I wanted to kick off Baseball Movie Month with a movie that’s been on my list for a while. It’s not been on there because I anticipated it being awesome but it was one of those “I have to see it”s because it is based on a true story from Iowa and was shot entirely in Iowa. In fact, several scenes were shot down the road from my folks’ place along a road I drove down twice everyday for three years. It’s no Hollywood blockbuster but it’s cool to see things you know in the pictures.
That said, this movie was terrible. Baseball movies are bad, I think. One thing I typically hate is the action in baseball movies but this was actually The Final Season‘s strong suit. I felt like the action was more realistic and interesting. In fact, sadly, probably my favorite part of the entire movie was a montage of the team taking infield. It was beautiful. So there you have it, the rest of this movie was worse than watching a team take infield.
The rest of the movie was a huge cliche. I feel like I’m more sensitive to cliches but this one was way over the top. Just about every line of dialogue was just cliche responding to cliche. There’s a scene where Tom Arnold argues with his son about smoking and it has everything. The crumpling up of the remaining cigarettes, the “Mom did it too”, the “these things killed your mother”, the “your high stress job and lack of fathering has led me to these cigarettes.” This was all in like one minute.
The only other good thing I can say about this movie is it is the first one I’m reviewing which gives me the chance to unveil my scoring system.
Final Season, The – 1 for 3, walk, infield single
The walk was a gimme. The movie took place in Iowa and had shots of places I knew. The movie gracefully took this walk and while simplifying Iowans somewhat it was quite true to the look/feel of rural Iowa.
The infield single is really another gimme. But, I might say this is the best baseball action I’ve seen in a movie. What kept that dribbler fair down the 3rd base line was Rachael Leigh Cook. I guess I really haven’t thought about her since high school but she was a good bonus to keep me going through a shitty movie. I’m not saying she was spectacular and my reasoning’s pretty basic and patronizing but she looked cute in a baseball glove.
Up next: Mr. Baseball most likely.
All things considered, getting on base twice in 4 tries is pretty good. I’ll be looking forward to your line for a movie that’s actually good, though as you pointed out, we may be waiting a while.
I found it particularly sad that that bridge is no longer there. Was it washed away? I definitely understand the Iowa excitement. I expect The Ides of March to be pretty enjoyable, but mostly I’m just excited to see Hall Auditorium in it.
Yeah it’s unfortunate that this was the movie to introduce my scores on because a .500 OBP is a fluke for this movie. It really was an 0-4 batter in the 8th spot. The pitcher (me, to keep this metaphor going) was easy giving the batter a walk because it was in Iowa and got caught staring at the baseball footage/Rachael Leigh Cook and allowed a dribbler down the third base line. I suspect there will be a lot of 1-for-something movies and several oh-fors.