For Christmas, Shan got me "Fear Strikes Out," a baseball movie based on the book by the same name about Jimmy Piersall. Saturday, while still getting over the 'crud,' I decided to pop in the video and take it for a spin.
The DVD itself has nothing special or 'bonus' about it. You get the main menu which basically consists of SETUP, PLAY, and CHAPTER SELECT.
For those of you that don't know about this baseball movie, it stars a young Anthony Perkins (three years before Psycho) and Karl Mulden. Perkins plays Piersall in his early days as he battles with his grip on reality which ultimately leads to a breakdown. The movie was made in 1956/57, so there is a lot of that 50's "cheesy melodrama" in the movie, but it is actually pretty well done. Perkins definitely shows some of Norman Bates behind those eyes during the darkest (both literally and emotionally) moments of the movie. The movie holds it own, even today, in the story it tells - a father who forces his child to live out unfulfilled dreams. The fact that it is based on a real player makes the story even more poignant. He batted in only 6 games his rookie year before his breakdown, then came back two years later to play a total of 17 years in the majors. He played two years with the Tribe (1960-61), wearing Number 37, so we'll see him again later in the Uniform countdown! His overall career average? How about .272!?
Saturday night, the kids spent the night at their grandparents' place, so Shan and I had a bowl of popcorn with Milk Duds and watched "The Holiday." Yes, it is a chick-flick, but I decided to pick it up at Wal-Mart the other day. I think Shan summed it up best: "I had a smile on my face the whole movie." You know by the cover how the movie ends up, and the journey the four main characters take to get there is funny, heart-warming, sometimes painful. But, the whole time, I too had a smile on my face. I am a sucker for romantic comedies, and as formulaic as they usually are, I still like to watch a movie like "The Holiday" every once in a while. :-)
Since I am still getting over whatever crud I have, I decided to pop in the "Major League - Wild Thing Edition" DVD I got for Christmas. Since I have seen the movie many times (and love it every single time), I watched some of the extras before watching the movie. They each gave a different, but equally cool look at the movie, its staying power, and things behind the scenes. As a lifetime die-hard Tribe fan, seeing current, former, and future Indians players put their spin on the movie and its impact really struck a chord with me. It is exactly the kind of stuff any movie fan wants in the extras section, and the fact the it centers on baseball and the Indians makes it even more entertaining.
No comments:
Post a Comment