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TV & Film

Trouble with the Curve

Ellen Adair August 10, 2022

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This week on Take Me In to the Ballgame:

Ellen Adair and Eric Gilde discuss the 2012 film “Trouble with the Curve.” They introduce the film (1:25), with an overview of the story, the cast, and filmmakers, and review the 20-80 baseball scouting grades for rating the film, with a new metaphor (9:07). They find Amount of Baseball (17:03) both surprisingly and unsurprisingly disappointing, considering this film. Baseball Accuracy (21:43) kicks off with this film’s complete and multi-faceted misunderstanding of the timeline and personpower of the scouting process. Also, you cannot hear what this movie thinks you can hear, and a hitch is a neutral thing. Gentry absolutely does not have five tools. They discuss the screamingly stupid anti-analytics story points, and the baseball terminology word salad. Gus is bad at his job, and besides, could not have scouted Ralph Garr, Dusty Baker, Tom Glavine, Dale Murphy, and Chipper Jones. Trouble with the rotator cuff injury, the scout-to-broadcasting pipeline, and the purported draft-and-trade deal. A brief dive on Jair Jurrjens’ pitch mix and the recent no-hitters from Reid Detmers, Wade Miley, Tyler Gilbert, and Spencer Turnbull. Fun fact about Mickey’s, and Mickey Mantle’s namesake, plus inaccuracies on the high school team. The Storytelling (53:06) is at best, boring and predictable, and at worst, riddled with holes. Ageism versus “early retirement,” really?! There are issues with the storyline of Mickey’s job as a lawyer, and with character timelines and backstories. Eric has problems with the Rigoberto storyline (Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton, and Randy Johnson aside). Ellen hates the Lame Romantic Subplot. A consideration of parent/child baseball stories. That Bo Gentry is a terrible person has no story payoff, and why do the Grizzlies need to also be awful human beings? The Score Tool (1:23:01) discusses the Marco Beltrami score, plus music by Ray Charles, Gary Clark Jr., the Walkmen, Josh White, and Carey Bell. Acting (1:26:03) considers the performances of Amy Adams, Clint Eastwood, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Matthew Lillard, Chelcie Ross, plus the rest of the ensemble. Delightfulness of Catcher (1:29:23) evaluates a non-zero amount of Rigo’s brother and Mickey as catcher. Delightfulness of Announcer (1:30:25) sees our scouts disagree on the plausibility of Johnny announcing the unknown children and the Bernie Carbo homer. In Lack of Misogyny (1:34:28), they allow the structural anti-misogyny and the positive points for troweling misogyny onto the antagonists, but it is offset by problems in the lame romantic subplot. No spoilers on the following segments: Yes or No (1:39:24), Six Degrees of Baseball (1:41:33), Favorite Moment (1:42:41) Least Favorite Moment (1:44:22), Scene We Would Have Liked to See (1:47:23), Dreamiest Player (1:50:44), Favorite Performance (1:52:17), and Next Time (1:54:02).

 

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Ellen Adair

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