A Mile in His Shoes

Posted on January 17, 2012 at 9:39 am

“Do not just a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes,” we are told, and that is the message of this understated film about a gifted pitcher who is on the autism spectrum and the minor league team coach who learns as much from him as he teaches. Dean Cain plays Murph, badly in need of a new pitcher when he gets into an accident near a farm in a remote area with no cell coverage so has to ask for help to call for a tow. He sees the farmer’s son Mickey (Luke Schroder), a sheltered young man who likes to throw apples for his pig and can throw them very fast and very hard. Mickey is on the autism spectrum and his parents have kept him on the farm all his life.

Murph wants to take Mickey to the team. Mickey’s mother supports the idea but his father does not think Mickey can function away from home. Murph promises he will take care of Mickey, and his parents allow him to try to join the team. There are a number of adjustment problems but most of the teammates are supportive. The other pitcher, though, is jealous, and as Mickey continues to do well, he is determined to stop him.

Director William Dear likes to use baseball as a backdrop for family-friendly stories with a spiritual foundation (“Angels in the Outfield,” “The Perfect Game”). There are no surprises in this one but its humility, sincerity, and decency make it watchable.

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The Perfect Game

Posted on April 15, 2010 at 7:15 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some thematic elements
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Character gets drunk in response to stress
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad offscreen death of a child, themes of grief and loss
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, some racist remarks and behavior
Date Released to Theaters:	April 16, 2010

Think of it as the “Good News Bears.” This sweet, sometimes sugary film is based on a real-life Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico who came to the United States to play in the Little League World Series of 1957 and not only won every match but, well, you saw the title.

Jake T. Austin of “Wizards of Waverly Place” plays the baseball-mad Angel, who lives with his parents in a desperately poor community. He and his friends love to hear about pro games and players in America. They want to learn how to play but they do not even have a baseball, much less a playing field or a coach.

Angel finds a ball and then he finds a coach in Cesar Faz (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a factory worker who once worked with the St. Louis Cardinals. The boys make their own field. With the help of Coach Faz and inspiration from Padre Estaban (Cheech Marin, adding another to his list of screen roles as a priest), the boys become a team. When they get a chance to play in the Little League World Series, they each take only one change of underwear, carried in a brown paper bag. First, it’s all they have. But second, it never occurs to them that they will win, so they assume they will be home after the first game.

But they win. And they win again. A woman reporter (Emilie de Ravin, channeling all the girl reporter actresses of the 1930’s newspaper movies) reluctantly accepts the assignment, then is captivated by the courage and dedication of the team. As they rise through the ranks, they encounter racism, xenophobia, and just plain old hostility. But they hold on to their ideals — including refusing to play unless they can be led in prayer first (we find out why they are so partial to Psalm 108. They get help from some unexpected sources: a sympathetic diner owner (Frances Farmer), the reporter and a groundskeeper who once played in the Negro Leagues (a fine Louis Gossett, Jr.). And they keep winning.

It has a retro feel that has nothing to do with its 1957 setting, but like its pint-sized team (inches smaller and pounds lighter than its opponents), the movie has so much heart that it is easy to root for. Collins and Marin are engaging enough to give the predictable and light-weight script a little extra heft. If “The Perfect Game” is not the perfect movie, it is an enjoyable little fable that will be fun for Little Leaguers and their families.

List: Movies About and for Spring

Posted on March 22, 2010 at 3:59 pm

My beloved spoke, and said unto me: ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance. Song of Solomon

Daffodils that come before the swallow dares and take the winds of March with beauty. Shakespeare, A Winter’s Tale

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious …

when the world is puddle-wonderful E. E. Cummings

Happy spring!

These movies celebrate the return of longer days, milder breezes, and a sense of promise and renewal.

1. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Bachelor mountain men brothers capture young women from the town one winter so they can marry them. An avalanche blocks off the pass and keeps their families from coming after them. But the women are furious and banish the men to the barn — until spring thaw, when everyone comes outside to enjoy the weather and sing Johnny Mercer’s lyrics: “Oh, the barnyard is busy in a regular tizzy, And the obvious reason is because of the season. Ma Nature’s lyrical, with her yearly miracle. Spring, Spring, Spring.”

2. The Secret Garden There are three excellent versions of this classic book about the sour orphan and her ailing cousin who are both made whole and healthy when they find a locked garden and bring it back to life. My favorite is the British miniseries, which is the closest to the text, but I love them all.

3. State Fair The only Rodgers and Hammerstein show written directly for the screen takes place at the end of the summer, but it has one of the greatest songs ever written about spring, the Oscar-winning “It Might as Well Be Spring.” The lovely Jeanne Crain sings, “I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented, like a nightingale without a song to sing, O why should I have spring fever, when it isn’t even spring.”

4. Random Harvest One of the sweetest love stories in the movies is about a merry young woman who falls for a man who has lost his memory. They get married and are very happy until he regains his memory and goes back to his old life, no longer able to remember her or their life together. A lot more happens over many years, and the final scene takes place by the lilacs on a spring day that shows us — and the couple — all we need to know about renewal.

5. Where the Boys Are Four girls leave their snowy college campus for spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was considered very racy back in 1960 for its discussion of premarital sex (including one character who pays a very heavy penalty for having sex with a boy she barely knows) but is something of an artifact these days. Still the performances by Dolores Hart (who later became a nun), Jim Hutton, and Paula Prentiss and the themes of finding a way to balance intimacy and self-respect still hold up.

6. Bambi “Nearly everybody gets twitter-patted in the springtime,” says the owl in this animated Disney classic about the young fawn. The spring scenes are among the most enchanting in a woodland story about young animals growing up. (NOTE: some scary scenes including a forest fire and a hunter who shoots the deer)

7. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring An isolated Buddhist monastery sits on a quiet lake in the middle of a forest, where one monk and his very young apprentice live a life of quiet prayer and contemplation. The film takes us through the seasons of the younger man’s life, from childhood through old age, with the final spring as a time of renewal, the now-old monk teaching his own young apprentice about life’s cycles and interconnections.

8. The Four Seasons Alan Alda wrote and directed a film that takes four couples through a year to the music of Vivaldi. It begins with a spring trip to the country, when they cook an elaborate dinner and plan the rest of their trips together for the rest of the year. But one couple breaks up and the husband wants to bring his new young girlfriend, it leads to some mid-life questions about meaning, trust, and loyalty. Alda’s wise script and sensitive direction and outstanding performances from Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Jack Weston, and Rita Moreno make this one of the best films ever about grown-up friendship.

9. “It Happens Every Spring” Ray Milland stars in a sweet fantasy about a baseball-loving professor who invents a chemical that acts as a wood repellent. He realizes that if he rubs a little on a baseball glove, it makes him the greatest pitcher in the world because the bats cannot connect with the ball. Written by the author of “Miracle on 34th Street,” this is a gentle fairy tale with some of Hollywood’s greatest character actors among the players and a hark back to an era before steroid scandals and superstar salaries.

10. The First of May This modest little gem is the story of a boy named Cory (“Cougar Town’s” Dan Byrd) who runs off one spring to join the circus. It is a sweet, episodic story with many magical moments, including delightful backstage glimpses of life in the big top. Co-stars include the brilliant Julie Harris and Mickey Rooney and Cory even gets some batting advice from Joe DiMaggio, who appears as himself. Families of all kinds will respond to this story about people who triumph over a series of obstacles to create a family for themselves.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

Posted on November 2, 2009 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	PG
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some sad moments
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, including anti-semitism and racism
Date Released to Theaters:	1998
Date Released to DVD:	1998
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005NTOI

In honor of the World Series, take a look at this documentary about baseball star Hank Greenberg.
Brilliant documentary-maker Aviva Kempner has created a gem of a movie to lift the spirit of anyone who cares about baseball — or heroes.

Hank Greenberg was that rarest of sports stars, someone who was as good as his fans hoped he was — in fact, he was even better. Over and over, in this movie, we see accomplished, distinguished men get teary-eyed as they talk about how much Hank Greenberg meant to them when they were growing up. Senator Carl Levin said, “Because he was a hero, I was a little bit of a hero, too.” Lawyer-to-the-stars Alan Dershowitz says, “Baseball was our way of showing that we were as American as anyone else.”

“We” meant Jews. Hank Greenberg was not the first Jewish baseball player, but he was the first one to be proudly Jewish. He did not change his name and he did not hide his religion. He missed a day of the World Series to observe Yom Kippur (though he did play on Rosh Hashanah, thanks to a clearance from a rabbi who was a baseball fan). And he was a star. Dershowitz said, “He was what they said Jews could never be.”

Kempner combines stock footage and contemporary interviews with fans, friends, family, and teammates to give a glowing portrait of Greenberg, who died in 1986, and, as the title promises, of his era.

Greenberg faced a lot of prejudice. He played for the Detroit Tigers in a city whose leading citizen, Henry Ford, was a virulent anti-Semite. One of his teammates was a country boy who had never met a Jew before and literally expected Greenberg to have horns. But Greenberg never took it personally and never became bitter. He said that it made him work harder because if he failed, “I wasn’t a bum; I was a Jewish bum.” Not a religious or observant man, he was very aware of his role as a symbol, and, as a fan notes, “he wore his Jewishness on his sleeve and in his heart.” At the end of his career, he helped support another baseball player he perhaps understood better than anyone — Jackie Robinson.

Greenberg missed four seasons at the top of his career because he was serving in WWII. And at the end of his career he was impulsively traded by an owner who mistakenly thought he was thinking of leaving. He spoke of those incidents with regret, but without anger. One of the great treats of this movie is see not just how well Greenberg handled adversity, but how well he handled fame and success, remaining humble, honest, and dedicated through it all.

Perhaps most revealing of Greenberg’s character was the one statistic that he cared about, in this most statistic-ridden of sports — RBIs. He loved being the one who batted clean-up, “the guy that comes up at the clutch, changes the ball game, makes all the difference.” He could have gone for the home run record, but he was the ultimate team player.

His teammates and friends talk, also, about his dedication. He was the hardest-working of ball-players, paying anyone he could find to pitch to him for extra batting practice and even stripping down in a friend’s dress-making studio so he could examine his batting stance in a three-way mirror.

Parents should know that while younger kids might not understand the movie, there is nothing objectionable in it — and how many of today’s sports figures could inspire a documentary about which that statement could be made?

Families who see this movie should talk about America’s history of prejudice and about the different ways that people handle adversity — and success. Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, broadcast on PBS and available on video.

List: Great Movie Coaches

Posted on October 28, 2009 at 8:38 am

The athletes have worked harder than they ever imagined, pushing themselves to the limits of their endurance. They’ve learned how to run faster and hit, kick, or shoot harder. They’ve watched tape of the other team, the champions, the ones who seem unbeatable. They’ve learned that there is no “I” in “team,” and then they learned it again. And then comes that moment when they feel that they have nothing left. It is time for some encouragement and motivation. They need some words that can remind the players that what they are doing matters, that it is worth stretching their souls and bodies to the limit, that this is a defining moment that will tell them and everyone who knows them and everyone who will ever know them who they are. They need to know that it is not about scoring or medals or applause; it is about courage, determination, loyalty, and knowing you have given your entire heart to something. That is when they need a great coach.

Movie coaches, most of them real-life characters, have provided some of the most memorable moments in film history, inspiring us in the audience as they inspire the athletes on screen. And, in our own private, faint-hearted moments, we often think back on those “Win one for the Gipper” speeches for our own sense of meaning, purpose, and confidence. When you feel as though you can use a pep talk, these coaches are always available on DVD.

12. A League of Their Own Sometimes the coach is the one who needs some inspiration. In this movie, Tom Hanks is a former baseball player who is bitter following an injury. He has a drinking problem, but his former fame gets him a position as the coach in an all-female league, created to keep the fans happy while the male players were fighting in World War II. It is the heart, dedication, and ability of the players that inspires him to become the coach they need. Quote: “There’s no crying in baseball!”

11. Personal Best Scott Glenn plays the coach of women training for the Olympics. In one memorable scene, he has a monologue as he watches one of his athletes run around a track, and shows his frustration on both of their behalfs at the second-class treatment of women athletes and and his fierce pride in watching her beat a man. Quote: “The high jump is a masochist’s event–it always ends on failure.”

10. Knute Rockne All American The legendary Notre Dame coach was an innovator who changed the game of football by popularizing the forward pass and set many records including five undefeated seasons. Pat O’Brien plays Rockne in this film, and Ronald Reagan plans the player whose death inspired the most famous locker room speech in history. Quote: ” I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept to myself for years — None of you ever knew George Gipp. It was long before your time. But you know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame…And the last thing he said to me — “Rock,” he said — “sometime, when the team is up against it — and the breaks are beating the boys — tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.”

9. Remember the Titans When an Alexandria, Virginia school was integrated for the first time, it wasn’t just the teammates who had to learn to work together. Coach Boone (Denzel Washington) and Coach Yoast (Will Patton) had to become a team as well. This true story of their first team and its undefeated season, and if you plan to watch, bring a handkerchief. Maybe two. Quote: “In Greek mythology, the Titans were greater even than the gods. They ruled their universe with absolute power. Well that football field out there, that’s our universe. Let’s rule it like Titans.”

8. Coach Carter The great thing about Coach Carter is that after he turns his rag-tag players into a disciplined, winning team, he benches them. Samuel L. Jackson plays real-life coach Ken Carter, who benched the team and locked the gym to insist that his team members could not play unless they did their schoolwork and got good grades. Quote: “You really need to consider the message you’re sending this boys by ending the lockout. It’s the same message that we as a culture send to our professional athletes; and that is that they are above the law. If these boys cannot honor the simple rules of a basketball contract, how long do you think it will be before they’re out there breaking the law?”

7. Glory Road Josh Lucas plays real-life coach Texas Western Don Haskins, who coached the first NCAA basketball team with an all-black starting line-up in 1966. Haskins did not intend to be a civil rights pioneer. He just wanted the best players he could find. And in that era, there were plenty of black basketball players who were not getting offers from anyone else. So Haskins put together a team with a lot of talent and a lot of passion for the game, and then he showed them how to be better players and an even better team than they had ever imagined. Quote: “Your dignity’s inside you. Nobody can take something away from you you don’t give them.”

6. Miracle And don’t miss the documentary: Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team. It’s still referred to as the “Miracle on Ice.” No one thought the American hockey players had a chance against the Soviet team in the 1980 Olympics. The Americans were amateurs from different teams. The Soviets were the world champions. The David and Goliath game that resulted was voted the number one international game in hockey history on the 100th anniversary of the game. The American team beat the Soviets because they had coach Herb Brooks, played here by Kurt Russell. Brooks said he won because he picked “not the best players but the right players.” Quote: “Great moments… are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight.”

5. Friday Night Lights Before the television show, there was a book and there was this movie, with Billy Bob Thornton as coach Gary Gaines. In small-town Texas, everyone in town goes to the high school football games, everyone thinks they know what the coach should be doing, and every player knows that he may never do anything again that matters to as many people as winning the season. Quote: “Being perfect means going onto the field knowing that you did everything you could have done, with clear eyes, love in your heart, joy in your heart.”

4. Hoosiers Gene Hackman plays Norman Dale, who must battle his own demons to be the coach his high school basketball team deserves in this quietly powerful film inspired by the real-life story of the small-town team that took the Indiana state championship in 1951. Quote: “These six individuals have made a choice to work, a choice to sacrifice, to put themselves on the line 23 nights for the next 4 months, to represent you, this high school. That kind of commitment and effort deserves and demands your respect. This is your team.”

3. Chariots of Fire A competitor in the 1924 Olympics took the unusual step of seeking a coach, considered vaguely unsporting in those days of the gentleman athlete. And the coach, Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm) was an unconventional choice. So overcome he cannot bear to watch the race, Mussabini sits in his hotel room. When the word comes in that his runner has won, he quietly punches out the crown of his straw hat. Quote: “A short sprint is run on nerves.”

2. Stick It (and also see Bridges as a coach in Surf’s Up) Jeff Bridges is so natural as the coach of girl gymnasts in “Stick It” and a surfing penguin in “Surf’s Up” that if feels like he was born to play the perfect disciplinarian/mentor/source of inspiration. In the underrated “Stick It,” his toughest challenge is a gifted athlete who quit gymnastics and is then sentenced to compete again to stay out of juvenile detention. He has to teach her to trust him before he can begin to coach her. Quote: “This isn’t the real world. This is my world. You don’t have to like me or like it here, but you do have to respect it.”

1. The Heart of the Game Bill Resler is a tax law professor who agrees to coach a girls’ high school basketball team in this spellbinding and documentary about the quintessentially American themes: race, gender, class, lawsuits, heart, skill, optimism, despair, setbacks, and triumph. Unforgettable. Quote: “Devour the moose!”