

Posted on August 15, 2006 at 12:07 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for sports action and some mild language.
Profanity:	Mild language and insults
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, scenes in bar
Violence/ Scariness:	Sports violence, tense confrontations
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000J3OTT6

In this movie, a father tells his son that one great touchdown by Steve Van Buren of the Philadelphia Eagles got him through 30 years of factory work. We often identify so completely with the teams and athletes we love that it feels like our hearts are in that ball as it crosses the goal line, swishes into the basket, or sails over the head of the guy in the outfield. Maybe our dreams don’t come true, but we can share the dreams of the guys on the field. And that is the stuff of movies.

Vince Papale, a part-time teacher and bartender became the oldest non-kicker rookie in NFL history when he joined the Philadelphia Eagles at age 30 in 1976. That sounds like a Disney movie.

And that’s just what it is, in the tradition of (and all too reminiscient of) The Rookie and Miracle. Not surprising — this film has the same producer and screenwriter.

Mark Wahlberg plays Papale, a passionate season-ticket-holding Eagles fan who is picked from an open try-out though he had never played college football. He was selected by coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) and survived training camp to play on the team.

So, we know where it’s all going from the beginning, and how successful it is in making that journey work depends on whether it can make us care about the characters. Unforunately, while it has a nicely gritty sense of time and place, some touching moments, and many very bad 1970’s hairstyles, its beats are all too telegraphed and formulaic to fully engage us.

Wahlberg brings sincerity and an easy athleticism to the role of Papale, and Elizabeth Banks has a lovely centered quality and genuine sparkle as his love interest. But the script — the disapproving wife who exits just in time for him to meet the beautiful girl who knows all about football, the down-on-their-luck friends who want to make sure that he doesn’t forget about them, the coach with high standards who is willing to take a chance, the dad who cautions him not to try for something he can’t have and then watches damp-eyed as he makes it — there’s not enough to surprise and engage us. I couldn’t help thinking as I watched Papale run through the streets of 1976 Philadelphia that maybe he’d meet up with Rocky.

Parents should know that there are a few moments of sports violence and some references to sad deaths of family members. Wahlberg’s character is a bartender, and there are many scenes in the bar with characters drinking. A character refers to a married boyfriend. Characters kiss. Some audience members may be disturbed by the break-up of Vince’s marriage and the struggles to trust enough to start a new relationship.

A main theme of the film is the encouragement and support Papale receives from friends and family. Many of his friends are portrayed as supportive, but Papale is presented as having been driven by the handful of people in his life who told him he couldn’t do it. Why did he put his wife’s note in his locker? Families who see this film should talk about the importance of having a support network, and why sometimes adversity can be the strongest motivator. Do you agree that the team with character will find a way to be the team with talent? What current athletes do and don’t meet that standard?

Families who enjoyed this movie have a wealth of football and sport-oriented films to choose from, and many are filled with remarkable sequences and riveting drama. Recommendations would be Rudy, in which Sean Astin conquers his limitations to play for Notre Dame, Paper Lion, an older (1968) film featuring a journalist who goes undercover as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions (based on a true story), and Friday Night Lights, the story of a season with The Permian High Panthers, The Replacements (some mature material), a fictional story about an all-amateur team, and a similar real-life story about a teacher who became a major league pitcher in Disney’s The Rookie. They may also want to learn more about the history of the team. And families who want to know more about the real Vince Papale, who was voted Special Teams Captain and “Man of the Year” by the Eagles, can visit his website and read his book.

Related Tags:

Biography Drama Movies -- format Sports

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Posted on August 2, 2006 at 2:18 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language, drug references and brief comic violence.
Profanity:	Very crude and vulgar language for PG-13
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, character abuses drugs and alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	A strength of the movie is its portrayal of gay characters, some misogynistic portrayal of female characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000J4P9P8

When we’ve seen Will Ferrell run around naked, how much fun is it to see him run around in his underpants?

The disappointment of this movie is not that we don’t see enough of Will Ferrell. It’s disappointing because what we do see, we’ve seen before, and better.

Ferrell’s appeal comes from his whole-hearted cluelessness, but that needs to be placed in the context of some kind of legitimate, grown-up world. It doesn’t have to be complicated or explained in much detail, but there has to be some kind of clash. The rumor is that this movie was greenlighted based on four words: “Will Ferrell does NASCAR.” But the movie gives us no sense of NASCAR’s conventions or why it is meaningful. It isn’t that NASCAR is portrayed as foolish; it isn’t really portrayed at all. The setting might just as well be the soap box derby.

Ferrell looks tired and uninvolved and too old for this kind of role. His best friend is played by the reliable John C. Reilly but he has nothing to do but be a second Will Ferrell. When a movie relies on kids using bad language for humor, it’s running out of steam.

Ferrell plays Ricky Bobby, born in a racing car and shortly after abandoned by his substance-abusing ne’er-do-well father. These become the two forces in his life — the love of driving very fast and the need to win his father’s love and respect. He becomes a champion and then loses everything and has to find a way to win again and learn what winning really means.

All of this is just an excuse for a bunch of skits. There are some funny moments, but much of it feels tired. If this movie was in a NASCAR race, it would still be on the track long after all the other cars were back home for the night.

Parents should know that this movie has very explicit sexual references and very vulgar language for a PG-13. There are same-sex kisses. Children use extremely crude language and get away with it for most of the film. A character gives the finger. There’s a joke about feminine products and many references to genitals. Characters commit adultery. Some viewers will be offended by the way the characters talk about Jesus. Some may also be disturbed by the portrayal of the break-up of a marriage and the former spouses becoming involved with other people. A character abuses alcohol and drugs and children and adults joke about drugs. There is some comic violence, including a graphic depiction of a knife deeply embedded in a leg, and slapping children, but no one is hurt. The portrayal of the female characters is crass and somewhat misogynistic, even for a crude comedy. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of a married gay couple, but their behavior is as silly as everyone else’s.

Families who see this movie should talk about Ricky Bobby’s belief that no one would love him unless he was a winner.

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Elf and Old School (mature material).

Peaceful Warrior

Posted on June 11, 2006 at 12:36 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sensuality, sex references and accident scenes.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Scary accident with serious injuries
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000QEIOSU

Related Tags:

Drama Movies -- format Sports