- Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n
![\"Rethink](\"\/home\/graphics\/rethink_reviews_small.jpg\")
<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Moneyball<\/strong><\/p>\n
The film \u2018Moneyball\u2019 is partially about baseball, in particular, the true story of the 2002 Oakland Athletics who used a new system of evaluating talent to take on richer teams that could afford to simply buy up the best players. But like all great sports movies, \u2018Moneyball\u2019 is about much more than a game, and by telling this distinctly modern underdog story, \u2018Moneyball\u2019 will strike deep chords within anyone, baseball fan or not, who has felt undervalued and wanted to change a system rigged so the richest always win. And if you live in America these days, you probably know those feelings all too well.<\/p>\n
Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a former player who is the general manager of the A\u2019s and must figure out how to build a championship team after their tiny salary cap costs them their three best players. Recognizing that the traditional methods of talent scouting would never overcome a system rigged towards the richest teams, Beane decides to adopt a never-before-tried statistics-based method of evaluating players, known as Sabermetrics, which is championed by Peter Brand, a young, Yale-educated economics major played by Jonah Hill who Beane makes his second in command. <\/p>\n
However, Sabermetrics and its alternate philosophy of measuring player performance flies in the face of 150 years of baseball orthodoxy, which relies on the questionable ability of experienced scouts to predict a player\u2019s future based on a subjective, seemingly incongruous list of traits. Beane and Brand\u2019s risky strategy \u2014 which uses computer analysis to measure and aggregate the skills of flawed, inexpensive players \u2014 is strongly opposed by the A\u2019s beleaguered field manager (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and assailed by experts, sportswriters and fans as a near blasphemous gimmick.<\/p>\n
\u2018Moneyball\u2019 is one of those perfectly executed stories that reminds you why you love movies. All of the acting is stellar, but this is literally Brad Pitt\u2019s movie, especially since he\u2019s one of its producers. His charisma, confidence and depth are perfect both for the role of Billy Beane, who is haunted by his own short-lived career as a player, and the script co-written by Aaron Sorkin, who is known for writing intelligent, revealing dialogue. <\/p>\n
Jonah Hill\u2019s reserved, often befuddled performance creates a wonderful odd-couple chemistry with Pitt, and Hoffman adds a weary gravitas to every scene he\u2019s in. The film\u2019s score, cinematography and production design are fantastic, beautifully capturing both the cathedral-like splendor of the ballparks and the lowly cinderblock offices and locker rooms underneath. \u2018Moneyball\u2019 is truly one of the year\u2019s best movies, so expect nominations across all categories at Oscar time, and most likely Pitt\u2019s first win. <\/p>\n
The antagonist in \u2018Moneyball\u2019 isn\u2019t a particular person or team, but the status quo, and Billy is not just a general manager looking for a championship, but a person who knows that his only chance to transform an unjust system is to stay true to his beliefs, no matter how unpopular they are. This is where \u2018Moneyball\u2019 transcends sports, since Billy\u2019s struggle is, in many ways, the same one history\u2019s greatest iconoclasts have always faced, whether they\u2019re activists, artists, scholars, or freedom fighters. <\/p>\n
And from a different perspective, it\u2019s the struggle the vast majority of the planet faces, as we increasingly find ourselves living in \u2018Moneyball\u2019 countries in a \u2018Moneyball\u2019 world, where it seems that the economy, governments, and their justice systems have all been rigged to benefit the wealthy. While it\u2019s daunting to imagine the obstacles we\u2019ll face in shifting the priorities of those in power to more greatly value people, \u2018Moneyball\u2019 provides an inspiring example of how vision, knowledge, bravery, and better ideas can overthrow an entrenched regime.<\/p>\n
\u2018Moneyball\u2019 is rated PG-13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}