the shOemon chronicles

so Moneyball anyone?

I saw the Oscar nominated Brad Pitt starring ‘Moneyball’ today. Starring Brad Pitt. And some more Brad Pitt. And a little girl who loves Lenka’s ‘Just enjoy the show’. It plays approximately 2.5 times through the film.

So, honestly, movie reviews are boring. I hate to read them.
So I figured Ill do something else.

Top ten moments in the movie:
(‘cus a>I love moments b>I love countdowns)

Billy Beane is given a choice between Stanford on full scholarship, or a career in baseball with the New York Mets. The slow transition in-your-head effect that looms through the entire movie, hits you hard in this particular moment. Especially if you are one of the people who often make tough choices.

Billy’s first conversation with Peter Brand is simply, epic! ‘Who are you?’ he asked. And the replies got weirder every time. The end goes like this.

Billy: “So, you went to Yale, studied Economics, and now analyse Baseball players? Peter, you are weird…”,and then walks into the elevator.
Now, its a very simple scene, but I guess perks of having a good actor on your movie is, the audience actually buys a simple scene as natural. 

Billy and the daughter go guitar shopping and she picks up a guitar humming to ‘Just enjoy the show’. The amazingly amazed father look on Brad’s face deserves an Oscar for the best expression. I was rolling with happy laughter in my head(the sweet kind). If you are a wanna-be father of my kind, then you’d give anything to see your daughter sing! I get you Billy!

Scouts and Billy meeting with Peter first time: Whats interesting to not in this is how easily Peter becomes a minion to Billy, to a level of a parrot nevertheless. Billy’s acute commanding, to an amusing level, and Peter’s obeying, while all the scouts are trying to understand WTF are they doing there???? is an interesting scene.
“Its not open for discussion” Billy conludes.

The Red Sox owner meets Billy. Now as pointed out by my fellow-movie-watcher-cum-buddy, this is the part in the movie where Billy speaks the most. This creaks out the long existing tradition of keeping-your-head-low in front of a person of higher stature, or an employer tradition. You can see a sense of finality on Billy’s face. He is excited, not about the offer he is getting, but actually ONLY about the offer and not what follows. Its one of those moments where you look forward to the travelling and not about the destination.

The last scene: Billy is again at a junction in his life. The film theoretically starts with Billy having to choose between College and Baseball. And ends with a choice between ‘The most paid GM in sports history’ and a ‘just-enjoy-the-show-loving Daughter’.
He puts in a CD that sounds like “Hey Dad! If you decide to stay in California, then cool. If not, I still love you….I’m just a little bit caught in the middle”… and the song continues.

We zoom in at Billy’s eyes. Now glistening with obviously clear tears. He knows what he is supposed to do, as his daughter’s voice is correctly emulating what he is feeling inside.
I love the poetic sense of the entire situation. And hats-off to the writers for being able to portray that, in the utmost fairness.

I loved this movie, and I didn’t even know the ‘B’ in baseball.

ps- Must watch, if you like cinema.