Thursday night at the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, a once-in-a-lifetime baseball game was played finally, after a year of pandemic delays, between the #1 ranked White Sox and the New York Yankees, and the event returned something long missing to the game. In the third inning Chicago White Sox outfielder Eloy Jiménez flipped a switch, igniting a ho-hum MLB regular season game into something more with a three-run homer, and the Sox led most of the game until New York took back the game in the ninth inning. Then, crushing a two-run, walk-off homer into the corn, shortstop Tim Anderson won the landmark game for the Sox with a 9-8 final. Anderson remarked, “playing out here in the middle of the corn, who would’ve thought that?” Jiménez commented that the experience in the first ever Major League Baseball game in Iowa was a little bit like playing back in the minor leagues, “it was amazing… but this was a big one. This was fun.” With a bushel of homerun baseballs landing in the corn field behind left and right field, it wasn’t the same old, big city baseball, but an experience that brought players and fans back to the basics of the game. It was a perfect summer night in the kind of pastoral venue the old pros played in for a hundred years before Nike logos adorned player shirts, before piloted drone cameras, and giant HD playback monitors. In short, it’s the kind of game that will hopefully happen again and again at this unique venue, and certainly more than only one MLB game per year.
This weekend one of the greatest American film classics celebrated its 30th anniversary across the U.S. Thirty years later and Phil Alden Robinson′s Field of Dreamsstill holds up. But thirty years is a long time, and my umpteenth viewing for Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies theatrical release for Father’s Day netted even more new thoughts about one of my all-time favorite movies. I can’t think of a better Father’s Day movie, but if you missed it in the theater this weekend, you have one more day and two showings to catch it before it goes back in the vaults until its next anniversary. Find out more about tomorrow’s two screenings and find your local participating theater at the Fathom Events website for the anniversary event here. TCM host Ben Mankiewicz adds some film trivia before and after the screening–he’s a great host for these anniversary events.
Not even two minutes pass before Kevin Costner′s Ray Kinsella hears the ghostly words from afar that set the story into motion: If you build it, he will come. From there, Robinson’s tightly written, major re-work of the W.P. Kinsella novel Shoeless Joe is non-stop magic (check out my retro review of the novel here at borg earlier this year where I compare it to the film). It’s accompanied by James Horner′s sweeping, emotional score that will jerk you around from ghost story surprise to epic cross-country adventure and back to quiet, pastoral personal drama. You can go back and scratch your head over the actual films that won Academy Awards over Field of Dreams for 1989–it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score. You’ll find Field of Dreams is the only film that stuck with audiences three decades later, airing almost weekly now on cable channels, confirming its place in the Library of Congress’s film recognition and at the top of the American Film Institute’s rankings more than once.
It’s the rare film like Field of Dreams that begs for there to be an Academy Award for best casting. Margery Simkin, the casting director for films from Beverly Hills Cop to Top Gun to Star Trek Discovery deserves a salute for getting every role just right. Kevin Costner never veers from pure immersion into this new farmer wanting to follow his gut instincts. Amy Madigan plays the perfect supportive partner and wife to Ray. Gaby Hoffman is smart for her age as Ray’s daughter and a true credit to the film. Director/writer Phil Alden Robinson should share in the brilliant updating the novel character from real-life J.D. Salinger to the fictional Terence Mann–audiences know James Earl Jones so well from Star Wars, yet here we get the benefit of his powerfully emotional eyes and that broad smile and laugh. I always look forward to Ray Liotta′s steely stare, his knowing calmness, and his snarky laugh-out-loud dismissal of Ty Cobb. Keeping with the novel and my take from past viewings, Archie Graham brings the magic home as the crucial piece of the puzzle driving the story to its end, played young and eager in a 1920s mindset by the great Frank Whaley and in his later years as a wise small-town doctor by film legend Burt Lancaster. The quaint beauty of Dubuque, Iowa, made for the perfect backdrop to film Graham’s hometown of Chisholm, Minnesota, for these scenes.
Seven years ago the writers at borg came up with our top ten favorite fantasy movies (take a look at my list here). I’m happy to see that my list hasn’t changed much. Two of my top ten fantasy movies are returning to theaters nationwide for limited showings. First, Field of Dreams (my #6 favorite), is back next week, followed in July by The Muppet Movie (my #3 favorite). Celebrating its 30th anniversary, Field of Dreamswill be in theaters for Fathers’ Day, an opportunity to share the ultimate story of believing in yourself and trusting your instincts with a new generation. It’s scheduled to appear at more than 600 theaters. Then celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Muppet Movie,Fathom Events is partnering with The Jim Henson Company and Universal Pictures to show the classic big-screen debut of the Muppets on more than 700 screens nationwide.
Fathom Events joins Universal Pictures and Turner Classic Movies to bring Field of Dreams to theaters Sunday, June 16, for showings at 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. local time, and Tuesday, June 18, at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. local time. Director Phil Alden Robinson′s re-write of W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe(reviewed here at borg), features three of cinema’s most fantastic characters coming together: reclusive author Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), baseball player Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley) and “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (Ray Liotta). It was nominated for six–and made three–of the American Film Institute’s lists of the top American films of all time, including being named the all-time #6 top fantasy film.
For two days only this July, The Muppet Moviereturns with screenings on Thursday, July 25, and Tuesday, July 30. The Muppet Movie will play at 12:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. (local time) each day. Following the international success of the television show The Muppet Show, which at its peak aired in more than 100 countries, Muppets creator Jim Henson took a creative risk to have the characters star in their first motion picture. The result, directed by James Frawley, became a box-office hit, starring Kermit (performed by Henson), Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear (performed by Frank Oz), Gonzo (performed by Dave Goelz) and his chicken Camilla (performed by Jerry Nelson), Scooter (performed by Richard Hunt), and dozens of other favorite characters.
It’s February, and for sports fans that can mean only one thing: Baseball is just around the corner. Spring training is only a few weeks away, so why not get into the mindset for the game with a look back to a modern classic, W.P. Kinsella′s novel Shoeless Joe. First published in 1982 and originally titled The Dream Field, Kinsella’s novel didn’t debut to overwhelming acclaim in the U.S., although it won the author the 1982 “Books in Canada First Novel Award.” Kinsella had been writing about the Black Sox, the famous White Sox team that threw the World Series in 1919, and while attending the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop he decided to incorporate that event into a fantasy about Shoeless Joe Jackson returning to Iowa to play ball again. The result is what you might call the Great American Novel of the 1980s, now with a legion of fans devoted to the story. The novel includes two major character threads that were excised for the 1989 classic, Field of Dreams, a film that has been named to the Library of Congress as one of the greatest American films of all time, as well as included on two American Film Institute Top 100 lists, nominated for three others, and named the AFI #6 best fantasy film of all time. The book and film are equally superb for different reasons. The film is one of the finest attempts at magical realism on the silver screen, and the magic is at the core of the novel. In the original Kinsella went further than the film, delving into why American love for baseball transcends other sports and pastimes, and he takes readers on an adventure into the intricacies of relationships and human nature.
Shoeless Joe follows Ray Kinsella, one of a set of twin brothers whose father died many years ago. In their teens Ray’s brother Richard gets into an argument with his father and leaves home. Ray gets married, settles in Iowa City and has a daughter named Karin. He begins a life selling insurance, but one day he encounters an elderly man who starts talking baseball with him as he’s walking along the streets of Iowa City. Ray learns that the man, named Eddie Scissons, is the oldest living Chicago Cubs player, and soon strikes up a friendship, ultimately leasing a farm the man can no longer work. The next piece is familiar to moviegoers: Ray hears a voice from the corn, “If you build it he will come,” and understands it to mean he needs to build a left field for Shoeless Joe to return and play baseball again. Ray levels the corn field, and Joe arrives. Unlike the film, this happens over several months. And there’s more: the voice directs Ray cryptically again, this time with the plea, “Ease his pain.” Ray knows the message to mean he must go to find the reclusive The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger and take him to a baseball game. Kinsella, the author, used the living Salinger as a character, but the author didn’t want his name used so the role was altered to the fictional writer Terence Mann (played by James Earl Jones) for the film. Research by the studio determined potential audiences of the time were no longer familiar with Salinger and the swap did not affect the film.
But Kinsella had reasons to use Salinger in his novel, as Salinger had used two characters with Kinsella’s last name in different works in real life, hence Kinsella’s real-life fascination with Salinger, and the use of Ray and Richard inShoeless Joe. Unlike the film, whose key points are getting Shoeless Joe, Archie Graham, the famous author, and Kinsella′s father to come to the field, the key point of Shoeless Joeis getting Joe to the field in the first part of the story, but the pinnacle is getting Salinger to reveal his love of baseball, to go into the field, to learn what really lies in The Great Beyond, and hopefully return with a new novel for his fans after the many years of not writing. In reality Salinger stopped publishing, but he didn’t quit writing, all the way to his death in 2010. This week his heirs announced for the first time they would be releasing several of Salinger’s unpublished works after 2020 and over the next 10 years.
Marvel has diversified its creations on film and television so much that anyone can find a series or film that grabs them and surprises them with action, drama, strong characters, superheroics and great storytelling. It’s going to be a subjective call for anyone, but the depth of every storytelling component in two seasons of Marvel’s Luke Cage makes it our nomination for the best superhero series yet. With all that a comic book fan could want (except maybe supersuits), Season Two of Marvel’s Luke Cage, now on Netflix, rises to the occasion again. The writers, actors, and other creators of Luke, his partners, and the crimelords of Harlem, could hold their own against any of the entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A “best of” list of the villains of Marvel adaptations will no doubt have Loki and Killmonger from the movies fighting for top spots, but it also must now have Season One’s Cottonmouth Stokes, and this season’s trifecta of villains: Bushmaster McIver, Shades Alvarez, and Mariah Stokes.
We compared Season One–which was borg.com’s Best TV Superhero Series of 2016 along with Cage actor Mike Colter and Misty Knight actor Simone Missick taking top acting kudos for the year–to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, and again, Season Two is worthy of that comparison. All the key social and cultural issues affecting every-day people inside or outside New York City neighborhoods, from the 1960s and today, work their way into the storytelling of the series. The season kept its fresh approach with a new director at the helm of nearly every episode, while maintaining its focus thanks to Cheo Hodari Coker penning the overall story and leading the series as showrunner. The show’s style is unique. Even more than in Season One, nearly each episode featured the setting of the nightclub Harlem’s Paradise with an incredible performer on-stage with a relevant song to the episode. Where a modern take on 20th century Speakeasy-inspired jazz and blues was the background for Season One, music derived from the roots of hip-hop and the heritage of key show characters in Jamaica defines the style this time. This was topped off in the last episode with a song performed by Rakim that echoed Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s 1970s retro-funk series theme.
Family roots and legacies left behind top the season’s themes. Along with the drama, the superheroics were present in Cage’s Power Man persona and new villain Bushmaster’s exquisitely choreographed battle scenes. Charismatic actor Mustafa Shakir, who isn’t Jamaican, is perfectly convincing with the accent as Johnny “Bushmaster” McIver, and like Lou Ferrigno in The Incredible Hulk and series star Colter, Shakir looks like a superhuman with no need for any superhero costume. And yes, Shakir performed most of the fabulous stunt fights with Colter, with training incorporating capoeira fighting, aptly selected for the series from its focus on power, speed, kicks, and spins. Looking for the best superhero genre one-on-one battles at the movies or on television? They can be found in Season Two of Marvel’s Luke Cage. It’s even more refreshing because the series casts aside the current lazy trope in cinema of slow-motion action sequences, which can pull you out of the momentum of the action every time.
The best is back next month. Television’s best comic book adaptation to date, the Emmy-winning Marvel’s Luke Cage, is returning next month as Season 2 arrives on Netflix. Can Season 2 match the one-two punch of the first season? It looks like we’re going to get a return of everything fans are after: More Mike Colter protecting the streets of Harlem as “Power Man” Luke Cage. The first trailer for the 2018 season is out and we’re learning a lot about what to look for in June as the next season is released on Netflix: Supercop badass Misty Knight (Simone Missick) is bringing a new weapon to the law with her own cybernetic arm. Alfre Woodard’s Mariah Dillard is taking her place as leader of the underground criminal element. Luke’s pal Bobby (Ron Cephas Jones) is back with Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple to watch over Luke. And even Theo Rossi’s master manipulator and henchman “Shades” Alvarez makes an appearance in the trailer.
The challenge of all superhero tales ultimately is the same: How intriguing and compelling is the villain? Season 1 had Shades and Mariah, Frank Whaley’s cool bad cop Detective Scarfe, Erik LaRay Harvey’s sinister Diamondback, and the awesome and gritty Mahershala Ali’s Cottonmouth. With Scharfe, Cottonmouth, and Diamondback out of the picture, we’re getting a new villain: Quarry’s Mustafa Shakir is Bushmaster. Showing Cage there’s always someone bigger and stronger to come along, Bushmaster surprises our hero with equal strength and power.
Does Bushmaster hail from the same mad science that created Cage, or is someone new behind the scenes?
Take a look at this first trailer for Season 2 of Marvel’s Luke Cage:
It’s that time of year again. The 2016 World Series is now in full swing with the first game a sweep by the Cleveland Indians. How will the Chicago Cubs fare in Game 2 tonight? If you’re not in the baseball frame of mind yet, we have five of the all-time best baseball movies you can stream right now for free or for less than four dollars on Amazon Prime’s streaming service. Most of these can also be rented on Netflix. And let’s face it–everyone should own our fifth movie on the list.
Have you seen them already? Then you know these great films can be watched over and over again.
Let’s start with a classic: Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees from 1942. The movie recounts the then-recent personal triumph and tragedy of what baseball as an American pastime has created over and over for more than a century: baseball players as American icons. Pride of the Yankees shows the personal side of being a famous baseball player, and features real-life legends Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig, and Bill Dickey, all playing themselves on-screen. Academy Award winners Teresa Wright and Walter Brennan co-star. If you want to see classic baseball from a contemporary view, this is your movie. Although the story is certainly bittersweet and a tear-jerker, it reflects baseball as more than just a game.
The most recent movie on our list is Moneyball, from 2011, a modern classic we’ve already watched over and over. Moneyball reveals the game as a modern business. The conflict between playing the game as classically envisioned and the game as seen from an analytical angle is wrestled with from the real life mostly true story of the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane as he turned the team around in its 2002 season. Continue reading →
