Moneyball

The Oakland A’s tried to change how conventional baseball teams were run and managed. The A’s couldn’t compete with the big boys like the Yankees who threw money at players to build the best team. Oakland had to come up with a new system to gain talent. That’s the topic of Moneyball as Brad Pitt plays the A’s general manager Billy Beane assisted by Jonah Hill as Peter Brand who used math to evaluate players and teams. It makes Moneyball a unique sports film because it’s not about a player like usual but the business side.The movie has some very low key comedy thrown in like when Pitt is listening to his scouts about a player they like and they say things like he has a good jaw, he looks really good, there’s a pop when he hits the ball. Pitt asks why do they like him if his batting average is mediocre? They go to the next guy and one of the scouts says his girlfriend is ugly and that means he’s not a player! That’s the reason why he goes to Hill. Added to the mix is Philip Seymour Hoffman as the A’s manager Art Howe. I would’ve never guessed he would be cast in this role but he works as it’s a much older man. He doesn’t get many scenes but he’s great in the ones he appears in.Added to all this is that they play actual recordings from sports radio and TV about the A’s during this one season and no one understood what it was doing. Even the so called baseball experts amongst announcers were dumb founded. It shows you what a revolution Oakland was attempting.Can’t recommend this movie enough because it brings a whole different dynamic to the sports film genre.

The performers and director transform a niche subject into a smart, hilarious, and emotional picture worthy of baseball legends. This film is based on a book. In it, Billy, the Oakland A's general manager, had a revelation that baseball's common thinking is all wrong.He is working with a limited budget, yet he must reinvent his team by outwitting the wealthier ball clubs. To combat old-school norms, he hooks up with an Ivy League graduate. He looks for bargain-basement athletes who, while flawed, have game-winning potential.This film is not just for baseball fans. It has echoes of a very genuine underdog narrative that touches the soul. The emotional tension in this film is not in the baseball sequences, but in a protagonist whose primary desire is to change the way things are done around him.

DISCLAIMER: I am not, I repeat, I AM NOT, a baseball fan. I know about baseball as much as a raccoon. I actually remember when the book came out last century. I couldn't care one bit about it. I found the game slooooow and extremely boring. FORGIVE ME BASEBALL GODS! I found the afternoon one evening and watched because I had just nothing better to do with myself. To my great surprise, I enjoyed this movie very much. Probably one of the most underrated films of 2011. Great story line, great acting. Plenty of funny lines and moments. I actually got excited about baseball! In effect, I have lost count of how many times I have watched. I also found a cheap pbk copy of the book...which I am reading presently. One of my favorite Pitt's films along with Snatch and The Mexican. Wholesome film for the whole family. Highly recommended.

"Moneyball". Who would have guessed? Because the film APPEARS to be about baseball- which is fine with me- it waited unwatched on my shelf for many months. I purchased the film because of Aaron Sorkin- a writer for whom there is no equal today though for the past he is with Ibsen, Shaw, Shakespeare. Sorkinis responsible for so much but you all know him for writing the famous Nicholson line: ":You can't handle the truth!" Now part of LAmerican vernacular, like Sophie's Choice and Are You Lookin' at me? But I discovered a lot more. "Moneyball" is not about Baseball; it is about human beings who produce entertainment for America. After 32 years in the business of music and theatre, I spent 50% of my time with suits, agents, meetings and contracts, ownership of rights and a percent of the gross and box office and press and publicity and total lack of privacy- well, Theatre, film, music sports: America wants it and this film will show you the behind the scenes truth. Expertly, emotionally and with intense suspense.It is impossible to cite specific indivduals for the excellence of this film because the collaborative efect is so spectacular that one almost fails to notice. This film is based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis (Norton & C0) but then, in a moment of brilliance, by executive producer, Scott Rudin, the screenplay was as mentioned, written by Aaron Sorkin and the remarkable Steven Zaillan. The screenplay is flawless and one can tell that there was very little- if any- improvised lines in the filming. There is a musical fluidity to the speach and soundtrack that line up flawless;ly, almost as if the two playwrites and fim composer, Mychael Danna, were all in one brain with a clear view off the final edit. The score is spectacular and Danna is not the only one responsible. The entire music department- including and additional composer- has created a musical masterpiece to sync with all else.Christopher Tellefsen's film editing is so beautiful, masterful and- yes, as the film teaches us- manipulative that even the most rugged 55 year old man will find a lump in his throat at times. But Bennett Miller, director, gets the credit for it all as the man with the final say and the man who, along with the written word, pulled these moving and remarkable performances out of some remarkable veteran actors. Brad Pitt has established himself as a serious actor here, though had he not been so remarkably attractive and half naked in "Thelma and Louise" the world would have seen it there. As a fourty-four year old man, divorced with a 13 year old daughter we see the sincere emotions that tug at the inside of his soul. He has a passion for baseball and at age 18 gave up a Scholarship at Stanord to sign with The New York Mets; a first draft pick that lasted only one season. Now he is the General Manager o the Oakland A's during the 2002 season and it is his intent to change baseball. He does this with the help of the very gifted actor, Jonah Hall by using statistical data to create a low budget baseball club, something for which everyone thinks is insane, particularly the team manager, played by the legend Phillip Seymour hofman in yet another dazling character performance. Pitt plays Billy Beane, a man pulled in many directions: baseball, his past, and his undying devotion to his daughter (expertly played by the miraculous Kerris Dorsey who twice in the film exhibts a singer-singwriter talent for her father perfformed by her without the use of studio fixing or embelishment- a true talent.) who, it turns out, delivers the most remarkable wisdom that the film offers. Her acting is something we haven;t sen from a 13 year old since Jpodie Foster did "Taxi Driver." This credit is indeed shared with Miller's direction, who clearly explained many adult and kid situations rather than the Hollywood tradition of cute, crying wide eyes children. In fact, the scenes between her and Pitt are some of the films most powerful. Still, I must mention Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, Brent Jennings and- in a small but powerful performance, Diane Behrens, first amazing us in 1989 wit the film adaptation of Bob Woodward's "Wired." Her time on screen is so short; she has few lines and all in flashback memory (she plays Beane's mother) but what this woman conveys with her face and eyes is on a par with Meryl Streep.Arliss Howard, as the owner of the Boston red Sox, gives a remarkable eight minute performance filmed on location at Fenway Park-doing character work unlike anything he's done before.Most of us take the Director of Photography for granted, but, as with "Out Of Africa" this is one where we must pause. Wally Pfister has created a myriad of images that capture bnoth granduer and subtlety using angles, lighting, weather, composition in ways that are rarely seen on film.All of these elements, and many many more, come together to create a masterpiece of film. It will entertain and move you with one watch. That won't satisfy you. You will return, as most people do with Sorkin's writing, and you will begin to notice details in every department that you had;t seen previously. In an era when most of what Hollywood is producing is mindless special effect fantasy and Comic Book dreck, this is more exciting, more moving and more artistic than any film I have seen this decade.At this price, buy the thing. No matter what. For baseball fans this will be a vertible orgasmic event- better than the 86 world series.

As a baseball fan, I loved the movie.

A great movie of marketplace innovative analysis.

A movie you'll like if you like sports or you like maths. If you happen to like both maths and sports, you HAVE to watch it.

After playing 3 times..CD was stuck and i am not happy with the CD quality..I do not recommend this CD to the new buyers

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