Nobody Knows Hollywood

When I first saw the trailers for this film I was immediately repulsed. It looked simplistic, manipulative and, once again, like "white people saved the black people (you're welcome black people)" - link .  The last film to pull this trick in a similar manner (both irritating me as a film and receiving far too acclaim for my taste) was "The Blind Side". Occasionally, Hollywood and the "powers that be" seem hell-bent on making a point. With "The Blind Side", they seemed to be to saying "Sandra Bullock is not just America's Sweetheart, but also an Oscar Winner". Her performance was solid in a very average film. Not, in my opinion, Oscar-worthy. That's not to say she's not a fine actress who could, in a better role, deliver what I would consider an Oscar-worthy performance. It's just that in this case, there was a decision made that it was her time and that trumped the evaluation of the actual performance. With that...

The movie is slow -- sometimes delightfully, sometimes painfully. In that respect, it mirrors the game the film covers. But baseball is not the main theme of the film; redemption and the pain of chasing ones own ghosts serves that role. Billy Beane (played masterfully by Brad Pitt) is out to prove to the baseball establishment that they're not selling jeans. What he means by that is there is more to winning in the game than how things look. The Yankees are glamorous in every aspect. They look great, they pay the most and they play in the biggest media market in the world. The reality is, Oakland is not New York, ergo the Athletics are not the Yankees. But does that mean they can't compete? No. But it does require them to channel their inner Steve Jobs and "think differently". The backlash Beane (in the film) takes for this approach is enormous and omnipresent. The media (presented mostly through V.O. across radio and television airwaves) is a constant critic. When t...