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I hope he beat you up under the bleachers.
I hope he beat you up under the bleachers.
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Summarized it pretty well there, shadow. It's a movie with a lot of rather weird beats and rythms but it works suprisingly smoothly and organic which makes it a pleasant sit.
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Summarized it pretty well there, shadow. It's a movie with a lot of rather weird beats and rythms but it works suprisingly smoothly and organic which makes it a pleasant sit.
A pleasant sit! Well shit, if that doesn't encapsulate it then I don't know what does. . .
@TheMadThinker mentioned earlier that he doesn't think Hollywood would make a movie like this today. How do you feel about that? Would we see a movie like this today, at least one that gets a wide theatrical release? And if so, would it be embraced by the public the way Field of Dreams was embraced in 1989?
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That's a boatload of questions.
1. Would Hollywood accept a story this weird?
Well... 1980's Hollywood didn't really accept stories this weird! Field of Dreams isn't really representative of it's era. So a film like this is an real outliner both today and back then. But modern Hollywood still accepted and produced pretty weird stuff like Birdman, so I don't think that they're that disinclined to tackle it.
2. Is it likely that modern Hollywood would tackle such a story?
Since the 80's, we've seen the decline of "middle-class filmmaking". Back then, studios would produce a lot of middle-budgeted films. These days, the focus is much more on blockbusters, polling your capital into a selected few films instead of spreading them over a wide line-up. That, makes it less likely for modern Hollywood to produce a film like this, since they're already producing fewer middle-budget films to begin with. More films being produced simply means that they're a bigger likelihood that some of them will turn out a bit weird like this one.
3. Would modern audiences accept it? Would I go to see it?
The blockbuster phenomenon has also spread to the audience. People see fewer and fewer films on the big screen. That means, that the few times people actually go to the movies, they're going to see the big picture that everyone is talking about. That favors blockbusters that have a lot of marketing and hype behind it. Less movie going means less attentions to the mid-sized fishes.
I, for instance, would probably not see it. Not because I wouldn't find it intriguing. But because I go to the cinema with friends, and my friends are pretty casual about their movie-taste (ie: superhero movies). I managed to con my friends into seeing Arrival but that's not a feat that I'm likely to be able to replicate twice.
Likewise, the audience today is much more international. You need to have wide appeal in both content and concept. That's why formulaic formulas work so well in modern times as well as stuff that already have a large foothold in pop-culture (again, superheroes). A movie like Field of Dreams is very americana. Cornfields and baseball isn't going to rouse the masses of China, you know? It's to regional to the American experience. Which again, is going to make studios and other financers less interested in it.
But it could still happen, of course. Just less likely.
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Yeah, that's true. With the rise of large-screen, HDTVs, as well as home surround sound systems, it seems that people are more inclined to just stay home these days. It's not like it was in the 80s and 90s when the average television was about 27 inches and standard definition.
I think a lot of people now feel like in order for them to go see it on the big screen, it needs to be a movie that really takes advantage of the technology. "What's the point of watching a quiet drama in a theater?" is the thought process.
Interesting. I actually tend to go see most movies by myself. The exception are horror movies and comedies, which I think work better if you have someone--preferably a female--along for the ride.
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I don't like to think about it too much because on paper it's a ridiculous movie. However, there's just something charming about it that makes you feel good when you watch it. I'm not even a big baseball fan but the beautiful manicured field in the middle of a cornfield in the Iowa sunset was so damn heartwarming Americana at it's finest.
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Agreed. I'm also not much of a baseball fan, but it's a fun, feel-good movie and also the kind of movie where--even though I don't follow baseball AT ALL--I'm like, "Yeah! Baseball! America's Pastime! We need that shit!"
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I think for a lot of people baseball represents a simpler time childhood nostalgia. Maybe you played it a lot growing up or it's the tons of baseball movies millennials grew up on(Sandlot, Major League, Angels in the outfield, Rookie of the year) or the fact that baseball was at it's best in the 90's. Either way it's just a very nostalgia inducing plot device.
