Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
It turns out that all you need to do to make a sports movie I like is to make it about statistics instead! No, not really, but Moneyball, like those various Japanese classics about people succeeding in bizarre avenues of adventure -- Waterboys, boys' sychronized swimming; Hikaru no Go, go -- is an entertaining application of the sports movie's traditional narrative arc to something a little more esoteric: in this case, the application of statistical techniques to drafting baseball players.
Based on the book by Michael Lewis, it tells the true story of Oakland Athletics manager Billy Beane and his application of "sabermetrics" to recruiting new players. The short version is that traditional baseball statistics (like batting average) don't accurately reflect the characteristics of a contributing player -- for example, a player with a high number of walks may contribute, in aggregate, many runs.
It's an interesting story, well written and well acted. My only qualm is that it's very one-sided: the scouts and coaches who complain that Beane doesn't understand the intangibles, that statistics aren't everything, are portrayed as dinosaurs. I wish the film had given a little more weight to the argument that there's more to the game than numbers. The new regime seems more than a little soul-crushing.
Still: well worth seeing.