Oscar Bronze: Moneyball

(*Also posted on BC Blogs)

——————–

We’ve all had that look… (Photo “courtesy” of Tribute.ca)

To truly understand the greatness of Moneyball, you have to watch it more than once. To know why it won’t win Best Picture (i.e. “Oscar Bronze”), you have to watch it more than twice.

Moneyball is perfect viewing. It’s popcorn and it’s intellectual, the second home run hit by Aaron Sorkin in the last year, and another film that makes “action shots” of Jonah Hill typing and Brad Pitt spitting peanut shells more exciting than Bruce Willis taking down planes or Tom Hanks storming Normandy.

Moneyball is an examination of a game, and of a strategy. You can be a baseball fan and love it or you can be a business fan (is that a thing?) and love it. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll appreciate both of those sides.

And then, just when you think the movie has gotten too into its themes of On-Base Percentage and The Future of Kevin Youkilis, you’ll be moved by Scott Hatteberg’s story of personal triumph or Billy Beane’s connection to those around him.

You’ll get off the couch with that song his daughter sings stuck in your head.

You’ll play Explosions in the Sky all night long.

You’ll go out and buy the book by Michael Smith and you’ll Google who Bill James was, who Billy Beane was, and who the 2002 Oakland Athletics were.

No, this movie is not about winning. It can’t be. You should know that already, because this movie is non-fiction and the real thing happened 10 years ago.

Yes, Brad Pitt has done more for the sales of windbreakers and head visors than a football coach at a southeastern United States college football coach every could.

No, Moneyball won’t win Best Picture. If The Social Network couldn’t, Moneyball can’t. It’s not a part of the “formula,” and it’s not the right year for Pitt to walk away with a little statue, either.

But, the amazing part of Moneyball is how much it can appeal to baseball traditionalists, baseball “casualists,” and uninformed movie fans, altogether.

My mother is not a huge baseball girl, or a sports girl, for that matter. She knows enough about the game because she’s lived her last 22 years stuck in a house with three boys. Of course, she had to say five times how much Brad Pitt looked like Robert Redford. When David Justice came on-screen, she said, “This must have been after he split with Halle Berry.”

That said, there was a genuine emotion she felt for the characters and for the game. Any movie that makes you care about something you couldn’t have given two cents for before is accomplishing something.

Moneyball goes further.