BASEBALL HAS BEEN VERY, VERY GOOD TO MOVIES

Pitchers and catchers report! That clarion call every February means that baseball will soon be here once again. And we’re still relishing the Chicago Cubs’ wonderful victory last fall!
There never has been a movie that captures the speed and grace of baseball. Football, basketball and track all photograph better. But Hollywood (and I) love baseball and there are lots of films that have a good feel for baseball's spirit.
These are my favorite baseball movies:
1. Field of Dreams  (1989). I absolutely love this wonderful film. It's the best thing Kevin Costner has ever done. James Earl Jones is splendid as the kidnaped writer and Ray Liotta's debut as Shoeless Joe is top notch. The magic of baseball and something of what it has meant to Americans is here, as well as the ridicule true believers in any magic must endure. When the players materialize out of the cornfield I always get goose bumps.
2. The Natural (1984). Larger than life and meant to be, this is the fable of the Great American Hero. Robert Redford has it down pat. OK, guys, maybe he is a little too pretty, but live with it. Glenn Close is the hero's dream of The Lady. The argument that Roy Hobbs' home runs are impossible is completely beside the point. 
3. Bull Durham (1988). The movie that made Durham Bulls memorabilia famous. As good as it gets in portraying the gritty, quirky world of minor league baseball. Susan Sarandon is just right (isn't she always?) as the ultimate fan, Kevin Costner is fine as Crash Davis, and a pleasantly awkward Tim Robbins is good as The Kid. Funny, touching, and lots of fun.
4. Pride of the Yankees (1942). Gary Cooper is more like Lou Gehrig than Gehrig was. The complete team player with the terminal disease that was named for him won't leave a dry eye in the house when the credits roll.
5. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). Another doomed player; here a none-too-bright but engaging Robert DeNiro. He gets the puzzlement of "why me?" across really well.  The camaraderie of the players, and even their occasional meanness, seem right on the money. 
Close runners-up: Major League (1989) [inept but hilarious Cleveland wins pennant], The Stratton Story (1949) [one-armed Major League pitcher], and A League of Their Own (1992 ) [girls playing professional baseball]. The last one gave us this memorable phrase from manager Tom Hanks: “There’s no crying in baseball”.
And a special Honorable Mention to Ken Burns' TV series Baseball, a nine-hour love story done as well as it could be.
All of the films in this column are available on DVD. Only Bull Durham is not suitable for all ages.

                                                             NEWSPAPERS
Newspapers have been a rich source of movie material. If Hollywood rarely catches the true flavor of putting out a newspaper, it isn’t from lack of trying. And newspapers fascinate us; they have been the heroes and villains of many stories since before the Republic was founded. Newspapers have had a hard time with the blossoming of the internet. But I happen to think that their death, like that of Mark Twain, is greatly exaggerated. 
There could hardly be a better example of the power of newspapers than All The President’s Men (1976) in which Bob Woodward (Robert Redford), Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and the Washington Post merely topple a president of the United States (Nixon, of course). Forty-one years later this is still a terrific movie. Good story, good cast, and some real good inside newspaper stuff. One of the best opening sequences ever made. 
But a very close runner-up about the power of the press is 2015's Best Picture Oscar winner Spotlight. Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams are intrepid reporters in a special Boston Globe unit. Their boss is played by Michael Keaton and his boss by Liev Schreiber. The Globe blows the top off a scandal about Catholic priests molesting children, and the cover-up of the situation by the hierarchy. 
His Girl Friday (1940) is that rarest of beasts- a remake of a good movie that is better than the original. The Front Page (1931) is the first take on the Hecht-MacArthur play, with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien, and it is very good. But Cary Grant as the crafty editor, Rosalind Russell as his star reporter and ex-wife, and Ralph Bellamy as Roz’s wimpy fiance, make His Girl Friday even better. Both are terrific newspaper movies with delicious machine-gun dialogue from smart-aleck reporters.
Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, William Powell and Jean Harlow are an unbeatable cast in Libeled Lady (1936). Tracy’s newspaper inadvertently prints a false story about Loy, then dispatches playboy Powell to seduce her. Harlow is Tracy’s fiancee, and is somehow persuaded to marry Powell so his affair with Loy will be scandalous. Well, 
the plot may be convoluted and not very true to the newspaper business, but it is so much fun that nobody cares.
Absence of Malice (1981) illustrates how newspapers can go wrong. Reporter Sally Field is conned into printing a fake story about innocent Paul Newman. He sues for libel.She cries freedom of the press. It’s an excellent story showing both sides of this equation. Both actors are so engaging you find yourself pulling both ways.
Perhaps the movie that best captures the newspaper business is The Paper (1994). Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall and Randy Quaid lead a brilliant cast in this Ron Howard-directed vehicle about the problems on a big-city daily. About midway through the press run a terrible mistake is discovered. This film is way over the top, but somewhat accurate on the newspaper details and fun to watch if you don’t stop to think. 
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All except Spotlight are suitable for children 10 and up, subject only to the boredom quotient. 

                                                            JOHN HURT


John Hurt could play anything. The wily, wiry little Englishman could disappear into any role and become the character. His everyman persona made him a favorite of casting directors and in his 90-year lifetime he appeared in over 100 movies and TV shows. What WAS unique about him was his voice, and he did the narration or voice over for dozens of shows. 
Hurt’s first appearance of note was in the towering A Man For All Seasons (1966). He plays the villainous Richard Rich, a hateful toady who helps to bring down the noble Thomas Moore (Paul Scofield). 
Midnight Express (1978) is the harrowing, mostly true, story of American college student Billy Hayes. He is caught with hashish strapped to his legs and thrown into a Turkish prison. John Hurt plays fellow inmate Max, an English heroin addict who befriends the American. Hurt doesn’t seem to be an actor playing a drug addict, he seems to BE one. He was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Christopher Walken for The Deer Hunter. 
John Hurt’s optimum performance is as John Merrick, the unfortunate Elephant Man (1980). Poor Merrick was so deformed that he scared people and could only sleep by fits and starts because of his enormous head. Hurt endured 8 hours of makeup preparation for each day’s shooting! He is heartbreakingly good in this incredibly difficult part. He was nominated for Oscar but lost to Robert De Niro for Raging Bull. 
George Orwell’s 1984 has been scaring people for decades. It creates a dystopian world where Big Brother runs everything, words and phrases are adjusted to newspeak, and everyone is supposed to be just alike. John Hurt was a natural to play Winston Smith, the plainspoken hopeless hero of this terrifying film. The film came out in 1984, and it seems to resonate particularly in these troubled times. 
John Hurt appeared in several of the Harry Potter films as Olivander, a minor character perfectly portrayed.
Hurt’s last major part was as Control, the head of British Intelligence, in John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011). He comes to a bad end, not an unusual thing in a Le Carre story. In this top-flight adaptation, Hurt is joined by Tom Hardy, Benedict Cummberbatch, Colin Firth and Gary Oldman as George Smiley. 
But he has a fairly important role as the consoling priest to Natalie Portman’s Jackie (2016). It is in their scene that much of the truth of the Kennedys’ relationship is revealed.
John Hurt may also be observed and admired in Owning Mahoney (2003), The Commissioner (1998) and as Professor Oxley in the very entertaining Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). 
At the time of his recent death, John Hurt also had appeared in four more films, which will be released shortly.
All of the films in this article are available on DVD. The Harry Potters are ok for most kids. The rest are for grown-ups.

                                                                    2016 FILMS

1-La La Land 10
2-Sully 9
3-Hidden Figures 9
4-Love And Friendship 9
5-Deepwater Horizon 9
6-Only Yesterday Jap 9
7-Our Little Sister Jap 9
8-Manchester By The Sea 9
9-Denial 9
10-Moonlight 8
11-Hell And High Water 8
12-A Man Called Ove Swed 8
13-Marguerite Fr 8
14-Loving 8
15-Lion 8
16-Jackie 8
17-Fences 8
18-Eye In The Sky 8
19-Patriots Day 8
20-Snowden 8
21-Queen Of Katwe 8
22-Fastball 8
23-The Witness 8
24-Weiner 8
25-Jason Bourne 8
26-Mia Madre Ital 8
27-The Meddler 8
28-Miss Sloane 8
29-Mustang 8
30-The Family Fang 8
31-Don’t Think Twice 8
32-City of Gold 8
33-Gleason 8
34Hunt For The Wilderpeople NZ 8
35-Moana 8
36-The Jungle Book 8
37-Zootopia 8