Why I Love week: Take Me Out to the Ball Game

By Bill


So it's been pretty gloomy around here lately. On the same day a bit over a week ago, Bill and TCM wrote posts whose titles began with "Why I Hate" -- first the new playoff format, then the new draft rules. Last week came the announcement of the new CBA, the magnum opus capping Bud Selig's diabolical twenty-year plan for the utter destruction of the national pastime. People are giving Michael Young MVP votes. There's just a lot to be bitter about right now. 


So we've decided to completely ignore all that and observe a cynicism-free week of utter frivolity and happiness (TCM Note: TCM does not promise to keep this site cynicism free.  Without cynicism, what would The Common Man be? He will, however, try and refrain from being a Negative Nelly once a day). Bill and TCM (Jason and Mark can certainly participate if they want to) will alternate providing daily posts celebrating one little baseball-related thing we love, or that helps explain why we love baseball.


I'm a big fan of Frank Sinatra, and I'm obviously quite into baseball. So I really don't know how I got through more than thirty years of life without ever becoming aware that there's a movie in which a singing-and-dancing Frank Sinatra plays the part of a turn-of-the-century big-league shortstop. But there is, and it's called Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and once I learned of this, of course, I had to see it.

Blogfight? A Conversation About Moneyball

By The Common Man and Bill

This weekend, Bill and The Common Man each separately attended a showing of Moneyball. Rather than provide you with a traditional review, which neither of us feel particularly qualified to do, we thought a discussion of the film and our reactions to it might be appropriate. In other words, we’re not telling you how you should feel about Moneyball, but how we felt as we watched it.


What follows is a slightly edited chat transcript. Be warned: (1) if you think there’s such a thing as “spoilers” for a movie like this (and we don’t think there is, really, if you have read the book, followed baseball in 2002 or have ever been to Baseball-Reference.com), what follows is absolutely full of them; and (2) we did say slightly edited – the transcript below is really just a conversation and isn’t nearly up to this site’s usual grammar or style standards. Nonetheless, enjoy!

Bill: So what did you think of Moneyball?

TCM: Moneyball is Johnny Damon: good, but not HOF quality. Overrated by casual fans, underrated by the stathead community and with a really underwhelming start and finish to its career.

The Tenth Inning: A Skeptic's Review

By Bill

When I heard a year and a half ago that Ken Burns was planning an update chapter of his epic Baseball documentary, I couldn't make myself think a single positive thought about it. I remember parking on the couch and watching every minute of the original video marathon with my dad, and loving it. But that was different! I was fifteen. And frankly, I have the film on DVD and still love it, but it was a simpler time, and a different project. It was about history (all of it, really; the film had been finished well before the 1994 strike, so none of it really felt "now"); this one, meanwhile, would feel a lot more like current events. All I could imagine it being was several hours of crying about how the players make too much money and steroids have ruined the game. So I felt an obligation to watch it, but no particular interest.

Well...I'm very, very glad I did. In my opinion, Burns' new work, while far from perfect and nowhere near as endlessly fascinating and joy-making as the 18-hour original article, was done almost exactly as well as he could possibly have done it. He certainly didn't shy away from the controversies and other nonsense, but they were dealt with realistically and even-handedly. There was probably too much of a couple silly and generally uncomprehending journalists who shall not be named...but the editing was so good, they rarely got the chance to say anything really upsetting. I was prepared to hate it, and frankly, I loved it. Not as much or nearly in the same manner as the original miniseries, but "love" is still the right word. The still and moving images were beautifully chosen and arranged; In Keith David, they had the greatest narrator of anything, ever (give or take). There was some truly insightful commentary, and on and on. If you stayed away for the same reasons I was tempted to stay away, give it a shot.

The nice thing about watching "The Bottom of the Tenth" on DVR a day late, and writing the review a day late, is that I've already gotten to see a number of other reviews and gotten a pretty good idea of what other people are thinking about this thing. (If you read only one kind of negative review, please God let it be this one.) So the rest of this will be heavily based on things that bothered other people:

This Film Has Been Rated XX

Late last night, as The Common Man stubbornly refused to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, he saw Trainspotting for the first time. As it turns out, Trainspotting is not the movie that the father of a young child should be watching just before bed. If you haven't seen it, the plot hinges on the crib-death of Baby Dawn, the daughter of a heroin addict, which is grotesque and haunting. Needless to say, The Common Man did not sleep well.

That said, it got The Common Man to thinking that it was time to make a list. So, here are the 5 movies that no man should ever have to see.

Exit to Eden - Look, there are many things in life that The Common Man hopes to never see. One of those things used to be Rosie O'Donnell in a leather dominatrix outfit. It's not that The Common Man dislikes Rosie. There was a time, believe it or not, that Rosie was pretty funny. Then she got her own show, then she went nuts, then she started ranting about 9/11 conspiracies. Sadly, in 1994, crazy 2008 Rosie traveled back in time, knocked her old self out and locked her in the closet, and decided to make a sex/buddy-cop comedy with Dan Ackroyd. Chasing diamond smugglers, Rosie and Ackroyd go undercover at a sexual retreat center run by Hector Elizando and Dana Delaney. But frankly, who cares about the plot. Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Ackroyd in leather bondage gear. No man should have to endure that.


Thelma and Louise - This is certainly a good movie. The Common Man does not dispute that. And it features Susan Sarandon at the top of her sultry Southern older woman hotness. And Geena Davis wasn't bad either in those pre-Cutthroat Island days. But it's hard to argue that any man comes across well in the buddy/road movie for female empowerment. After one man tries to rape Thelma, Louise shoots him and the women go out on the lamb. Louise's boyfriend steals her money and Thelma's husband is a controlling ass. Brad Pitt is Brad Pitt, but he's also a felon who has broken parole. Harvey Keitel may be sympathetic to their plight, but he is also part of the posse that chases them over the edge of the Grand Canyon. Not much to hang your hat on in this film, boys.

The Color Purple - Speaking of movies where men don't come off well. Stephen Spielberg's The Color Purple features a wife-beating, alcoholic, unfaithful, and uninterested male lead, Mr. ____________. The second male lead, Harpo, is a buffoon whose primary responsibilities involve getting beat up by his wife and falling through roofs for comedic effect. Celie's step-father, who she believes to be her real dad, rapes and impregnates her as a youth. And, well, that's pretty much it except for Mr.__________'s father, a cantankerous old coot who has shaped his son into the woman-beating, lazy slob he ultimately became. The book, a masterpiece by Alice Walker was underserved by the film, as it allowed the male characters to redeem themselves by the end of the novel without sacrificing the overall theme of female sexual awakening and empowerment. Do yourself a favor and skip the movie, read the book, and find the awesome Thanksgiving Dinner scene, the only truly wonderful scene in the movie, somewhere on You Tube.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - The Common Man has not seen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It's entirely possible that it's a good movie. But the words "sisterhood", "traveling", and "pants" have somehow found the magical word combination that neutralizes the curious sections of The Common Man's brain. He simply has no desire to learn anything more than the title. He doesn't even want to know how pants travel. Or how the traveling pants somehow spawn sisterhood. At least The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood had Ashley Judd and Sandra Bullock. And James Garner, a real man's man. Not that, uh, The Common Man has, uh, seen it.

At this point, The Common Man is stuck and will solicit nominations from the peanut gallery. What movies should men never be forced to endure? What other movies should be rated XX, for gals only?