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

                                            BUSTER KEATON
While most of the silent movie stars surrounding him (even including Chaplin) mugged at the camera unmercifully, Buster Keaton was The Great Stone Face. He could show more with the flick of an eyebrow than most actors could show with their entire bodies. He was the master of physical comedy and many of his bits are just screamingly funny. Since he made over 100 movies, including shorts, it’s hard to pick the best, but Mr. Movie is always here for you. Let’s start by saying to avoid not only talkies but anything after 1930. 
Keep in mind as you watch Buster’s movies that in those days there were very few special effects and no stunt men. In other words, those death-defying stunts you see him doing are for real. 
A good place to start is The General (1927), which is a train and Buster is its engineer. It is filled with superb sight gags, including a monumental train chase. How can there be a train chase when the trains have to stay on the tracks? Watch and see.  Particularly note a stunt in which he dislodges a big railroad tie by hitting it with another tie while sitting on the train’s cowcatcher. Yeah, he really did that!
In Our Hospitality (1923) Buster goes south to claim an inheritance, unaware that he is a family member of two eternally feuding clans. He, of course, falls in love with a girl from the other family and many hijinks ensue.
Buster is the groom in a Spite Marriage (1929). His social climber wife only marries him to get back at her hoity-toity boyfriend. Buster is, as always, the honest little guy you pull for and things turn out ok. There is an hilarious scene where Buster attempts to get his totally sloshed bride into bed. 
In Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) Buster reluctantly takes over his father’s steamboat. The boat is a natural locale for several of Buster’s best-ever stunts, including a bang-up finale. 
Buster is always doing something difficult to get the girl and as The Cameraman (1928) he tries to learn newsreel photography on the run. He lucks into some great footage of a Tong War and proves the mendacity of his rival by forgetting to turn off the camera and catching the villain on film. 
In Sherlock, Jr. (1924) Buster is a movie projectionist and janitor, hopelessly in love with a beautiful girl. His rival,“the local sheik”, steals her dad’s watch, pawns it, and uses the money to buy her expensive chocolates. When the theft is detected, the villain slips the pawn ticket into Buster’s pocket and he is banished. He has a dream in which he catches the villain and rescues the girl as the famous detective, Sherlock Jr. When he wakes up all, of course, comes right. 
All of the films in this article are available on DVD.  All are suitable(and delightful) for everybody. 

                                                               W.C. Fields
“Ah yes”, he famously intoned, “my first wife drove me to drink. I’ll always be grateful to her”. W.C. Fields was an American original. He’s been dead for 70 years and lots of young folks never heard of him. Well, he was laugh-out-loud funny in lots of movies in the late 30's and early 40's, and all of these are available on DVD.
There have been at least a half-dozen versions of Dickens’ mighty David Copperfield. My personal favorite is the 1935 version with Mr. Fields as the inimitable Wilkins Micawber (“Something will, in short, turn up!”). Also in this sterling cast are Lionel Barrymore as Dan, Hugh Williams as Steerforth, Basil Rathbone as Murdstone and Freddie Bartholomew as David. 
Perhaps you have at least heard of Mae West, the first of the red-hot mommas. She dripped sex appeal and constantly pushed the Hayes Office censorship envelope. In My Little Chickadee (1940) she is the quintessential sex bomb and Fields is her helpless conquest. He cannot resist her famous line: “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?” Ms. West somehow manages to be hilariously funny while being a sultry siren.
Fields is a henpecked grocer in It’s A Gift (1934). He wants to move his family to California despite objections from his domineering wife and various annoying children, including Baby Leroy (who was famous back in the day). The beautiful orange grove in the brochure turns out to be a deserted barren stretch with a tumbledown shack, but there is a happy ending. The plot is really secondary to the funny set pieces involving Fields’ Harold Bissonette (pronounced Bisonay!). 
     Fields wrote the screenplay for Never Give A Sucker An Even Break (1941) (using the pen name Otis Criblecoblis).  It was his last starring film, as alcohol and age caught up with him. But it is one of his funniest. He is a writer looking for a producer for his screenplay. He is ably assisted by Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Dumont and Leon Errol. The title comes from a line in You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man (1939), when Fields revealed his Grandfather’s last words (“Before they sprung the trap on him”) were: “You can’t cheat an honest man or smarten up a chump, and never give a sucker an even break”. Fields plays shady carnival-owner Larson E. Whipsnade, constantly on the run from the law and entertaining us every minute. 
Fields is Egbert Souse (his screen names are always amusing) in The Bank Dick (1940). He accidently trips a bank robber and ends up as a security guard. He is beset by the usual nagging wife, hateful mother-in-law and dreadful children. He constantly reminds people to pronounce his name “susay”, not “souse” (drunkard). All of these films are available on DVD and they are all fine for all ages. 

                                                           PETER YATES

England has produced a bunch of excellent movie directors and one of the very best was Peter Yates. A life-long Brit, he died at 81, having directed thoughtful, engaging movies for many years. 
Secret Agent (1965-67) is actually a TV series starring the late Patrick McGoohan. It was in many ways a ground-breaking series from which many have borrowed. When he tries to retire from the Secret Service, he is kidnaped and transported to an idyllic location for retired agents. He is having none of this, and wants to escape back to the real world. Almost 50 years old now, it still packs a punch. 
The car chase has become a staple of action movies. There still has never been a better one than in Bullitt (1968), with Steve McQueen in a heart-stopping chase across and over the San Francisco hills. A laconic very straight cop, he is suspicious of his assignment to guard a government witness. He was right to be. 
The Dresser (1983) features two British icons. Albert Finney is Sir, an aging actor with a Himalayan ego that must be fed on a daily basis for his mere survival. Tom Courtenay is Norman, his dresser and ultimate prop. The performances elicited by Mr. Yates, and his uncanny capturing of wartime England and a down-at-the-heels touring theater troupe, are just superb. Don’t miss the scene in which Mr. Finney commands a moving train to stop! Mr. Yates was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment.
In Eleni (1985), Mr. Yates plumbs the depths of the gnawing demon, revenge. John Malkovich, in one of his first and best roles, is the son of a Greek mother murdered during the civil war by Communists. Mr. Malkovich plays a New York Times reporter who returns to Greece to unmask his mother’s killers. 
Breaking Away (1979) is in my all-time top 10. If you’ve never seen it, treat yourself. Dennis Christopher is a teen-age bicycle racer absolutely ga-ga over the Italian racing team. He mimics them in every possible way, including speaking pidgin-Italian. Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley are very good as his long-suffering parents. The young racer experiences the feet of clay most idols possess, but is undaunted and continues to race the wind. Mr. Yates was nominated for Oscar, but had the misfortune of being in the same year as Robert Benton, who directed Kramer v. Kramer. 
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) stars Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle in a very dark and very low-key depiction of cops and crooks in Boston. You decide who the bad guys are!
All of the movies in this article are fine for 10 and up. All are available on DVD, including the Secret Agent TV series.