Kimihiro Reizei’s blog

The Living Daylights (1987)

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 19/03/10 a las 05:03:00 pm

Put off plot and digressive globe trotting notwithstanding, the best Bond in years. A radical rethink on 007 accommodates the new gentleman’s gentleman; Dalton brings a positive excited commitment to tight spots and courtship, and emerges as a Buchanite romantic hero. The pre-credits sequence on the Dumfound of Gibraltar grips like wetness rope; the deathly milkman’s raid on HQ is a chiller; the absolute dash-in default with Joe Don Baker’s arms dealer amid toy soldiers and model battlefields is a plenteous metaphor. Lethal gizmos and digital countdowns are kept to the least, which leaves more room for the acting. On the debit side, in place of the usually globally ambitious conceive, the writers be enduring given us a couple of tired dealers who keep moving the goalposts: arms, drugs, diamonds. That and unmemorable events in Afghanistan apart, delight in.

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Kevin Costner & Rene Russ…

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 17/03/10 a las 06:03:04 pm

Kevin Costner

&

Rene Russo
Photo by Sidney Baldwin

Tin Cup



A amiable ball, but off the fairway . . .


As the 



1/2 

stagger rolls

Directed by Ron Shelton
Produced by Gary Truss and David Lester
Written by Ron Shelton
Photographed by Russell Boyd / Edited by Paul Seydor
Classified: R (language and brief nudity)

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Kevin Costner has been the keystone of Academy Award Winner

Dances With Wolves

and producer of

Rapa Nui

, one of the worst films of all time. With his checkered record it doesn't surprise us when

Tin Cup

comes down right in the middle.

Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is a loser. He's worked his way, mostly through drink and lack of motivation, down the golfing chain to pro at a no-win driving range where he shares a trailer home with caddie and sidekick Romeo Posar (Cheech Marin). Roy has no place to go.

Enter Roy's savior Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo). She's a tall leggy blonde with a winning smile and she's a shrink to boot. Molly's in need of golf instruction to keep her guy, pro golfer David Simms (Don Johnson) on the string. Mirabile dictu, the chemistry begins to perk. We know it, but they don't know it yet . . . It's not too long before Roy's instructional reach grasps Molly's club from behind her delicious form (but the film would be over too soon, so she's coy and removed).

With the jolt in the rear he gets from Molly's rejection, Roy determines to seek and win the title at the US Open. He seeks Molly's professional help and she begins to warm to his obvious charms. Then we spend quite a while following his rise from nowhere, during which he encounters his old nemesis David Simms. David's all smiles and treacle, but underneath won't hear of anyone but himself being Open champion.
You can see where it all leads. Will David win out? Will the comeback kid manage it? Will Molly get her man? Are we kidding?

Kevin Costner plays well as Roy, spewing his boyish charm all over the celluloid. Rene Russo, who reminded me a little of Alexis Smith, is appealing as Molly but not fully convincing. Cheech gives an adequate portrayal of Roy's Sancho Panza, but is best when he sings one song.

I fancy I'm being a trivial close on

Tin Cup

with its whispers of

Bull Durham

. I enjoyed it's humor and inadequacy of vehemence. It reminded me a narrow-minded of my babyhood, when I was avid all the time and they kept giving me recipe: mangle, fairly suave, but nice and warm as it went down.
ruin

The Illustrated Man (1969)

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 14/03/10 a las 05:03:13 pm

“A peculiar sci-fi film that
was loosely adapted from a Ray Bradbury book of short stories.”

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Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A peculiar sci-fi film that was loosely adapted from a Ray Bradbury
book of short stories, that unfortunately loses much in translation because
of Jack Smight’s lackluster direction. It presents an interesting relationship
among the three principle characters: Carl (Steiger) is the man whose whole
body from the neck down is covered by fabulously colorful tattoos, Felicia
(Bloom) is the witch-like mystery woman who did the skin illustrations,
and Willie (Drivas) is a hitch-hiker heading to California to get a job
whom Carl meets by a camping site. Their lives become entangled in this
fantasy which covers territory in the past, present, and future.

Carl is a bum who keeps his pet dog in a bag. He sneaks up and frightens
Willie by his campfire. Carl is looking for the house of the woman who
made him a freak show, as he wants to kill her. He tells the youngster
of how these skin illustrations ruined his life, and of how they come to
life if one stares at them. If one looks at the only bare spot on his body,
they can see the future — including their own death. The woman illustrator
vanished, he says, ‘back in the future,’ leaving him to become an outcast
wanderer looking only for revenge.

Willie stares at the tattoos and starts to have visions of the three
of them together in the three stories. All the stories have the theme of
love betrayed, with the victims changing with each tale. It also seems
to be a retelling of the Adam and Eve tale.

In the first story, Willie is a mental health counselor for the married
couple Felicia and Carl. The couple have two kids, John and Anna, who play
outside with African lions in their backyard. Inside they inhabit a sterile
ultra-mod living quarters, painted in all-white. The second tale has Carl
as a colonel lost in a jungle in a constant driving rain. He’s with two
other survivors from their crash-landing, Pickard and Simmons, on this
unnamed planet. There only chance for survival is finding shelter in a
sun dome, located 20 miles away. In the final story, Carl and Felicia are
married and have two children, John and Anna. Carl has just returned from
a world forum attended by all the 2,193 males in the world. They all had
the same dream: that tonight is the last night of the world.

The film returns to the present, as Willie stares at Carl’s blank
body spot and looks at his horrible future. The overall result is less
than grand but the film before it disappointed, did provide some intriguing
moments. Though Steiger’s performance was grating, as he had only one emotion
as an overbearing bully.

In Vittorio De Sica’s TWO WOM…

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 13/03/10 a las 04:03:10 am

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In Vittorio De Sica’s TWO WOMEN, Cesira (Sophia Loren) and her young daughter (Eleonora Brown) give up Rome for the relieve of the Italian hills, hoping to last safe during WWII. When the Allied troops start moving north, Cesira and her daughter feel gain satisfactorily to head back to Rome, but calamity ensues when they encounter a put together of Moroccan soldiers. Steamy Sophia Loren dominates this ignorance drama in a role that won her an Oscar for Best Actress.

Femme Fatale review

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 10/03/10 a las 03:03:16 pm

Pay off large screen posters at AllPosters.com

Courtesy Photo

"FEMME FATALE"


114 minutes | Rated: R

Opened: Wednesday, November 6, 2002
Written & directed by Brian De Palma

Starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Antonio Banderas, Peter Coyote, Gregg Henry, Eriq Ebouaney, Rie Rasmussen, Edouard Montoute, Thierry Fremont,

Regis Wargnier

DIVAN CRITIQUE

   SMALL SCREEN SHRINKAGE:

25%

   WIDESCREEN:

A NECESSITY

Don't even bother renting this flick on VHS. If you're not watching it in widescreen, you'll be missing half the movie because Brian DePalma is a director who uses every inch of the frame, especially in his frequent use of split-screen.

   VIDEO RELEASE:

03.25.2003

DVD SPOTLIGHT

The two get the better of things with reference to this disk are the splendorous digital transfer of the cloud and the French trailer, which is nothing short of genius. The US trailer is also included (yawn!).

OTHER NOTABLE BONUS MATERIAL

Three pay-cable style featurettes that aren't really worth watching.

SPECS

A soap-opera quality twist in the last 20 minutes of Brian De Palma's erotic noir thriller "Femme Fatale" almost puts the kibosh on what is otherwise a sumptuous work of B-movie imagination.

From its complex, spectacularly executed and near-silent opening-act heist — in which a beautiful, sexy, icy-tough thief (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) lifts a diamond-encrusted, barely-there bustier off a director's arm-candy date at the Cannes Film Festival — to the anti-heroine's later seduction and set-up of an unsuspecting Paris paparazzi (Antonio Banderas) for her own kidnapping, this picture is an engrossingly elaborate and stylish affair.

Romijn-Stamos gives a highly charged, chameleonic performance as Laure, an American con artist who is forced to disappear after the jewelry pinch goes bad and she double-crosses her partners in the crime. Mistaken, in a far-fetched coincidence, for a young widow (also played by Romijn-Stamos) who is suicidal over the deaths of her husband and daughter, she swipes her look-alike's passport, posses as a French girl and meets a multi-millionaire (Peter Coyote) on a flight to America.

Seven years later she's back in Paris as the rich man's wife when he's appointed as a U.S. ambassador, and all it takes is one photo of her in the tabloids before her old associates are out to kill her. Why the tabloids care about pictures of an ambassador's wife isn't clear, but Laure's plan for escape requires the unwitting collusion of the photographer who took said picture, and the poor guy has no idea what kind of sexual and psychological manipulation he's in for.

"Femme Fatale" is a gorgeous, stimulating brain- and libido-teaser complete with deliciously heady sex scenes, tangible but enigmatic symbolism (Is that really Laure's face that wisks by on advertising kiosks all over Paris? What does it mean?) and several surprises. It's also a slick and wildly imaginative cinematic experience, every bit as voluptuous as its leading lady. De Palma employs some of his favorite visual techniques (split screen, tracking shots, perspective shots, extreme slow-motion) with terrific, tension-mounting results, and Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Bolero"-like score lends the film a wonderfully moody opulence that is perfectly in sync with the succulent performances of its stars.

But fair as De Palma crashed and burned after 45 minutes of near-aptitude in 1998's

"Snake Eyes,"

the pen-pusher-director's Big Twist in this film rips so multitudinous holes in the plot that after all the cerebral stimulation, it may be bankrupt to not feel let down by the finale. "Femme Fatale" retains a three-unmatched rating from me, but only because up to that point it is so sensationally engrossing that it's quiescent a must-see, even if the ending is ruined by such unalloyed hokum that it cuts the movie's intelligence quotient by half.

When it comes to women, Charle…

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 06/03/10 a las 01:03:28 pm

When it comes to women, Charles Highway understands the importance of artifice. When someone suggests that he just now be himself, his mind boggles. “I don’t deliver time to be myself with girls,” he says. But “The Rachel Papers,” Damian Harris’ divinely audacious fundamental property, is about just that: It’s the allegory of a young lad’s appreciation that love means never having to say you’re one else.

Realizing that too much is at stake to depend on luck, Charles designs his seductions with the immaculate precision of a laser surgeon. Meticulous computer files are kept on each subject, listing vital stats — eye color, family history, initial sightings. When the time comes for that first phone call, a tight shooting script is prepared (to avoid those awkward dead spots), booze is poured to steady the nerves and comforting music put on the stereo. In anticipation of his date’s arrival, his room is custom-decorated for the occasion, with the appropriate paraphernalia strewn with devil-may-care exactness around the room — unfinished poems for the tonier prospects, comic books and music mags for the more pop-minded girls. Napoleon should have been so well prepared.

“The Rachel Papers” is a coming-of-age tale whose major piece of advice is to cut the bull. But being British and, therefore, disinclined to such obvious platitudes, the movie buries its theme beneath a tide of natty patter, most of it issuing from the mouth of its hero. By all measures Charles, a winning stack of bones just on the cusp of 20, is a brilliant kid, and as played by Dexter Fletcher, an irresistible — if not conventionally handsome — Don Juan. Whey-faced, with fleshy lips, large eyes and a mass of springy English hair, Fletcher has the knowing expression of a fledgling satyr. (Actually, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Mick Jagger in his “Between the Buttons” period.)

The movie (which Harris adapted from the Martin Amis novel) is in part a monologue, with the protagonist directly addressing the camera, sharing his theories and strategies with the audience. By this approach, Fletcher and Harris draw us into an atmosphere of puckish intimacy, and immediately we become accomplices in his plots — happy accomplices. Almost spookily self-possessed for his age (shoot, for any age), Charles seems to have not the slightest doubt about the course his life is to take — that is, until he meets Rachel. He first lays eyes on her in a club, where she is anything but responsive. But he is experienced enough to know that persistence pays off. Tired of teeny-bopper sex, he sees mystery in Rachel’s brunet tresses, and the promise of something more. “That’s all — something more.”

A rich American his own age whose mother lives in London, Rachel (played by Ione Skye) stretches Charles’ artistry to its limits. This isn’t as fully conceived a character as the one Skye had recently in “Say Anything,” but there’s an openness and physical abandon about her acting — particularly late in the film. But essentially, the part is underwritten. Rachel is a fantasy projection — Charles’ ideal — and we’re never quite sure what’s going through her head. Her aloofness, though, is part of her character, part of what makes her so maddeningly desirable to Charles. Just to be near her, he enrolls at the posh academy where she works, invites her to tea, then later for a drink, and on both occasions is humiliated by the results. In desperation he produces a quick videotape entitled “Why Charles? Why Not!” as a final appeal.

Rachel finally thaws, and who wouldn’t thaw under such an onslaught? Still, there are complications, namely her boyfriend DeForest (James Spader), who oozes in just as Charles has slipped on a Herb Alpert record, breaking the romantic momentum. The movie’s final flight path is disappointingly familiar: There are obstacles, then all of a sudden they’ve disappeared. Plus, after Harris has carried us to his resolution, we feel let down by the cool, bland insignificance of it. Certainly, you think, there was more at stake than this?

Still, this is a film that rides on its spiffy cleverness, its swift wit and smart talk. There’s an unexpected, not-tightly-screwed-on sense of comedy on display here that’s bright and original even when the story falters. The picture’s supporting players are impeccably cast. As DeForest, James Spader is the perfect spoiled baby of American privilege. He seems genetically predisposed to condescending smugness. Jonathan Pryce gives one of the year’s most refreshingly uninhibited performances as the boy’s weird, postmodern hippie brother-in-law Norman. And Fletcher is a genuine star. His devilish precocity makes “The Rachel Papers” a bracing treat.

“The Rachel Papers” is rated R and contains nudity, strong language and adult situations.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 04/03/10 a las 03:03:33 pm

Vic (Don Johnson), survivor of atomic devastation, wanders hungrily across the sombre desert landscape in search of cans of food buried deep in radioactive ash. His telepathic dog, Blood (Tim McIntire) depends on Vic against food, but Vic needs Blood to finger him something much more scarce: female company. The bedraggled duo eventually devise an underground society of survivors, called ‘Down Under,’ where they have reproduced the look of pre-apocalypse Americana but with frighteningly totalitarian politics. A cult black comedy based on the novella by Harlan Ellison.

A powerful statement about th…

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 02/03/10 a las 10:03:30 am

A powerful account about the social subjection of women in today’s Iran, Marziyeh Meshkini’s “The Day I Became a Woman” speaks bluntly there this sustained-taboo subject, which has been broached by other Iranian women directors but never prior to confronted so soon. Using sharp allusion and allegorical storytelling, Meshkini communicates a personal vision in terms all women (and certainly many men) can feel deeply. The wife and pupil of director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who produced and wrote current pic, and essential a.d. on the films of Samira Makhmalbaf, she is a new star in the family predilection center, the Makhmalbaf Film House. With a strong on, this earliest spot could become one of the year’s most popular Iranian pics abroad.

Shot on Kish Island, film fully exploits the scenic locations and the local tribal traditions, which are harsher toward women than in the city. In first story, it is Hava’s (Fatemeh Cherag Akhar) ninth birthday. She longs to play with a little boy named Hassan, as she does every day, but Mom and Grandma are busy measuring her for not just a head scarf (she wears that already), but a floor-length black chador. It’s the last day she will play with boys on the beach. She shares a final lollipop with Hassan, himself imprisoned in his house with homework, in an intensely poignant scene.

The realism of “Hava” gives way to exhilarating fable in “Ahoo.” A young woman wearing a billowing chador (stage thesp Shabnam Toloui, one of the few pros actors) is pedaling madly in a women’s cycling race along the beach. Suddenly her husband gallops up on horseback and demands she come home. Ahoo refuses him and all the subsequent horsemen who scream for her to get off her bike — her father, the mullah (priest), the village elders, her brothers. Amusing and tragic at the same time, tale takes its pace from the women’s furious, nonstop pedaling, in a clear tip of the hat to Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s famous early film “The Cyclist,” an Iranian “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

Final tale describes the shopping spree of an old woman, Hoora (the bright-eyed Azizeh Sedighi), on the duty-free island. Hobbling off the plane, she enlists an army of small boys with carts to take her through the glittering malls, where she buys refrigerators, stoves, furniture, makeup — all the things she wanted and never had in her life. Story’s surrealistic humor and modern trappings make it less touching than the other episodes, but it appropriately rounds off the three ages of woman.

Film benefits from fine technical work from cinematographers Ebrahim Ghafori and Mohammad Ahmadi and editors Maysam Makhmalbaf and Shahrzad Poya. Folk music is well used to contribute atmosphere and feeling.

The Film: Before the release …

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 28/02/10 a las 05:02:34 am

The Film:

Before the release of his groundbreaking feature film Russkiy kovcheg a.k.a Russian Ark (the film boasts the longest continuous shot ever utilized in the history of cinema) Aleksandr Sokurov was mostly known to those who had a genuine interest in Soviet cinema. His works were especially hard to track down and the little available through smaller independent companies was of questionable quality. In fact, even in his native country Aleksandr Sokurov’s early films were difficult to obtain particularly due to the new developments within the state-run MosFilm (to this day many Soviet films are still unaccounted for) and of course the fact that film preservation was not something Soviet officials were well-known for. Fortunately enough it seems like in recent years after the enormous success Aleksandr Sokurov gained at film festivals throughout the world and the financial revenues Russian Ark provided some of his early films are finally entering the restoration labs in St. Petersburg.

The Second Circle (1990), Aleksandr Sokurov’s grim tale about a man who attempts to burry his deceased father in the frozen lands of Siberia, was produced at a time when the gusty winds of perestroika were blowing through the Soviet Empire. Filled with disturbing yet poetic images evoking comparisons with the work of Tarkovsky The Second Circle is also as much a story about human suffering as it is a veiled criticism of the Soviet state and its abstract ordinance. Revealing soul-shattering poverty and a maddening reality where one man must literally go through hell (hence the suggestive title) before he arranges the funeral of his father The Second Circle paints a picture too painful to watch. Yet, its message is uncharacteristically powerful!!

With the exception of a few scattered remarks The Second Circle offers no dialog whatsoever. The film feeds off the bleak reality surrounding the young Russian man and the almost idyllic vistas from the Siberian village where the action takes place. In fact, many will notice that the manner in which The Second Circle was shot is similar to what Aleksandr Sokurov did in his Father and Son (2003) – muted, yellow-sepia colors; grainy low-contrast lighting; hand-held camera work – all intended to exacerbate the sense of agony the film so successfully recreates. Obviously the Russian director is still very much fascinated by what he began experimenting with in the early 80s.

I can not recall another minimalist film from recent years that revealed so much by relying on so little. The composition of The Second Circle initially may seem a bit pretentious but as the story progresses it becomes more and more evident that Aleksandr Sokurov knew very well the reactions he wanted to instigate amongst his viewers. As I was watching The Second Circle I could not stop thinking about Vasili Pichul’s Malenkaya Vera a.k.a The Little Vera (1988) about a girl on the slippery path of Soviet “morality”. The sense of desperation these two films evoke is quite frankly unmatched by anything I have seen in recent Russian cinema.

Those unfamiliar with the work of Aleksandr Sokurov will probably want to approach a different film first (perhaps his commercial success Russian Arc is a good starting point) before they dive deep into the Russian director’s early films. As noted above these are films that would often test the patience (and probably tolerance) of viewers accustomed to mainstream cinema where the “story” tends to follow a straightforward path at a manageable pace. If you however are willing to experiment with Soviet cinema and some of its greatest masters then Aleksandr Sokurov should definitely be on your list right next to Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Gerasimov, and Mikheil Kalatozishvili.

How Does the DVD Look?

There is much to talk about here particularly due to the fact that Kino have managed to license the newly restored director’s cut of The Second Circle (Sokurov personally supervised the new cut and consequently made a few additional corrections). Furthermore, from all of the supplementary information provided in text format in the “extras” section it appears that the original negative for the film was in an extremely poor condition and even the Russian lab-technicians could not do much to clean it. The reason I mention all of this to you is so that you get idea how poorly Soviet archives were maintained (even newer films would suffer the kind of damage that one would likely see in 80-90 years old pictures).

The Second Circle is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and the print while restored offers a fair amount of dust and specs especially in the opening scenes. On a positive side there are no jitters and after the initial 5-10 min. the quality of the print becomes much better (and clearer). Colors and contrast are also extremely difficult to evaluate as much of what one is likely to criticize with “mainstream” releases appears to have been intentionally filmed: heavy grain during inside shots, low-light effects, dull colors, and the predominant heavy yellow-sepia color frame. With this said, I am most certain that the restored print/master which Kino were offered by the Russian studio-distributor was in a PAL-format and they did not bother to properly convert it for the R1 release. With a film like The Second Circle however the untrained eye will have a most difficult time separating the mild “ghosting” from the intentional effects described above. Therefore as far as I am concerned tube viewing should not be an issue!!

How Does the DVD Sound?

While officially the sound mix should be Dolby Stereo-Russian (at least that is what most Russian sources claim) as far as I am concerned the quality offered on this DVD is closer to mono. I mention this not because there is an issue with the presentation (after all it matters very little as nearly 95% of the film is without any dialog) but because some of you might incorrectly conclude that the audio might have been altered after Sokurov did his post-production cuts. It is not, and what you get on this R1 DVD is exactly what the lab-technicians had to work on as well! With optional English subtitles.

Extras:

The only additional materials provided on this DVD release are a “Stills Gallery” (take a look at it to see how clear the stills look and how different the colors are before Sokurov did his sepia-filtering) and a plain text highlighting the restoration process the film underwent.

Final Thoughts:

In any other case, considering that this is definitely a release which Kino PAL-sourced, I would have granted a “Rent it” mark but given how unlikely it is that anyone would be affected by the quality described above (indeed the filming technique used by Sokurov to a larger degree negates the PAL sourcing issue) and the fact that I do not predict another English-friendly release of this film in a foreseeable future I have decided to RECOMMENDED it.

The Final Season review

Publciado por kimihiroreizeisblog - 25/02/10 a las 10:02:44 am

There’s not fully as much corn in “The Final Season” as there is in the Iowa croft die fields that dash through it, but it’s buddy-buddy. The quintessential sports flicks (beleaguered players get the better adversity and call up the grit to win), this David Mickey Evans-helmed cockle-warmer is overscored, underwritten at times awkwardly shot, but inasmuch as the most part of capably acted and armed with a story that’s a sure thing. Film, too, could be a B.O. winner with the well support from the bullpen.

Based on the true story of the Norway High School Tigers, who won 20 straight Iowa state baseball championships before their school was deemed redundant, “The Final Season” recounts that ultimate 20th season — when longtime coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe) was fired, his assistant Kent Stock (Sean Astin) took over, and the team was all but relegated by the public to the dustbin of schoolboy sports history.

Astin is solid as the sober, plucky Stock, who is being set up for defeat by school board president Harvey Makepeace (Marshall Bell), the main proponent of a merger with the larger Madison school system. This would destroy the Norway kids’ baseball tradition, and the town’s identity along with it, as Harvey thinks a losing season will make the merger an easier sell.

“I don’t know why anyone would want to destroy something that means so much to these kids,” says Van Scoyoc. Indeed, the answer is never quite made clear; Harvey is pure villainy, without much of an articulated motive.

But there’s more amiss in “The Final Season” than one character’s motivation. With more plots than Forest Lawn, the film creates a virtual gridlock of intersecting narratives: Van Scoyoc is the crusty vet, Stock the natural but unproven leader; that’s one story. School board adviser Polly Hunt (a very nice Rachael Leigh Cook) provides a love interest for Stock; that’s another. Then there’s sullen hipster teen Mitch Akers (Michael Angarano), who’s been dragged to Norway by his dad (Tom Arnold).

Mitch’s struggle to fit in — he ultimately joins the team — is a movie of its own, although the filmmakers don’t seem to have had Angarano and Arnold around long enough to make full use of them. Meanwhile, the team wins, loses and lurches toward the finals, with Kent inspiring his squad with lines like, “How do you want to be remembered?”

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What “The Final Season” doesn’t do, despite all its impassioned pleading on behalf of Norway baseball, is make a solidly convincing argument why the concerns of 20-odd baseball players should determine the fate of a school system. Yes, the town is proud of its team, its players and its years of trophies, but should sports really determine how everyone is educated? It’s an instance of filmmakers being so sure of their case they assume auds will come along.

Production values are often subpar. The shooting is unimaginative and the editing is rough; Angarano at one point hits a ball in a batting cage while looking the wrong way, and a fantastic catch toward the end of the film is set up, via cutting, to be a physical impossibility. The loudest flaw, though, is the  music, which is grand, heroic and as subtle as a fungo bat to the head;  infield practice is scored like the burning of Atlanta.