Saturday, October 01, 2011

Moneyball (2011) - Movie Review

The Red Sox are one of the teams in baseball that uses a strategy called moneyball as a large part of their team building philosophy. While they use a good portion of this tactic, they didn't invent it or make it popular. Bill James is mainly responsible for this philosophy of baseball and Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane help put it on the map. The movie "Moneyball" is about Beane and how he implemented this approach to his own team. 

After being eliminated by the New York Yankees in the 2001 playoffs, a trio of star players become free agents and leave the Oakland A's for greener pastures. Johnny Damon signed with the Red Sox, Jason Giambi went to the Yankees, and Jason Isringhausen joined the St. Louis Cardinals. Realizing that these moves could severely hurt his team, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) asks the team's front office for more money and is rejected. After meeting Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), Beane decides to resort to an unorthodox way of building a team by utilizing what is called moneyball or sabermetrics.

Tom Hanks' Journey and Film Schools

Oakland, California has been the birthplace of many well-known people, among them is two time Oscar winner and four time Golden Globe winner, actor/director/producer, Tom Hanks. Born in 1956, Hanks toiled in any capacity he could as a youthful acting professional just in order to stay alive to be able to perform another day. He started out with tiny roles on TV simply because of his 'boy next door' identity, he worked in numerous family friendly comedies before finding fame and achievement in key dramatic roles such as Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, Forest Gump, Philadelphia and Cast Away.

Through his mother, Nancy Hanks, Lincoln was a distant cousin. He was asked to dedicate a refurbished theater named with regard to his retired drama instructor, Rawley T. Farnsworth whom he thanked during his Oscar address for his portrayal of a character with AIDS in the movie Philadelphia. At the end of his dedication, he led the audience of over 1000 individuals in singing, "There's No Business Like Show Business."