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davidauth
Reviews
Mr. Baseball (1992)
An aging power hitter with the New York Yankees is traded, getting a final chance to play in Japan.
By the time you get to my review, you already know almost all you need to know about this movie. I have been a baseball fan for most of my life, growing up in the Chicago area, and going to many Cubs and White Sox games. And I have seen most of the baseball movies. This one is different and above average, with its strong international cultural component, comparing humanity's only civilized sport in an unknown venue, Japan, with my fading "National Pastime" in the United States. Watching how the Japanese have transformed our sport is unnerving at first, but I eventually relaxed and went with the flow. At least on film, the "Dragons" play on an incredibly ugly dirty field, with people jammed in around wall-to-wall like sardines. In fact, Japanese cultural differences are mostly caused by extreme overpopulation, where every time they turn around, they hit someone. Concealing emotion behind courtesy keeps their world from tipping into total chaos. Luckily, the baseball action looks official, because a lot of the players are retired professionals. Sellick also had some training as a ball player in his past.
The movie is about Tom Sellick's behavioral transformation from "The Ugly American Strikes Out Again" to "The Guy Who Fits In Everywhere Without Needing a Baseball Bat"; with his new fellow jocks, the Type A manager, his love interest, and even the owner/investors. Tom overplays his initial jerk phase, making his realizations about how to succeed in a foreign culture seem less plausible, but emphasizes his cultural evolution. Sellick, an actor with extreme staying power and a new series in 2010, has a universally excellent supporting cast.
Although I have never visited Japan, seeing this movie makes that eventuality less likely. I don't like naked reinforced concrete walls and raw steel, displayed here in abundance. Thanks to our WWII carpet bombing, at least the Japanese don't make their buildings out of wood and paper anymore!
Behold a Pale Horse (1964)
Behold a Pale Horse
I first saw this black and white movie when I was only 19, and it made a big impression on me. I have always rooted from the underdog, as for example, the role Gregory Peck plays to perfection. Although Anthony Quinn is supposedly the enemy, Peck is really still fighting a lost war, which is a much bigger issue for him than one police chief. This, of course, is why he kills the informer, formerly his close and trusted friend, rather than Anthony Quinn, the police chief. The greater enemy for Peck is the Catholic Church, which sided with Franco and the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, just as it did in Nazi Germany, against the Jews. The pivotal revelation and internal conflict for Peck's role is that a simple parish priest has obviously come to his personal aid (the role played by Omar Sharif), rather than that his friend has turned informer. With the Catholic Church on the side of the Republicans, the civil war may have had a different outcome. Of course, under Franco, the dictator-church bond continued and even got stronger. This is why the Franco Government got upset with Columbia Pictures, not because Anthony Quinn has a mistress in the movie! What this shows is that most movie critics know nothing about the Spanish Civil War. This reflects badly on them, rather than on the movie, a great and beautifully filmed example of never giving in to defeat in the face of tyranny.