Film Review: Moneyball

When successful sports teams go on to win major tournaments people talk about difficult to pin down attributes such as skill, spirit and luck. Yes, one way of judging athletes is how hard they can whack a ball or how quickly they can get from point A to point B, but what if you could break all this down to a set of averages and statistics?

Based on the true story of Billy Beane (Pitt), Moneyball charts his transformation of ailing, cash-strapped baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, into bonafide record breakers. Poaching gifted young analyst Peter Brand (Hill) from a rival team, the two embark on a project which not only rejuvenated the Oakland Athletics' fortunes, but revolutionised the entire sport of baseball.

While in many ways Moneyball bares all the classic hallmarks of a great sports movie (underdogs, the 'big game', a former superstar lacking in confidence and a coach's rousing pep talk), surprisingly it features very little in the way of baseball. Certainly this is not a film where the players are the heros, reduced to mere spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. Likewise, on-field antics are only ever portrayed through a haphazard trickle of stock-footage of the Oakland Athletics' 2002 season. Rather, Moneyball is more concerned with the behind the scenes of running a sports team. It's not passion or spirit that are the order of the day here, but the law of averages.

It is Beane and Brand's gamble which is of preeminence here. Losing his best players and sporting a meagre budget one-third that of the New York Yankees', Billy Beane turns to bean counter Peter Brand, a gifted young Yale economics graduate with no sports background. Brand develops a formula which calculates the percentages of how often a player gets on base, therefore increasing the likelihood of runs, as opposed to the conventional method of judging how well players can hit or catch a ball. Armed with Brand's blueprint, the two rummage through the bargain bin of baseball searching for players nobody wants, but who between them complement each other with their combined averages.

And yet, for a film about cold, hard numbers Moneyball still manages to show a surprising amount of heart. Berated by the haggard soothsayers who assume to represent supreme authority over all things baseball and the rest of what conventional wisdom has to say, Beane and Brand remain inextricably woven to an idea. Their fortitude is unerring, their impassioned dedication to an otherwise clinical methodology providing a capacious emotional payoff. You just want their plan to succeed, the new to put the arrogance of the old in its place. Most of all you want Beane - who never made it as a player himself - to prove all the prophets of doom wrong and to finally realise his dream of leaving an indelible legacy on the sport.

While verging on being irritatingly obnoxious, a trait which seems to come with the territory of being a General Manager in baseball, Pitt's Beane also has a cheeky charm which is equally, annoyingly, likeable. However it is Hill's soft-spoken humbleness which almost steals the show. You'll recognise his idiosyncrasies instantly but Hill does so well at underplaying the role that he'll have to be careful less he becomes a serious actor. Alone these two are great, but together they're even better. Pitt's Beane a ball of boundless energy and social intelligence coupled with Hill's Brand who's an understated genius in his own right make the real winning formula in Moneyball. Perhaps a small slight however is how focussed it is on Beane and Brand's effort. Seymour Hoffman's excellent role as surly and obstinate coach Art Howe for example should have been more central in proceedings.

Further, while film's home stretch is well done, it is perhaps a tad too downplayed, serving to leave a bit of a muted ending which somewhat attenuates the film's first two acts. If you're incredibly pedantic you could also pick at some of the temporal anomalies which pop up. Given that the film is set in 2002, you may scratch your head upon seeing flatscreen TVs - a time before they'd been commercially released - as well as Beane's daughter singing 'The Show' by Lenka, a song released in 2008. Admittedly there is also an incredible amount of incomprehensible baseball jargon, but the great thing about Moneyball is that this never takes away from something which is consistently enjoyable to watch.

Generally there's not a lot to dislike about Moneyball. This is a film less about baseball, more a fascinating insight into two men's methodology of creating a winning sports team than of the actual team itself. It is an alluring tale of genius, insanity and blind luck, and still as much a rousing sports film as it is about sticking it to the man. One of the most pleasant surprises of 2011.

Film Review: The Tree Of Life

Where do you start with writer/director Terrence Malick's fifth film in forty-years? To say it's unlike anything in modern cinema would be a gross understatement. The Tree of Life is less a movie in the traditional sense and more an art piece that will appeal to a 'specialised' audience. Certainly this is not one for the masses and its critical aplomb will be equally counter-balanced by its impugners.

Structurally, Tree of Life doesn't follow the normal conventions of story telling. There's no logical narrative, instead resembling movements of a symphony. Indeed, classical music plays a massive part in conveying moods and emotions, its role arguably much more important than dialogue. Musical scores work in tandem with stunning artistry of celestial bodies in space and natural phenomena down on Earth, creating lengthy segments where not a single word is said. It's almost as if watching a nature documentary without Attenborough narrating over the top. These dense barrages of imagery interject the film's more personal introspection of a typical 1950s American family by which, one would believe, its audience can ponder the narrator's almost inaudible whisper "who are we to you?". You will hear these hushed utterances occasionally in what are almost pleads to some higher power in a vain attempt to make sense of it all. And this is pretty much how Tree of Life works. It has no real plot to speak of, rather observing life and contemplating questions which have no answers.

If you could compare it to any film, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey would be one of its closer companions. Both use imagery of space and nature to represent the beginning of life, the universe and everything with an aspiration of evolution to a higher plain of consciousness. While both are seemingly congruent with one another, Tree of Life can be said to work in reverse. Where 2001 started here and ended out in space, this starts out there and ends on Earth. However, Tree of Life feels more meditative and tranquillising than 2001 is intellectually engaging. Of course you'd be right to think all this sounds like pretentious ataxia which, and certainly people will be inclined toward this view. But like most 'art' it will inevitably divide opinion. Malick encourages rumination rather than making any kind of point, and it is this which will either delight or ruffle audiences.

Tree of Life doesn't pretend to actually answer any questions. It juxtaposes the problems of an ordinary American family bereft by the unexplained death of one of their sons against cosmic images and cataclysmic planetary phenomena such as violent volcanoes and raging tidal waves. The point, one would assume, is to say 'what are our problems compared to the grand scheme of the universe?'. Interestingly however there is a discernible ambiguity to Malick's choice of imagery, on the one hand clearly signifying birth and life but also at times alluding to a distant future at Earth's end. Yet this is probably the point, that while life is created, all living things will eventually expire, only for life to go on and begin anew. Tree of Life portrays the circle of life on both a cosmic and personal scale. While the mico, earthly perspective may indeed pale in comparison in the wider sense, it is the human viewpoint which takes precedence for only this matters to the person experiencing such events. It is an esoteric existentialist exposition highlighting the human tendency to so often think of ourselves as the most important things in the universe. And indeed to us, we are. But Tree of Life also invites you to pull back, giving a profound sense and appreciation that we are also able to comprehend that rationally and can put our egotism into some sort of perspective.

The human exploration takes place in idealistic 1950s American suburbia, white picket fence included. We are presented with the O'Brien family dominated by a stern father (Pitt) who represents 'nature', a strict disciplinarian with regards to his three boys. The film centres on the eldest of the three, Jack, played by an enthralling Hunter McCracken who bounces off his two equally captivating brothers (Eppler, Sheridan) in such an immersive manner. Mr O'Brien embodies many of the traits we envisage in a man from the 'greatest generation'; strong and multitalented displaying a can-do attitude only associated with post-war America. And yet he is troubled, unsatisfied by a feeling that he never reached his potential. It's quite saddening to see that it takes him half a life time to realise that he hasn't been unsuccessful at all and that in fact his greatest achievement are his children. Pitt is captivating as a complex character, both loved and loathed by his family, abrasive yet astringently loving at the same time. A sublime Jessica Chastain plays the boy's mother, a delicate, effulgent figure embodying 'grace'. She is the boys' nurturer and their refuge from their father, her love expressed without words but silent to the whims of an overbearing patriarch. It is the polar opposite natures of Jack's parents, characteristics imbued on Sean Penn's grown-up Jack, with which the film is concerned in lamenting over. It is their conflicting philosophies which form the basis of elder Jack's soul-searching, interweaving his reflection on those formative childhood years and how they relate to his universal excogitation. Elder Jack's struggle is summed up with the line "Father, Mother, always you wrestle inside of me". It is perhaps these parts which are the least effective 'pieces' though, where Sean Penn appears in only a handful of scenes and barely says anything. He wanders aimlessly deep in thought, detached from the world around him in his quest to find answers as to where it all went wrong. This is achieved in almost complete silence and while it acts to frame the film, it remains a somewhat tepid way of thematic exploration.

Tree of Life occupies no middle ground. It's an impressionistic, metaphysical, transcendant exploration of man's internal conflict with the mysteries of life. Ideally you'd want a satisfying drama which involves philosophical pondering, but unfortunately this sacrifices the former for the latter. Tree of Life will divide opinion over those who can make the connection between the tribulations of a 1950s American family with images of nature depicting birth, death, nature and grace and those who will see this as nothing more than pretentious, deliberately opaque folly. The lack of dramatic appeal also makes it difficult to engage with and thus its eschatological equivocations demanding to embrace. While the imagery is admittedly mesmerising, there are more than a few instances where it doesn't communicate very well. This is in large part because Tree of Life is quite clearly a personal experience for Malick as if to exorcise some his own demons. Consequently it often appears aloof from its audience, too absorbed in its own thoughts to resonate with anyone else. This is an incredibly idiosyncratic film which is tantamount to marmite. The best adjective to describe it would be 'interesting'.

Film Review: Megamind

CGI films are the 'it' thing of the day. Such is the frequency with which I am barraged by adverts attempting to sell me the latest edition of an animated, socially dysfunctional penguin who must overcome some sort of adversity before discovering that it has a deliberately obscure people skill, that I have developed a filter. This filter works by ignoring all animated movies unless the word "Pixar" appears next to it. It's a good system which I find it works well. See the latest rendition of Yogi Bear featuring Justin Timberlake as evidence.

Onto Megamind then. Given my filter, why I decided to take the plunge and give this a go is anyone's guess. But I'm glad I did. Taking a leaf from Superman's origins, two beings are shot off into space from their respective dying worlds, only to crashland in Metro City, Earth. One capsule, Metro Man's (Pitt), lands outside the gates of a loving family's home. The other, Metro Man's strange blue nemesis, Megamind (Ferrell), lands in a prison. Destined to clash in the eternal struggle between good and evil, Megamind finds his attempts to take over Metro City continuously thwarted by Metro Man. That is until one day Megamind actually succeeds in destroying Metro Man. With the city's hero out of the way, the novelty of ruling Metro City is soon lost and Megamind finds himself without a purpose. Not helping matters is his secret attraction to reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Fey).

What was probably alluring to me about Megamind was its departure from superhero canon. In a fresh twist, Megamind looks through the glass darkly. How many stories do you see bestow victory upon the bad guy in the perennial battle between good and evil? Indeed, the whole concept is turned upside down as hero Metro Man is portrayed as an unlikable smug git, rather than a humble servant of the people he protects. It is this vain, undeserved swagger which drives Megamind, an unrecognised genius in his own right, to destroy Metro Man. However, once the novelty of being in charge wears off, Megamind finds himself as a yin without its yang, a ping without its pong, the hotdog without its mustard. After all, what's the point of being bad when there's no good to counter you?

What makes this film work so well is its break from the norm. It's something very different. Moreover, I enjoyed the running thematic message it tried to convey by wading into the nature vs. nurture debate. The jokes are great, Ferrell is on fire, and I was surprised by the maturity of the whole affair. Megamind can definitely be classed as one of the better animated films when trying to navigate through Shit Creek without a paddle, which has long since overflowed since everyone started jumping on the back of the Toy Story phenomenon.