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Mink-e Lobs Softballs At THE ROOKIE!!
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I was watching some TV the other night with Harry Lime and a spot came on for THE ROOKIE. The thing that really stood out for me about the trailer was the "G" rating. I think that's cool. I wish people made "G" films that weren't toy commercials or truly heinous children's crap more often. I remember seeing THE BLACK STALLION and 2001 and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE in the theater and never knowing those were "G" rated movies because they didn't feel dumbed down or intentionally softened.
And, yes, I'll admit it. I always wish Dennis Quaid well. The man's lived under a box-office curse his whole career, and I've never understood it. So here's hoping this movie is a nice surprise, and that it does well for Mr. Quaid and The Maus.
Hey Harry,
I've been reading the site for a couple years now, and I've always wanted to be able to give something back. Problem is that I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado where we just finally got The Man Who Wasn't There. Needless to say, I was pretty suprised that there are test screenings starting to pop up around here. Granted, what I got to see last night isn't going to win any oscars, but it was the right price and I was pleasantly suprised.
I went into the Rookie ready to hate it. It's a G rated live-action movie that's geared toward an adult audience. I was pretty much expecting the dialogue to be more hokey than Denise Richards telling Pierce Brosnan that she's going to disarm a nuclear device. The movie was predictable and formulaic, but it ripped right through all of my cynicism and made me like it.
The movie starts with a story about a little oil town in Texas and how two nuns had invested money that they had somehow saved into an oil field. They told someone, and that man told them to get their money back. When he found out that it was too late to get the money back, he told them to sprinkle rose pedals on the land and pray to Saint Rita to bless the land.
Come to find out it's the first real oil rig in Texas.
The movie then goes to young Jim Morris, a boy who loves baseball and is a good pitcher. The problem is that Jim's father is the typical hard-nosed military father who doesn't seem to care about his son or what he does. Every time Jim starts getting comfortable and playing baseball, the family has to move. They end up in said Texas oil town where there is no baseball. We find out later that he didn't play baseball again until Junior college.
Fast forward about 20-25 years and we find Jim (Dennis Quaid) as a science teacher and baseball coach in the same town. If you've seen the trailers or commercials, you can pretty much know the rest of the story. He challenges his loser team to reach for their goals. They challenge him that if they win the division, he goes and tries out for pro baseball again.
They win the division, he tries out and after going through AA and AAA baseball, he gets called up to the major leagues.
This movie could have been really stupid at a lot of spots, but it didn't wuss out. At the end when Jim starts talking civily to his Dad again, they don't hug and cry. It leaves you knowing that it's just a start and their going to take awhile to be a father and son. Jim and his wife had their issues, but they loved each other and they acted the responsible part of adults and parents through the whole thing instead of being irresponsible and leaving the kids to be the grown-ups like happens in a lot of films today.
The part that absolutely tore away any doubt about this movie is when his family visits him at his first major league game (which really was against the Texas Rangers, it wasn't an addition for the sake of the movie). When Jim sees his family, he has such a big grin on his face, it's a lock that you're going to smile at the end of this movie too. It's like in Davy Crockett when he talks about how there's nothing as irresistable in the whole world as a good old-fashioned good natured grin. That's what melted me. Dennis Quaid is just so flippin likable in this movie that you can't hate it.
It has it's faults, like during the division championship for the team he coaches, the last batter on the opposing team looks like Bill Paxton and Mark McGuire's love child. He was just plain scary looking. The other thing is that this movie does let Jim's dad (played by Brian Cox) be the bad guy for the first 10 mintues of the film seemingly without any redeeming qualities, which is resolved later.
This movie won't be going for any major awards or super critical acclaim, but it's a solid movie like some of the old Disney live action movies, but it's for adults. Kids would actually be bored out of their skulls.
You can call me Mink-e
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Feb 28, 2002 9:42:26 PM CST
COULD I BE FIRST AFTER THIS STORY BEING AROUND FOR A HALF HOUR
by metsrulein2k
damn who knew
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Randy Quaid bad
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Has he ever had a movie that has done well at the box office? I can't really think of one. This sounds similar thematically to Frequency, a movie that I really liked. I hope that this does well for his sake and for the possibility of live-action G-rated movies in the future. I love Matrix as much as the next guy, but not every movie has to have "guns. Lots of guns."
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Feb 28, 2002 10:59:57 PM CST
Damon does The Bourne Identity and Affleck does Sum of All Fears
by muaatopia
Similar career paths anyone?
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Shouldn't be too embarassed, not like too many people are going to check this story out. (Although I found it interesting..)
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Doesn't that stand for Goo-Goo?
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Quaid has one of those nice guy images which makes you want to root from him both on and off the screen. He could be a total prick for all I know. As for his movies... I know all you fellow nerd/movie-philes loved Dreamscape as pre-teens (total crapfest now that I watch it on TNT). Enemy Mine was good. Frequency was probably his best. I think you are right, I don't think he has starred in an blockbusters.
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Did Inner Space make any money? That film was my absolute favourite around my pre-teen years... Dennis Quaid deserves a decent role. Frequency was OK until the god-awful song sequence at the end. I had to my ears syringed straight afterwards. Eurghh...
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Thanks moriarty for passing that on. It doesnt sound overly puke inducing. Maybe just kinda flem causing. But you forgot one of the greatest if not the heighth of adult oriented g films, "The Straight Story". Mercy how could you get better than David Lynch and Richard Farnsworth?
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Have you forgotten The Big Easy? Any Given Sunday? Enemy Mine? How about Postcards From the Edge and Innerscape? How quickly they forget. That doesn't mean this movie is going to be great, Lord knows I have no interest in seeing itm, maybe on video. But don't knock the man, he's given some great performances. And yes, Dreamscape ain't too pretty now, but it enthralled us as kids, and I think that's worth something.
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I love Dennis Quaid, but like Kurt Russell and Alec Baldwin, he cannot seem to carry a movie. You don't go to see a Dennis Quaid (or Jurt Russell or Alec Baldwin) movie the way you go to see a Harrison Ford or Mel Gibson movie. No one does. Why? I have no idea. Quaid has done two very good movies, BIG EASY and INNERSPACE, but the blockbusters seem to elude him. He did a really interesting film not too many years ago co-starring Morgan Freeman as a cold-blooded killer on a train. Anyone remember that one? Did he also not play a noble sniper in a very tense little antiwar film a few years back (or was that Tom Beringer, another decent actor no one goes expressly to see)? Quaid is maybe too nice of a guy, or at least that's what he projects on-screen. He lost Meg Ryan, which makes me wonder whose fault was that? Hers or his? By the way, FREQUENCY stunk. I am amazed it didn't nip Jim Cavaziel's career right in the bud. Cavaziel thankfully went on to rewarding roles in both PAY IT FORWARD and ALEXANDER DUMAS' COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. How about MGM's remake of SEVEN SAMURAI stars Quaid, Russell, Beringer, Baldwin, Treat Williams, Michael Dudikoff and Michael Wincott, the deep-voiced bad guy from the Charlie Sheen THREE MUSKETEERS and the new COUNT? Now that's a cast!
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