Here’s your link for the movie! It’s from a Strange Site, but most internet security experts consider it pretty safe (for streaming; I wouldn’t try downloading). It has no commercials, so no sync issues! Sync issues are a pain on Movie Nights! Start the show at 7:30!
When I was about 25 or so, I cut off all contact with my Cruel Dad. Just, “holy crap, I can take no f*****g more of this, go away and stay away.”
My three younger brothers all thought this was monstrous. So the next-oldest brother stepped in to rebuild a relationship with Dad, and prove me wrong.
After a few years, that brother told Dad “go away and stay away.” The two youngest brothers thought this was monstrous. So the next-oldest tried to fix things with Dad…
You can see where this is headed, right?
My very youngest brother tried the hardest. And eventually changed his name. He came to hate Dad so much, he didn’t want the name Fillmore on his passport or Social Security card. The name itself sickened him.
You can quite fairly say that I’m a loser failure and my Dad should have been nasty to me, I deserved it.
You say that about my brothers, you’re an idiot.
So you’ll have to forgive me if the “getting better with Dead Dad” aspect of this movie feels, to me, like absolute and total bullcrap.
The excellent baseball blogger Craig Calcaterra agrees with this, and he probably liked his dad! He writes, “we know that Ray rejected John’s passion — baseball — but what things which were important to Ray did John reject or fail to respect? We have no idea, of course, because the movie presents this as a one-sided lack of respect showed by Ray toward his father, communicated only through baseball and resolved via a game of catch. If you had your own legitimate, complex and unresolved issues with your late father, I suspect this is all rather insulting. If you’re someone who got on well with your dad and actually communicated with him in a healthy manner, this wholly un-sketched conflict is sort of a problem given that a filmmaker is in the business of telling a story.”
Well put. But, all that said, this movie has some good actors.
I won’t be around for this one, I’m on the vacation I can afford: a Road Trip! No flights to Cannes for this movie fan. Just a drive with some cheap motels.
Everybody behave! Eh, I know you will.
Movie Nights have been fun! I’ve seen Dennis Quaid doing the best acting moment of his career, Bob Fosse/Gwen Verdon doing a back-to-back crab walk in Damn Yankees, and learned how I should check Slavic bootleg links a bit more carefully.
I’m up for doing these next year, too, yet we’ll see what happens between now and then. But honestly? I’ve liked these more than the last few seasons of game threads. Twins games just make me mad at how the team is run, now. (And how MLB is run overall; the Twins have bad owners but they are BY NO MEANS outliers.)
Movie Nights never make me mad. I already assumed the movie industry was owned/run by a-holes and, in rare moments, the talents of individual artists still shone through. That’s movies, it’s how movies have always been, and anybody who spends more than a month seriously looking into movie history knows this. (It’s kinda how baseball is, too.)
Thanks a ton to Matt for showing up frequently with fascinating Film Facts (often better than the ones I found!), and gintzer, sandwiches, Zach and nagurski for popping in every now and then. And especially thanks to artist, who always brought a keen eye and sharp wit and made these a blast. I’m so happy folks enjoyed Stop Making Sense! Even with the Lamp Dance.
With K.M. Costner, James Earl Jones, Burt Lancaster, Ray Liotta, Amy Madigan. Written/directed by Phil Alden Robinson, from a 1982 novel by W.P. Kinsella. (Who turned his love for baseball to Scrabble after the 1984 strike.) You can read some interesting production history about the movie on Wiki; good comment material!
Here’s your link again for the movie! Start the show at 7:30!