DVD REVIEW: MONEYBALL

 "Moneyball" is notable for a few reasons.

• It got robbed at the Oscars, 6 nominations with 0 wins.
• It was one of the last appearances of "Fat Jonah Hill."
• Fat Jonah Hill, known for his crude frat boy persona he developed in movies like "Superbad" and "Knocked Up," got an Oscar nomination.  Therefore he's now known as "Skinny Oscar-nominee Jonah Hill."

One of Fat Jonah Hill's last appearances.

Though none of those reasons adds up to why "Moneyball" was one of my favorite films of the year.  Once again I'll be perfectly honest, I don't really know why F.J.H. got the Oscar nomination, and a Golden Globe nomination to boot.  He was Brad Pitt's portly sidekick.  He was very smart, and came up with the whole concept for the moneyball formula, but he was still his portly sidekick.

Brad Pitt on the other hand...he's incredible in this movie.  To see scribe Aaron Sorkin's (The Social Network) words come out of Brad Pitt's laconic gum-chewing mouth is a sight to see.  He plays Billy Beane, the manager of the (once) sucky team, the Oakland A's.  Beane was once a baseball player himself, but his performances in the games were disappointing, and he was not drafted again.  Beane picks up Peter Brand (Hill), who introduces to him the concept of moneyball, as I mentioned earlier.  It sounds much more impressive when you hear it in the movie, but the idea, as basically as it gets, is gather up a bunch of underdog players who have some good qualities, utilize those qualities, and play each player up to their strengths.

Aaron Sorkin has this great way of writing where he doesn't dumb down these incredibly hard sentences so the audience feels smart that they know them.  He sticks with the tough vocab, but the actors emote so well, that even if you don't know what's going on or what's been said, you get the general idea.  An underrated Phillip Seymour Hoffman also pops in "Moneyball," but Hill and Pitt got literally all the attention.  Surprisingly the film is also sweet, a story line involving Beane's daughter is a great touch to humanize the fast-talking jock of a man.

I saw this movie....I want to say mid October.  "Moneyball" isn't just one of the best movies of 2011, it's one of the best baseball movies period.  Take that, "A League of Their Own" and "Field of Dreams."

Rating: 4/4 stars