In any other year, where there were five nominees, Moneyball would certainly have made the cut. Amazingly, as the category further expanded to a possible ten, it made Moneyball's nomination chances slimmer and slimmer. For some reason, this excellent film about the Oakland Athletics' Billy Beane reconstructing his team once it suffers a post-season gutting simply didn't catch on with audiences the way it should have. Considering it was masterfully directed by Bennett Miller, beautifully filmed, sports one of Brad Pitt's greatest performances, a career-changing turn from Jonah Hill, and a near perfect script from heavy hitter combo Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin -- it seemed a surefire recipe for success. But its box office and the level of warm support that has sprouted up around Moneyball is middling at best.
Often, when tudios set out to make an Oscar slam dunk - getting all their ducks in a row the way folks seem to have done for Moneyball, the end result is a piece weighed down by just a bit too much hubris. Whether it's Benjamin Button -- with Fincher, Roth, Pitt, Blanchett, and F. Scott Fitzgerald source material -- or Amistad -- Spielberg with heart-wrenching source material, Sir Tony, and the discovery of Djimon Honsou -- the Academy may toss some nominations their way, but the truth is the end result is generally off the mark. These films come across like a chef in the kitchen who was afraid to stray just a bit from "the perfect recipe" -- never, of course, having tasted the dish before to verify whether the recipe works in the first place.
Such is not the case for Moneyball. Each of its A-List components delivers straight down the line. So much of the excellence of this film seems to be written off as a Pitt vanity piece -- "the baseball movie that isn't about baseball," as Clooney put it at the Globes -- calling it boring, slow, empty. It's anything but.
Let's get right to the heart of Moneyball, Mr. Pitt. Not only has Brad Pitt spent the past 20 plus years carefully navigating his career through a chain of lead performances in top quality films -- he often proves to be the best thing in them. I needn't recap Brad's bursting onto the scene with Thelma & Louise, A River Runs Through It, and the 1994 one-two punch of Legends of the Fall and Interview with the Vampire (the hair, my God, the hair!). We all know how great he is and how that's often overshadowed by the fact that he's probably the best looking man alive (I know, boo hoo -- my talent is overshadowed by my unstoppable looks). But it's something to take a look at. Much like the Redford he so often emulates, Pitt has a difficult time being taken seriously as an actor. Button didn't help. But things like producing The Departed, doing a turn as Lt. Aldo Raine, and this year's double threat of Tree of Life and Moneyball make his prowess undeniable. So why isn't this man the hands down winner for actor?
Simply put? People don't think Pitt does "enough" as Billy Beane. They're wrong.
As I'll be mentioning throughout this Oscar round up as we close in on the awards a mere week away -- actors make up the lion share of the Academy's voting body and consequently have the power to set the tone which performances are victorious, which films take the cake, and the direction Hollywood is headed. Rarely do they wise up enough to wield this power. But their failure to latch on to Pitt's performance is a true shame and, frankly, just a plain old misstep.
As the struggling Billy Beane who is up against history, adversity, and a limited checkbook -- Pitt's measured performance has more silence than leading male performances normally include. (It's certainly not as quiet as Jean du Jardin!) The moments when Beane speaks are carefully selected, his words are direct, no moment is extraneous or questionable. A great deal of that credit -- as Pitt has lauded at length -- goes to Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, arguably the two best screenwriters in Hollywood -- certainly when it comes to the adapted side of things. The point of all this is that expertly playing a regular man who has an old school sense of chivalry where he opts to suffer alone and who rallies the troops when it's demanded of him -- even though it challenges his comfort zone -- is something to write home about.
So his wife's not in a coma and he doesn't scamper around hairpin turns in Hawaii.
So he doesn't tap dance with a dog.
As a Terms of Endearment lover who listens to people use it as the touchstone of over-sentimentality year after year -- doesn't all the hyper-drama and uber-comedy that's being celebrated this year fall far more under that umbrella?
Chew on that.
I'd be remiss not to mention Jonah Hill. From Superbad to Oscar nominee. Each of his Knocked Up / Funny People cohorts has been his career closer and to closer to Oscar gold. Of the "Freaks and Geeks" related crew, Franco has been the true crossover with multiple noms and a Hindenburg of a hosting gig. But now Hill has jumped past Rogen and Segel to a supporting actor nod -- often the fiercest category there is. Hill was the perfect counterpart to Brad Pitt. The silent, hot headed would-be slugger who couldn't hack it in the majors and soon found himself shouldering the weight of the struggling back office, paired up with the "Go Eli Yale" economic nerd whose calculations may be the key to a winning team. No scene speaks better to Pitt and Hill's magical pairing than the final day of trades. There multiple phone chess game, where we never get to see whose on the other line relied solely on their interplay and personal moments. To head into a glass office with Brad Pitt and hold your own -- as a force and a performer -- is something few have done. Hill hit it out of the park (look, I made it this far without a baseball reference, so shut it).
And then there's Bennett Miller -- director of Capote and well... nothing else. This Larchmont-Mamaroneck native (that's right!) has been dubbed one of the more pick helmers in tinsel town for having taken six years between pics. The calm perfection of Capote that so expertly executed Dan Futterman's script and got some of the best performances evah from both Hoffman and Keener -- is back again, doing the same for Zaillian/Sorkin, Pitt and Hill. There's a deliberate precision to Miller's work that seems perfectly in keeping with a man who'd take six years between films. It's almost like Miller is a novelist, taking time to select the exact story he wishes to tell and then taking the time to get it onto the screen just as he sees fit. To end up with a film this crisp, it's a wonder Miller didn't snag a directing nom. Well, sometimes there's a Mallick.
Moneyball -- it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning picture. In some ways, it's this year's "better" Seabiscuit. It has everything a best picture should -- in some years it could damn well win. This year, it just doesn't have the support. Fingers crossed for Pitt -- but he seems the third horse in the race.
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