As someone who got the shit end of the stick when it comes to athletic ability, I have about 997 bad memories of gym class...and approximately ONE positive memory. That would be the day when my 7th grade gym teacher, Mr. Hopeheburnsinhell, told us we could remain dressed in our civvies and watch the baseball-less baseball classic Field of Dreams instead of playing volleyball. I’ll always have the warm and fuzzies when it comes to this flick for that reason...but I just watched it again for the first time in a while...and it’s kinda stoopid, no? The film opens with a super long montage about how Kevin Costner loves baseball and has daddy issues and is also a stoner hippie…even though he looks like the type of guy who beats the shit out of stoner hippies. Say what you will about Kevin Costner...but the man could fill out a pair of dungarees, amirite? Dude owns a giant corn field in Iowa and right off the bat he hears the call: “if you build it...he will come.” This is also the point of the film where, in my 7th grade gym class, Tony Rachezzi leaned over and whispered “if you rub it...it will come” into my ear..something he did repeatedly not just for the duration of the film...but for the remainder of the 7th grade year. So instead of going to the doctor and getting his noggin checked, Costner plows over his corn and builds a regulation baseball diamond and then Henry Hill from Goodfellas shows up in a baseball uniform. I know this movie came out before Goodfellas but you can’t look at Ray Liotta without expecting him to start shouting “why did you do that KAR-REN!!!?” They never would’ve found it, KA-REN!!!” Right so Henry Hill is the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson and soon the rest of the ’29 Black Sox show up to play some ghost ball. So that’s crazy, right? But K-Cos’s wife and young daughter are mad cool about this development. They’re all “I guess we gots ghosts now...let’s set up the TV trays and watch Benson.” But before you can say “play ball” , Costner's jerk ass ginger brother in law Tim Busfield shows up to tell him that he can’t pay the bills with invisible sports. Dude is gonna lose the farm! Meanwhile Costner’s wife, played by Amy Madigan, goes to a contentious PTA meeting and goes apeshit over banning books (ed. Note: I wrote this review in 2017 when the idea of banning books felt like something from another century…like the Titanic or the Dust Buster. It is now 2023 and books are being banned at a fever clip. Sux). It’s almost as good as the performance she gave at the 1997 Oscars when she mean mugged Elia Kazan’s lifetime achievement award and wouldn’t stand or clap for him. Costner hears more voices at the PTA meeting that tell him to go to Boston and track down a reclusive hippie writer played by the voice of Darth Vader, Mr Jimmy Earl Jones. Darth and K-Cos go to a game at Fenway where they buy 2 beers for 6 bucks (whaaaa??). Costner receives even more magical messages from the Fenway scoreboard and then heads off to Ohio with JEJ to look for some obscure coulda-been-but-never-was ball player called Moonlight Graham. When they arrive in Ohio they learn that Moonlight Graham became a doctor...which is rad...and is also dead...which is less rad. It’s cool though ‘cuz Costner goes for a nighttime stroll and winds up in 1972, where he runs into Doc Graham...played by an old-as-balls Burt Lancaster. No special effects or anything like that…it’s just randomly now the year 1972. We know this because The Godfather is playing at the local theater and whatnot. Doc Graham declines an invitation to time travel out to K-Cos’s ball field but, while headed back to Iowa, he and JEJ pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be Doc Graham as a young man and is now played by the kid who played Robbie Kreiger in The Doors flick! This is some seriously confusing Twin Peaks shit right hur. It’s like when Bill Pullman turned into Balthazar Getty in Lost Highway. That happened, right? Anyway...this motley crew heads back to Iowa where Timmy Busfield is still pushing this whole “sell the farm shit” mostly cuz he can’t see the ghosts and doesn’t know what a cash cow watching the undead play baseball could be. Costner’s daughter tells him exactly that and he responds by friggin’ throwing her off of the bleachers while she’s mid hot dog bite. Luckily Doc Graham is in the house! He saves her life by punching her in the back. That was apparently good doctoring back in the 30’s or whenever. Question: if the ghost of old Doc Graham is in the same location as you Doc Graham…would they…like…know each other? Wouldn’t it be like crossing the streams: bad? Right so everyone can see the ghosts now and Costner wants to disappear into cornfield heaven with them but they want James Earl Jones instead but they offer Costner a sweet consolation prize: a game of catch with his dead father! It’s just like the end of Contact but with 100% less aliens. The end
Field of Dreams
Field of Dreams
Field of Dreams
As someone who got the shit end of the stick when it comes to athletic ability, I have about 997 bad memories of gym class...and approximately ONE positive memory. That would be the day when my 7th grade gym teacher, Mr. Hopeheburnsinhell, told us we could remain dressed in our civvies and watch the baseball-less baseball classic Field of Dreams instead of playing volleyball. I’ll always have the warm and fuzzies when it comes to this flick for that reason...but I just watched it again for the first time in a while...and it’s kinda stoopid, no? The film opens with a super long montage about how Kevin Costner loves baseball and has daddy issues and is also a stoner hippie…even though he looks like the type of guy who beats the shit out of stoner hippies. Say what you will about Kevin Costner...but the man could fill out a pair of dungarees, amirite? Dude owns a giant corn field in Iowa and right off the bat he hears the call: “if you build it...he will come.” This is also the point of the film where, in my 7th grade gym class, Tony Rachezzi leaned over and whispered “if you rub it...it will come” into my ear..something he did repeatedly not just for the duration of the film...but for the remainder of the 7th grade year. So instead of going to the doctor and getting his noggin checked, Costner plows over his corn and builds a regulation baseball diamond and then Henry Hill from Goodfellas shows up in a baseball uniform. I know this movie came out before Goodfellas but you can’t look at Ray Liotta without expecting him to start shouting “why did you do that KAR-REN!!!?” They never would’ve found it, KA-REN!!!” Right so Henry Hill is the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson and soon the rest of the ’29 Black Sox show up to play some ghost ball. So that’s crazy, right? But K-Cos’s wife and young daughter are mad cool about this development. They’re all “I guess we gots ghosts now...let’s set up the TV trays and watch Benson.” But before you can say “play ball” , Costner's jerk ass ginger brother in law Tim Busfield shows up to tell him that he can’t pay the bills with invisible sports. Dude is gonna lose the farm! Meanwhile Costner’s wife, played by Amy Madigan, goes to a contentious PTA meeting and goes apeshit over banning books (ed. Note: I wrote this review in 2017 when the idea of banning books felt like something from another century…like the Titanic or the Dust Buster. It is now 2023 and books are being banned at a fever clip. Sux). It’s almost as good as the performance she gave at the 1997 Oscars when she mean mugged Elia Kazan’s lifetime achievement award and wouldn’t stand or clap for him. Costner hears more voices at the PTA meeting that tell him to go to Boston and track down a reclusive hippie writer played by the voice of Darth Vader, Mr Jimmy Earl Jones. Darth and K-Cos go to a game at Fenway where they buy 2 beers for 6 bucks (whaaaa??). Costner receives even more magical messages from the Fenway scoreboard and then heads off to Ohio with JEJ to look for some obscure coulda-been-but-never-was ball player called Moonlight Graham. When they arrive in Ohio they learn that Moonlight Graham became a doctor...which is rad...and is also dead...which is less rad. It’s cool though ‘cuz Costner goes for a nighttime stroll and winds up in 1972, where he runs into Doc Graham...played by an old-as-balls Burt Lancaster. No special effects or anything like that…it’s just randomly now the year 1972. We know this because The Godfather is playing at the local theater and whatnot. Doc Graham declines an invitation to time travel out to K-Cos’s ball field but, while headed back to Iowa, he and JEJ pick up a hitchhiker who turns out to be Doc Graham as a young man and is now played by the kid who played Robbie Kreiger in The Doors flick! This is some seriously confusing Twin Peaks shit right hur. It’s like when Bill Pullman turned into Balthazar Getty in Lost Highway. That happened, right? Anyway...this motley crew heads back to Iowa where Timmy Busfield is still pushing this whole “sell the farm shit” mostly cuz he can’t see the ghosts and doesn’t know what a cash cow watching the undead play baseball could be. Costner’s daughter tells him exactly that and he responds by friggin’ throwing her off of the bleachers while she’s mid hot dog bite. Luckily Doc Graham is in the house! He saves her life by punching her in the back. That was apparently good doctoring back in the 30’s or whenever. Question: if the ghost of old Doc Graham is in the same location as you Doc Graham…would they…like…know each other? Wouldn’t it be like crossing the streams: bad? Right so everyone can see the ghosts now and Costner wants to disappear into cornfield heaven with them but they want James Earl Jones instead but they offer Costner a sweet consolation prize: a game of catch with his dead father! It’s just like the end of Contact but with 100% less aliens. The end