Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball, a film loosely adapted from the Michael Lewis book of the same name, tells the story of the Oakland Athletics baseball team under the reigns of General Manager Billy Beane during the 2001 offseason and 2002 regular season. The Athletics, one of the lowest market teams, had enjoyed regular season success before failing to win a championship in the postseason after falling to the cash-strapped New York Yankees. While Oakland's play was admirable, no one remembers unless you win a championship. Beane, played by Brad Pitt, realizes this fact of sports. He also realizes the fact of life that it is an unfair game we play. How do you win an unfair game?

After being gutted by a handful of the richer teams in baseball, Oakland is left with large holes to fill. This is when "thinking outside of the box" is necessary; however, it is the ultimate boom or bust scenario. Only when a man is pushed into a corner will they result in such drastic measures. In the film, Beane's drastic measure was hiring Peter Brand, played by Jonah Hill, as the Assistant General Manager. The new strategy to gain talent and win games comes through technology and number crunching. What wins games? Scoring more runs. How do you score runs? By getting people on bases.  Voila. You have the seemingly obvious recipe to success. However, what Brand realized is that baseball (to that point) is driven by medieval thinking. Thinking otherwise and you'd be outcast as a leper. In that case, Beane and Brand gave each other leprosy and as a result, they put together the longest winning streak in Major League Baseball history. 

But they didn't win a championship.

So what does this movie tell us? It gives us a partial solution to winning an unfair game. Now what? While the ending is not rewarding by any means, it is important to realize that no matter how valiant Beane's efforts were to win with what he had, he could only possibly come up just short. Given this story and that this film was adapted from a book intended to spread information and not a story, it was very well directed. In my opinion, as a cinephile and sports fan, I think that this film managed to combine the aspects of sports into a story intended for the screen in one of the best ways ever executed. Bennett Miller's directorial hand manages to weave sports, statistics, and an intriguing underdog story into one well made film. If you are a sports fan, more specifically a baseball fan, you should definitely watch this movie. Conclusion: Watch It

Rating: 8.5/10

Warrior (2011)

I watched Warrior on the recommendation of some of my football teammates. A feel-good, bro movie was the impression that I got when watching the trailer and hearing what my friends had to say about it. That's pretty much all this film is. It's not bad, but the conclusion to its plot is obvious the whole movie and the poor familial relationship that has the characters realize family is worth fighting for seems a little overdone.

The Conlon brothers are two men hoping for their luck to turn. Both were abandoned by their alcoholic father after a childhood of competitive fighting and familial conflict. Brandon, the older brother, chose to stay with his father due to his girlfriend at home while Tommy, the younger brother, chose to leave with his ill mother. The film picks up when Tommy comes back home as a mysterious grown man, hardened by circumstance. When he fights, it is obvious that he unleashes all of his pent up anger. His style is the exact opposite of his brother's fighting style. Brandon on the other hand takes a beating from the opponent in order to tire them out before he pins them. This recipe of brothers with opposite personalities sets these two characters on the obvious crash course of a high stakes fight.

You can guess who wins (hint: Brandon is older and has a family, Tommy has nothing but a crap attitude). After watching this movie, I did sense the feel good aspects, but I didn't necessarily feel good. In the end, it is still a story of a damaged family and a cash prize to one of the brothers shouldn't have the ability to fix any of that. Conclusion: Pass On It

Rating: 7/10