Catching up with 2011: Moneyball

“Nobody reinvents this game.” – Joe Morgan, ESPN sportscaster and baseball dinosaur This quote comes at the end of Bennett Miller’s Moneyball – his adaptation of the highly successful, highly controversial look at the inner-workings of the Billy Beane run Oakland Athletics during the 2002 season from the point of view of author Michael Lewis – a frustratingly mediocre film that gets one thing absolutely right: the dichotomy of the old pro scouts (the dinosaurs who don’t think the game can be...

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Catching up with 2011: Hugo

As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, Hugo is the PG-rated Martin Scorsese film that is unlike anything he’s ever made before, but represents the things that are nearest to his heart. The film is a family film, yes, but it is also a labor of love for; a 130 minute infomercial for film preservation designed to arouse (I tried to think of the cleanest way possible to say that) cinephiles everywhere with its references to early film and re-mastered footage. I am admittedly not a huge fan of 3D –...

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Catching up with 2011: The Descendants

The Descendants is a collection of entertaining – sometimes even great – moments that never comes together. It’s like I kept waiting for something to happen; that typical Alexander Payne-like swerve that throws the entire film under a new light, but it doesn’t happen. Nothing happens in this movie. And I’m not a person who needs something to happen in a movie for it to be entertaining or worth my time (one of my favorite movies is Stranger Than Paradise where not a lot happens), but there has...

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