FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

bkoganbing Mr. Baseball casts Tom Selleck as an aging first baseman for the New York Yankees who is cast adrift by his team when they sell his contract to a Japanese team. Not that it ever has been done in real life, but I can't see why it couldn't happen unless a ballplayer has a smart agent and inserts a clause preventing same.As early as the Sixties aging ballplayers from the states have gone to Japan when no one wanted them any more in organized baseball here in the USA. Better the Major Leagues in that country than the Minor Leagues here. I recall Larry Doby and Don Newcombe as two players who went to Japan in their declining years when I was a lad. Baseball has been popular there since Babe Ruth led an all star contingent of our best players in 1934 to Japan. It was on that trip that Moe Berg was gathering intelligence. Not even World War II killed the sport, in fact it was a point of contact during the US occupation.Selleck in Japan has a lot of trouble adapting to the Japanese style where it is considered bad form to argue too much with an umpire or try and take out a second baseman or shortstop to break up a double play. Guys like Earl Weaver or Dallas Green or Billy Martin would have gone nuts there. He's also having trouble adapting to Japanese culture in general. Helping him along is Aya Takanashi who is a public relations person for the club and daughter of the manager Ken Takakura who is a real hard nosed character. Of course when Selleck and Takanashi get to kanoodling he doesn't know she's Takakura's daughter.Takakura learns something from Selleck, that organized baseball is a bunch of men being well paid to play a game that they are skilled at and an element of fun must be involved. I remember a lad when Stan Musial retired after the 1963 season he said that he knew that he would retire when he no longer got any enjoyment out of putting on the uniform of the St. Louis Cardinals and playing the game. When it was just work and the body aches out lasted the enjoyment it was time to quit. Selleck has that same philosophy.So many of Japan's baseball stars now play in the states that their leagues almost serve as a super minor league for our's. And this review is dedicated to one of the best of them, Ichiro Suzuki. Japan integrating the American baseball scene truly arrived when Ichiro broke the long standing record of George Sisler for most base hits in a single season. As Babe Ruth and his all stars showed the Japanese about baseball, Ichiro shows us now how well they learned the game. And if it wasn't for that trip, Mr. Baseball would never have been made.

RoseNylan This film is a different twist on the baseball comedy genre. Here, MLB player Tom Selleck is traded to a Japanese team. Predictably, there is culture clashes as the Japanese do things much different than the way its done in America. As always, there is also a love interest for Selleck in a Japanese commercial agent. Corny jokes and generally predictable situations make this film a forgettable one. The one bright spot here is the accurate portrayal of the Japanese culture.Unless you for some reason really love Tom Selleck and his style of humor or the game of baseball(which I do not), skip this film.

ray-280 Redo the Oscars from 1992, and this film might get nominated, or even win. It was SO good at capturing its era and dual cultures that it belongs in American and Japanese time capsules. If you wanted to know what living here or there was like back then, this film will show you. As an American, you'll feel like you tagged along for an extended Japanese vacation, and by the end of the film, you'll be a die-hard Dragons fan, as you accept the injection of Japanese tradition and culture into their baseball, much as we have done with our culture in our own game.Jack Elliot (Tom Selleck) is a slumping, aging Detroit Tigers' slugger who is traded to the Dragons, perennial runners-up to the dynastic Yomuri Giants, Japan's answer to the Yankees. The Giants are admired for their success, yet that success also has everyone wanting to surpass them, something which is rarely done. The Dragons' manager recruits Jack as the final piece of the pennant-winning puzzle, and we're left with what could have been Gung Ho on a baseball field, but instead was much more.The casting was outstanding: Selleck proved that with a good script and a character that suits him, he can carry a film as well as he did his television show, and the Japanese cast was equally good, down to Mr. Takagi from Die Hard back as the image-conscious owner. The other actors, including the one who plays the love interest (also the manager's daughter), strong and independent yet simultaneously a believer in Japanese traditions, beyond what was forced on her. She is a proper and supportive girlfriend for Jack. Even her father never tells her not to see him, almost sympathizing with Jack for what he endures from her, and a bit relieved he at least knows the man she has chosen to love.The baseball scenes are great, bolstered immensely by a pre-fame Dennis Haysbert as another American ex-patriate and Jack's western mentor. The usual fish-out-of-water elements are there, and you can almost feel yourself stumbling right along with Jack to fit into a country that doesn't speak our language, and doesn't practice our ways, yet copies everything we do, including our national pastime. one of the funnier scenes occurs when Jack, clutching a magazine, informs his manager that he has learned of the tradition in Japan where you can get drunk and tell off your boss, and it can't be used against you, and exercises that right very humorously. The plots and subplots are tied up neatly at the end, but not too neatly, and nothing concludes unrealistically.To call this a comedy is misguided: it's a pure comedy-drama, or even a drama with good humor. The plot is too deep to dismiss it the way it was by critics as an actor out of his league trying to carry a lightweight film. The situations were amusing, but in their place against a far more serious, profound, and precisely detailed backdrop that results in one of the best films I've ever seen. The baseball cinematography rivals that of For Love Of The Game, for realism.Some say the film is about baseball, or about Japan, but more than anything it seems to be about the workplace, and how people arrive at work from totally different origins, with different agendas, and somehow have to put their differences aside for the good of the company, or the team.A truly great film that never should have had to apologize for itself the way it did when it was in theaters.

ccthemovieman-1 I saw this 15 years ago in the theater and while I never had the desire to see it again, it always stuck with me. Maybe that's because (1) I love baseball; (2) hate to see arrogant ballplayers; and (3) cringe if I see someone not representing my country in a positive light. That's what you get in this film as Tom Selleck plays a crude, profane, "ugly American" ballplayer who's talents have been outlived in the Major Leagues and he's now relegated to play in Japan. (Ironically, Japan is just starting to make some inroads the other way around, especially with Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Red Sox.)Anyway, "Jack Elliott" (Selleck) pouts his way around Japan until he gets involved in a romance, which is portrayed somewhat stupidly and leads to a predictable ending. Other characters in here were interesting to watch, such as the stern manager, played by Ken Takakura. One of the other American players has turned out to be a star in his own right, acting-wise: Dennis Haybert of "24" and now "The Unit."There are a lot better baseball movies out there, but you could do worse, too. It was okay, but as an American, I get to see enough arrogant pro athletes play here every day. All I have to do is turn on the TV.