Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Film Review: 42
(sacobserver.com)
posted on April 09, 2013 at 02:42 PM by RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) to 42, baseball in film, ben chapman, branch rickey, dodgers, hollywood, jackie robinson, movies, pee wee reese
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181 comment(s)
There is already talk of a sequel - “43: This Time Its Personal”
Read More...Despite the film’s sleek feel, the basic life story with its tribulations and triumphs remain intact. It’s inspiring, especially as depicted by Boseman who has the swagger of a young Denzel Washington. Serious, stoic, pent up. If anything he suppresses his anger better than Washington, letting it ride under the surface, so when it erupts, it’s dramatic, forceful. The physicality of his performance—mimicking Robinson’s ...
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1 2 >It's too bad Chadwick Boseman doesn't seem able to capture Robinson's unique voice. Though I guess we can't all be Daniel Day-Lewis.
The clip seems exciting, but I worry it will end up being a preachy, inaccurate, bore.
To do a great Jackie Robinson story, given that most americans should be familiar with the man and his history, you have to dig deep into his life and find events and an angle that will surprise and enlighten audiences, and that give back some of the dramatic tension sapped away from the inevitable end.
If they ended up playing fast and loose with history, I'd rather they did a period baseball piece with a Jackie Robinson like character, where the story won't be constrained by history, and can be more interesting and surprising, as long as it does a good job of evoking the real players and real events of the time, even if it takes a wildly inventive dramatic twist.
Unfortunately what we'd be likely to end up with is Jackie Robinson: Vampire Hunter.
I wouldn't put anything past Hollywood, but from the looks of the trailer it could go either way, and I'm actually somewhat optimistic. It would be a complete downer for the movie to invent even a single (public) scene, because there are so many hundreds of incidents that did happen to and around Robinson that you don't really need to invent anything beyond a bit of dialogue. His life speaks for itself, and the truth is that the more you learn about Jackie, the more you realize he's the most interesting and complex figure in baseball history. I just hope they don't blow it.
I hope this is a good film.
The X-File pretty much did that already. IIRC, it was a decent episode.
Think you're talking about The Unnatural, with Jesse L. Martin as an alien Negro League baseball player.
Harrison Ford appears to pull off a better Branch Rickey than I would have expected (at least in the sense that he acts nothing like Harrison Ford).
Wow, it is. Well, that's a tribute right there: I had NO IDEA it was Harrison Ford.
Jefferson Twilight?
Also, Durocher, as most people here probably know, was suspended by Happy Chandler for the 1947 season, so Robinson's first full-season MLB manager was not Durocher, but Burt Shotton. Max Gail, whom some may remember as Wojo from Barney Miller, is listed as playing Shotton, and he looks less like Shotton than Meloni looks like Durocher. Joe Garagiola and Ralph Branca appear as characters in the movie, according to the IMDB page.
That guy was supposed to be Gibson. He was even named Josh (Exley).
Or Tarantino gets a hold of the story and does Jackie Unchained.
"Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?"
"No. I don't want you to fight the white players. I want you to kill them"
I had the same reaction. The trailer gives me a lot of hope.
I disagree with KT in #3, I don't think you need to do a super in depth story here. The basics of the Jackie Robinson story deserve to be made into a fantastic movie. There is enough to it that you could make a TV series out of his life but I think a solid overview of Jackie's life would make an excellent movie. I suspect that once you get passed "first black player" the majority of people don't know much about the basic story. I'd bet the second thing about him people would think of is that he stole home in the World Series and after that they would draw a blank so I think hitting the high points is a worthy endeavor.
I suspect that once you get passed "first black player" the majority of people don't know much about the basic story.
I think the further we get away from his actual life, more and more young people will not even know the "first black player" aspect.
I think it looks good, but I hope the hip hop music is only in the trailer and not in the actual movie (and I say this as a fan of hip hop).
YOU RANG, MR. PRESIDENT?
I didn't remember that episode at all, so I just watched it. It had everything I loved about The X-Files:
MULDER: You seriously want me to believe that Josh Exley maybe one of the greatest ballplayers of all times, was an alien?
ARTHUR DALES: They're all aliens, Agent Mulder-- all the great ones.
MULDER: Babe Ruth was an alien?
ARTHUR DALES: Yeah.
MULDER: Joe DiMaggio?
ARTHUR DALES: Sure.
MULDER: Willie Mays?
ARTHUR DALES: Well, obviously.
MULDER: Mantle? Koufax? Gibson?
ARTHUR DALES: Bob or Kirk? See, none of the great ones fit in -- not in this world, not in any other world. They're all aliens, Mulder, until they step between the white chalk lines-- until they step on the outfield grass.
Mulder talking about the beauty of box scores was also great.
I watched the trailer earlier today and thought Ford's performance looks almost as good as his in Cowboys & Aliens.
Same production company — Thomas Tull's Legendary Pictures. (Tull, incidentally, was rumored to have interest in buying the Padres last spring/summer.)
Anyway, that trailer looks great. Really looking forward to seeing this in April.
I watched the trailer earlier today and thought Ford's performance looks almost as good as his in Cowboys & Aliens.
I'm the only person I've ever met that really liked "Cowboys and Aliens". That's OK. Mine is a lonely journey.
You aren't alone. It wasn't great or anything but I enjoyed it. As the reviewers might say it was an enjoyable romp through a fanciful experience. I set a low bar on movies though. It's tough for me to go out of my way to see a movie and leave not having enjoyed myself. Because of that when I do see a movie I dislike I get pretty bitter (and Keanu Reeves still owes me money for the abomination that was "Point Break").
LOL, I have a high bar, and I gave Point Break the "fanciful experience" tie-breaker. Now I feel so ashamed.
Good one.
No. Jackie Robinson is taught in schools. He's one of the paper saints. Ask any kid about him and they'll say he was the first black baseball player.
I throughly enjoyed Point Break, for which I paid a dollar in a second-run theater in Cathedral City. I also paid a dollar for Forrest Gump, which I'm still angry about.
I would have thought Gump was right in your wheelhouse.
I agree with your entire post except the part I quoted.
Looking forward to 42.
I think I'd prefer a treatment that only nods at the high points while spending most of its time on the details of what Robinson's day to day life during his career was like. I don't know a lot those details and, 55 to 65 years after they happened, to most Americans those details might be both shocking and fresh.
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First.
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That's true but I don't think you can do the minutiae without doing the basics. I think the folks here would enjoy the movie you'd describe but a big budget film aiming for a mass audience is going to be better hitting the high points and can also be a very good movie.
Is the inevitable end when he campaigns for Nixon?
Fair enough, but my concern with that approach is that it would end up like Ali, the solid but fundamentally dull biopic that was interesting primarily for how much Will Smith was able to submerge Will Smith and do a credible imitation of Ali. Robinson is less well known as a physical presence (who isn't?), so that might not be an issue. Still, it isn't going to be easy to get beyond the film's being an attractive re-creation of Jackie's Greatest Hits. And that'll probably be just fine. Maybe the best we can hope for is that it doesn't deify him, and shows the man, warts and all.
@45--really? Say it isn't so...
Now let's close this can of worms.
I just want them to make it clear what a pain in the rear he could be as an opponent, even if you weren't a racist bastard.
What real life baseball story would you most like to see? I remember someone did an interesting treatment of a fictionalized-combined Rick Ankiel-Josh Hamilton story. I'd like to see the Sam Rice story.
Moe Berg seems like a good one. (Has there been a movie about him?)
Would the Brotherhood of Professional Baseball Players make for a good story?
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