Film Junk Podcast Episode #337: Moneyball

Posted by on September 25th, 2011   Filed under: Featured, Film Junk Podcast

0:00 – Intro
3:25 – Headlines: 2011 Emmy Award Winners, Kevin Costner Drops Out of Django Unchained, Monster Director Takes on Thor 2, The Raid Gets U.S. Remake
22:40 – Review: Moneyball
46:40 – Trailer Trash: J. Edgar, Premium Rush, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
1:03:10 – Other Stuff We Watched: Wipeout, Charlie’s Angels, Prime Suspect, Sling Blade, Panic, Zookeeper, Entourage Finale, The Office Premiere, Person of Interest, Meek’s Cutoff
1:31:05 – Junk Mail: Anton Yelchin Photoshop, Why Aren’t There More Blockbusters with Good Stories, Filmmakers Who Write and Direct and Spielberg’s Lack of Commentaries, Sorting DVDs by Genre *and* Alphabet, Copyright Messages and Trailers on DVDs, DVD Pet Peeves and Negative Commentaries, Ugliest DVDs in Our Collection
1:56:20 – This Week’s DVD Releases
2:00:05 – Outro

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  • drewcore

    Score! Gotta be up late tonight working and this will make it a lot more bearable. Too bad its a “short” one.

  • Timothy Dalton was the villain in Hot Fuzz.

  • Damn Greg. Already dropped 25?! Way to go, dude, glad to hear you’re kickin’ ass with that.

  • Is it just me, or does the 4-camera sitcom format sorta feel strange and out-dated?

  • About various directors executing the same thing. Last year Philips issued a campaign in which various directors were given a few lines that had to be in a movie and they could do anything when it came to genre. The results were very different from each other.

    You can read more about it here:
    http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/philips-parallel-lines/

  • It would be very interesting to see different directors tackle the same feature script, but not financially viable, unless it’s some kind of an experiment on a reality TV show or something. The closest thing I can think off is the two versions of The Exorcist fourth sequel that came out a couple of years ago and were made by two different directors (one of them the original writer) using the same script.

    The commentary track for Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey is a pretty interesting example of both the relationship between writer/director and of “negative” commentary tracks. It’s the screenwriter and director basically butting heads (in a subtle way, no punches were thrown) over the treatment of the movie. Fascinating stuff.

  • I love that commentary for THE LIMEY, one of the all time great commentary tracks. Fascinating stuff, indeed!

  • patrik

    I swear to god, Brad Pitt has to be Robert Redfords bastard son or something..

  • kyri

    careful there Greg you start to resemble Eric Bana..

    Oi REED?

    shame.

  • alechs

    To answer Frank’s question: the book was pretty explicit that Art Howe was essentially a pawn of Billy Beane. He was coached by Beane to stand a certain way or be at a certain place during the game as a way to inspire confidence for the team. The Hatteberg conflict was there but did not result in any dramatic confrontation/resolution.

    That being said, Moneyball was pretty awesome. Surprised no one brought up the Pfister during the review. I watched the film at the Empire in Mississauga on a massive screen with a brand new projector… It was like watching a 70mm print.

  • Aaron

    I need to see that Anton Yelchin picture immediately.

  • narby

    Greg hope you enjoyed the show. I saw you and a tall guy in a red shirt with a maple leaf on it walking around the 100 level going toward the concession/merch area but didn’t want to bother you. Rise against was good but their sound was off in the latter half of their set it seemed. The Foo Fighters rocked, especially on My Hero and Ever Long.

  • Loved the *mini-bonus DVD Manifesto ep at the end.

    And Frank, how can a video game fan like yourself not have heard of Oregon Trail? For shame.

  • anonymiss

    i was thinking the same thing about oregon trail, maybe there is a reason game junk has been on such a long hiatus

  • Greg

    @Narby – you should have said hello! Yeah, I was bummed about the sound for the whole show. Both bands had a ton of energy, but the accoustics were awful. Plus, they forgot to plug in Krist according until half way through Skin and Bones. LAME!

  • Joel Schumacher did some pretty good commentaries for his Batman flicks, and if you’re ever going to re-watch “Batman and Robin” again, that would be a good enough reason to do so. Hell, it would be the ONLY reason to. Schumacher does a pretty good job of explaining what was going on at the time (WB had given up on the franchise creatively and had pretty much decided that they were ONLY interested in selling toys), while also taking his share of the blame for decisions that were his.

    The video game discussion reminded me of something that happened a couple of years ago when I got to work as an extra on “Love and Other Drugs” when it was filming here in Pittsburgh. One of the girls in the group was wearing this dress that had a pretty strange western print on it, and Jake Gyllenhaal had started referring to her as “Oregon Trail”. The director, Edward Zwick, asked him what that was, and he explained that it was an old computer game from the 80’s where you’re moving your family out west during the frontier days, and I chimed in with “Yeah, and your family is always dying of dysentery”. That’s one of the greatest achievements in my cinematic career so far, getting to explain to an Oscar-winning filmmaker that the goal of this game was to get your family to the West before they died of the mad shits.

  • Narby

    @Greg – If I ever see you out and about again I’ll be sure to say hi then. I didn’t think of it unitl after but I was even wearing my East Dillion Lions shirt from Friday Night Lights, what better to meet the gas man in. I was also bummed about Kris being unplugged but worse was when I went to the bathroom later and heard some young punk saying he dind’t know wtf that ‘old man’ was doing up there to which his friend replied ‘I think that’s his dad or something’. Could have used you there for a good old punch to the larynx. And as a fellow fat guy I’ve gotta ask what ahve you been doing with your diet to get such quick results!? Congrats!

  • Mason

    Funny. I really enjoyed the Persons of Interest pilot, but I couldn’t make it through Prime Suspect. I left at about the half-hour mark. Did they ever get into the case or do they just keep arguing about who’s case it is? Did the husband ever get hired as a babysitter (or whatever that C-plot was supposed to be)?

    Persons of Interest gave me the impression that more backstory on both Emerson and Caveizel’s characters and the big brother technology will be revealed bit by bit. Maybe it’s because I knew about the Nolan influence, but I felt pangs of Following and Memento at times. The ferocity of Caveizel’s character is something I haven’t seen since Jack Bauer, and I welcome that type of guy back to my TV.

  • patrik

    oh, you guys really should check out Tucker & Dale vs Evil for next week. AWESOME movie.

  • bard

    Great episode guys. First, Steve Carell definitely should have won the Emmy over Jim Parsons. They might as well given it to Jon Cryer, so pathetic. Even if Carell didn’t win, LeBlanc should have won for sure. You guys definitely need to watch Episodes. It’s only 7 episodes long, but it’s fantastic, I can’t wait for the next season.

    I’m glad you’re finally watching/talking about Breaking Bad. Hands down the best show on television that I’ve seen. And the fourth season so far has been up to par with the previous seasons.

    I will say that I’m glad that Mad Men won the award again. I love that show, but it’s barely behind Breaking Bad. Hopefully BB will next this season or the next season, which is supposedly their last.

  • Greg

    @narby – East Dillon Lions shirt? Nice! Those kids needed a beating for sure. WTF?

    @Mason – Yeah, they got to the case. The one older cop had an out of nowhere heart attack that was super intense and then Jane took over the case. Her boyfriend (C-plot) was looking for visitation rights with his kid (that was wrapped up too) Good show.

  • Steve Kasan

    I found this about Moneyball prior to its release. I have not read the book, plan to, but this is a good read as well in terms of what is accurate and not
    http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/moneyball-mixed-bag-baseball-fans-31234?page=0,2

  • mattTO

    @Greg- interesting that you mention the Jays. Their former GM JP Ricciardi worked with Billy Beane for a number of years prior to joining the Jays. When he left Oakland to go to Toronto he tried to bring the whole Beane formula with him but ended up getting slammed in the press for “whitewashing” the team, and how awful that was given Toronto’s multicultural landscape. Carlos Delgado went off on a rant about how ridiculous it was, but it still didn’t stop the Toronto press from criticizing Ricciardi’s every move. My point: the press are idiots.