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Million Dollar Arm (2014)

Frayed Knot May 11 2014 11:04 AM

I'm not one automatically given to disliking Disney-tinged stuff, even when it comes to sports movies. I liked THE ROOKIE well enough and also enjoyed Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks and really the entire project in MIRACLE. But this one, based on the real life reality-style contest to find and train a couple of cricket playing boys in India towards becoming ML pitchers, looks really awful. That ESPN, owned of course by Disney/ABC, spent about 3/4 of a BB2N show a couple days ago pimping the premier and actors while ignoring the actual games certainly didn't help the cause.

Mets – Willets Point May 11 2014 06:36 PM Re: Million Dollar Arm (2014)

Wait, ESPN talked about baseball at all. Surely, there must've been some football to analyze in depth, no?

Edgy MD May 12 2014 07:49 AM Re: Million Dollar Arm (2014)

My friend is a Pirates fan, the sort who goes to spring training every year. One year he meets one of these two Indian prospects in a sports bar, and they hit it off. Tim returns home and is surprised to find the guy turning to him as a confidante, corresponding with him as a smart fan who hopefully will give him a more nuanced view of the culture of the game than he's getting from his teammates and coaches, who all seem nice, but don't seem to be telling him the whole story. is honored. He tries to tell the guy what to expect. He finds it funny to hear his new friend straight-facedly using cliches he picked up from his teammates, like "I'm living the dream." "Is this really your 'dream'?" my buddy asks. "You just stumbled into a sport you never played before." But obviously, making big on any opportunity can be a dream to a guy from India. Then as time goes on, and injuries mount, my friend starts to realize that the team would likely have released his friend by now, but were probably hanging on until the film came out. Then he starts feeling guilty, as he starts to realize he's just another one in the circle of people not telling the prospect the whole truth. Anyhow, Tom McCarthy hasn't missed yet as a filmmaker or writer, but he's just the writer on this, and since it's seemingly more of a work-for-hire than his own baby, I suspect his winning streak isn't going to survive. Besides, the protagonist here is a sleazy sports agent. And with Jerry McGuire, the world may only have room for one film in which a sleazy sports agent finds redemption.

Frayed Knot May 12 2014 10:05 AM Re: Million Dollar Arm (2014)

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Wait, ESPN talked about baseball at all. Surely, there must've been some football to analyze in depth, no? Well it was on their 'Baseball Tonight' show, the one hour (used to be a nightly show but now has been sliced to maybe 3x/week) where the 4 or 5 guys on the payroll in Bristol, CT who actually like and understand baseball are allowed to go off in a corner and talk amongst themselves undisturbed by the jocks at the cool lunch table. That they were then required by their overlords to spend the better part of one of the rare hours they get pimping the movie and everyone connected to it just adds insult to insult.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Oct 10 2014 02:25 PM Re: Million Dollar Arm (2014)

I watched this on the plane with Lunchpail and it was... boring and kind of meh overall, but maybe not as bad as I feared. Jon Hamm is the oily, jaded sports agent who predictably has his heart melted by a hot babe and 2 third-world athletes who supposedly teach him the true meaning of love, but that isn't convincing or even really interesting. Typical Disney "synergy" with lots of ESPN placement -- including Kurkjian and Jayson Stark and a few more talking heads getting roles as scouts. The athletes themselves had almost no character development at all, save for a comic-relief translator; and the story skirts the whole reality of what longshots these guys were. That said I was pleased at the lack of restraint in making this not complete over the top bullshit, which it could easily have been.

Frayed Knot Oct 10 2014 06:10 PM Re: Million Dollar Arm (2014)

I generally find the practice of writing real media folks into the plot so that they can comment on the non-real or quasi-real characters makes for a weak plot device. That this one does that by shoe-horning Kurkjian & Stark into the flick only further explains the fuss made over the premier that was made on BB2N. On the same topic, if there weren't enough reasons to bypass the just released for home disc movie DRAFT DAY, a cast which includes Chris Berman, Mel Kiper Jr., Jon Gruden, and Deion Sanders (among others) gives you plenty of new ones.