Here’s your link for the movie. It’s from a Strange Site, but most internet security experts consider it pretty safe (when it comes to collecting your data, IMDb is worse). It has good image quality and
no commercials, so no sync issues! Sync issues are a pain on Movie Nights! (Plus this time I made sure the link included the whole movie… last week, uh, it did not.) Start the show at 7:30!
We had to quick change tonight’s movie because gintzer, who requested Benched, will be in jail for eight counts of securities fraud. Oh, he SAYS he’ll be at a Gophers game, but that’s what they all say. I assume his team of Michael Clayton-style high-priced attorneys will manage to get him out in time to join us for Benched in a few weeks.
Mr. Baseball is directed by Australian filmmaker Fred Schepisi, a personal favorite of mine. He’s had his stumbles — every director does — but The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Roxanne, The Russia House are nothing to sneeze at. Six Degrees of Separation is a movie which really gets to me every time I watch it. Stockard Channing in that one gives a performance like nothing else I’ve ever seen… and Will Smith, in his first film role, is pretty good, too. Some nobodies named Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen also have parts in that movie, I’ve never heard of them.
Schepisi was actually frustrated a bit by how much Tom Selleck, who had producer control, reshaped the script, here. This sometimes happens. Egos clash in the movie business — I know I’m blowing your mind, but sometimes, it happens!
And, to blow your mind even MORE… egos sometimes clash on sports teams! Crazy, right! But it has occurred! Once every blue moon or so…
Selleck plays a brash American who butts heads with the more team-first, respect-tradition style of Japanese baseball, represented here by the manager, Ken Takakura. If you’ve never seen Takakura in anything, you’re in for a treat. Selleck is no slouch as an actor; I think he was pretty decent whenever he got the opportunity, which was rarely (Magnum, P.I., wasn’t exactly a deep role, and neither are reverse-mortgages commercials). But Takakura is a world-class actor. It’s not criticizing Selleck to say he’s pretty decent, while Takakura is GREAT.
If I remember correctly, there’s a romantic side plot. If I remember correctly, it’s not very convincing. I haven’t seen this in decades!
The depiction of how American players have to adjust to the cultural differences in Japan is considered very accurate; in fact, the movie is still used to give American players an introduction to what some of those differences are. You can read this 2022 article talking to Rex Hudler, Nick Martinez, and Leon Lee, all of whom played in both countries, and Lee was the film’s baseball adviser. (As of 2022 Lee had the third-most hits of any foreign player in NPB history.)
“‘Sure, Japan’s different, but different is not always bad,” Lee said. “If you get anything out of the movie, you see that Jack Elliot makes an adjustment and you realize you, too, can adapt and adjust to a different culture.’”
Better understanding between cultures! We can all root for that, even if the script isn’t perfect, right? Right! Well, not all root for it. But we TwinkieTowners do.
Here’s tonight’s link again! Fire it up at 7:30!
And here’s the upcoming schedule:
January 16: Alibi Ike (1935)
Starring the great Joe E. Brown (Some Like it Hot) as a baseball player who concocts a harebrained excuse for every mistake, hence his nickname. Free on a Strange Site.
January 23: Major League (1989)
I wanted to do this right after A League of Their Own (two titles with the word “league”) but then it disappeared from the mainstream streamers. Well, it is also on the Strange Site.
January 30: Benched (2018)
John C. McGinley and Garret Dillahunt star as two youth baseball coaches with very different approaches to coaching. Free on the Strange Site.
I’ve got some ideas for future ones if we do this more, and all movie suggestions are absolutely welcome & wanted!
