Ogosmith
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Married Baby
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Tss5078
Hopper Gibson (Johnny Simmons) is in a position that every little boy dreams about. He is a star rookie pitcher in Major League Baseball. His numbers and talent are off the chart, when all of a sudden, he can't find the strike zone. There is nothing wrong with him physically, so the team sends him down to the minors and puts him to work with the top sports psychologist in the country. I really don't understand professional critics and what they look for when they rate a film. Take The Phenom for example, this film has got to be the slowest and most boring sports film I've ever seen, yet it has an 80 on Rotten Tomatoes. There was very little sports action in this film and the fast majority of it consisted of this guy sitting in a room talking to a shrink! Yes, the shrink was played by Paul Giamatti, who is an unbelievably talented actor, but why the hell would anyone want to watch some dudes therapy session? When he wasn't in therapy, he should be on the field, but no, he's dealing with his over barring father, who is fresh out of prison. Who plays this bad ass, bullying his pro-athlete son, who is in peak physical condition? A very old looking, very tattooed, Ethan Hawke and I really wasn't buying that for a second. There were some talented actors in this film, no doubt, but The Phenom was 88 minutes of talking and nothing more, what in the hell is so great about that? This film was as boring as movies get, so unless you're a die hard Paul Giamatti fan, I would absolutely let this one pass you by.
Ian
(Flash Review)With an intriguing story of a major league pitcher needing a sports psychologist to help him regain his pitching command, this film had a lot going for it in addition to its unique plot. As it sets a confident atmosphere, competent acting, interesting pacing, editing with some nice long shot holds and framing composition. Where it threw its wild pitches was in tying all the scenes together and diving a bit deeper into certain characters and plot points. It failed to emotionally connect with me. I never truly felt the pitcher's strife; as much as the lighting tried to help from scene to scene. Many scenes were really good stand-alone scenes yet never added up to a great unified whole. Back to the plot, you learn what are some causes for his on the mound distractions and a couple vague ways he tries to resolve them. Can he conquer them and regain his pitching dominance? Overall it felt uneven and had a very abrupt ending; not in a clever way either.
classicsoncall
My oh my, what the heck do you think the film makers were going for here? There's a lot of subtext going on but the story doesn't bring any of it together in any sort of meaningful way. I get the whole business about the kid Hooper (Johnny Simmons) having doubts about himself, the father (Ethan Hawke) trying to live vicariously through his son's ability, and the shrink's (Paul Giamatti) attempt to draw young Hooper out to confront his personal demons, but man, what a poor attempt at a story.The most frustrating thing about Hooper was that he seemed to be completely oblivious as a human being. His frequent sessions with Dr. Mobley (Giamatti) seemed to be spent laughing off the doctor's questions or challenging the doc himself as if he were running the therapy session. As for Hooper, Senior, he looked like a real picture of ambition imparting his words of wisdom to a son who couldn't or wouldn't stand up for himself in the face of the old man's insults and put-downs. The drug smuggling rap was just the icing on the cake for me. The guy actually did have a point about staying focused on the pitcher's mound and trying to intimidate opposing batters, but with all that valuable insight, how did he wind up being such a dirt bag? On top of all that, the movie doesn't really even have too much to do with the game of baseball when you come right down to it. There are a few scenes of Hooper throwing the ball but no actual game situations to test the man's mettle. For a better treatment of a baseball pitcher in a somewhat similar situation, try going all the way back to 1957's "Fear Strikes Out", a true story of Jimmy Piersall's struggle with mental illness and a domineering father for whom his son's triumphs were never good enough. Of more recent vintage, Clint Eastwood's "Trouble With the Curve" also has some merit, but deals more with a dysfunctional relationship between a father and daughter with a baseball backdrop.
J Banana
This is a slow movie so if you are looking for a baseball movie with excellent plays, this is not what you are going to get. This is pure dialog with psychological upbringing playing a major role in the protagonists head.I'll keep this short, this movie is about a good kid who is barely out of high school and has an incredible skill at pitching. He's a phenom, a boy genius with a ball in his hand.The movie is about all the pressures that a young man goes through when he has a gift even he has yet to truly understand and control. He undergoes struggling with it and begins to question his talent, his beliefs and all that he was taught about pitching. This is a movie for someone who wants to put themselves in the position of someone who is struggling to nurture what he/she naturally is talented at. The protagonist has pitchers block, many of us have a type of block in our life that we struggled to get through or failed to get through.
