Tag Archives: Harrison Ford

by

#42, A Revelation about a Revolution in Baseball

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers unif...

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers uniform, 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The very best films that feature a sport don’t require a viewer to understand, or like, the game: Rocky, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Men with Brooms, are some films that come to mind. I’m adding 42 to that list.

The path that ended with the Nonagenarian and I at the cinema for an 11:21 AM showing began in Kansas City, MO, at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a few years ago. My limited knowledge of baseball did not include the segregation of professional ball into separate leagues based on skin colour. At  the NLBM I learned that Jackie Robinson had spent his minor league years in Montreal, while he waited to be called to The Show. Montrealers treated him with respect and appreciated his skill.

42 begins with the recruiting of Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs, a legendary team of the Negro Leagues. It ends when the Brooklyn Dodgers win the pennant with the first integrated major league baseball team. That short span in baseball history changed the game forever.

42 is dense with well known names and faces – most of them character actors that provide depth in the backfield seldom seen in films today. Harrison Ford ditches the dashing hero image for a crooked bow tie, gnarly eyebrows and the passion of a man with a guilty conscience who wants to right a wrong. There isn’t a bad performance by anyone, and the cast list is extensive. The face with which I was least familiar was that of Chadwick Boseman, who played Robinson. My ignorance was my loss. His performance is extraordinary in a film that is abundant with them.

Jackie Robinson faced persecution, humiliation, injury as often as he faced pitchers during that period. If the film, “based on a true story” is believed, he faced his tormentors with strict instructions from Branch Rickey, a Dodgers executive, to turn the other cheek. The recreation of one incident when an opposing team member taunts him in front of a stadium full of fans is harrowing. When Robinson, pushed to his limit, finally allows himself to release his rage – we in the audience feel the release too. Rickey’s strategy of  building sympathy for Robinson to engender acceptance is artfully executed in the film to the same end by director Brian Helgeland.

I have dismissed a biopic or two because I “knew the ending.” Don’t dismiss this one, the story is in the details and the journey, not only of Robinson and Major League Baseball, but American culture.

by

#MorningGlory – The Quest for a Movie Heroine Continues

Morning Glory, the Movie

Cinema Poster for Morning Glory

Continuing my quest to discover a movie heroine that embodies the leadership qualities of Marie Curie, the wit of Dorothy Parker and the unconventionality of Katherine Hepburn, I stumbled upon Morning Glory. Rachel McAdams stars with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton. The film’s pedigree includes J.J. Abrams as a producer and a script by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada).

I found the film using the keywords Diane Keaton, because she has made a career out of flaunting convention and has been known to turn an elegant phrase when being interviewed. She may be the real life personification of the fictional heroine I seek. Diane Keaton became my compass rose.

Morning Glory is about female leadership and communication. McAdams plays an Executive Producer of a low-rated morning show, whose ambition is to move on up into the big time – NBC’s Today Show.

Keaton plays the female host of Daybreak, who is eventually professionally paired with Harrison Ford doing his impersonation of Dan Rather after the fall. Their stories are the after, while McAdams represents before. This is a cautionary tale folks!

The behind-the-camera scenes of the low budget, struggling Daybreak were reminiscent of every small town radio and television station at which I have worked. Most broadcasters work in less than glamorous conditions. Only a rare few make it to the top echelon. I identified with the intoxicating effect of ambition and possibility.

I did not find my heroine, however. McAdams’ Becky is a clutch leader, coming through in the end accidentally. She lacked wit although she had her wits about her. Becky is a conventional character, in a conventional world, who came to understand the appeal of unconventionality – again by accident.

I wonder where my quest will take me next?

by

Antarctica – a child’s dream

Adelie Penguin

Adelie Penguin

Extraordinary Measures is a film about parents of children with Pompe Disease, who go to extraordinary efforts to improve the quality of their lives. Brendan Fraser plays the father; Kerri Russell the mother. Harrison Ford, who was an executive producer, portrayed the irascible researcher whose untested theory just might be the key to a medicine that could keep death at bay.

I wanted a polar free experience. A change of pace. No such luck. One of the two children with the disease in the film had a thing for penguins. Had the Children’s Wish Foundation fulfilled her dream – she would have played with penguins in Antarctica.

An Antarctica populated with polar bears and walrus, according to the characters. Surprisingly a film about science got the science wrong. Polar bears and walrus live in the Arctic. Penguins live in the Antarctic. With the exception of zoos, they do not share habitats.