John’s Movie Musings

Moneyball Review:

I thought my criminal days were behind me, but when I see movies with my mom we end up seeing two or three for the price of one. This week we paid for Moneyball, finished it, then walked into the theater showing Abduction. All I can say about this illegal activity is that my mom made me do it and for that I say thank you.

Moneyball is the story of the Oakland A’s general manage/ ex-ball player, Billy Beane, who decides to play ‘moneyball’ instead of the traditional draft picks that cost millions of dollars, which the Oakland A’s did not have.

(For those of you who don’t know much about this empirical system of gauging a players performance versus the typical draft criteria, then look it up because it’s somewhat interesting.)

This was a decently paced movie and not overwhelmingly heartwarming like most sports movies. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill do an amazing job delivering believable performances and Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a great jack ass, as usual.

The downside to this film is that as a person who does not follow sports, especially baseball, I wasn’t super excited about the material of the film, i.e., the baseball. The upside to this is that they explain things very well in this film and even the non-sports enthusiast could enjoy the movie.

I think this is a movie worth seeing. In the theaters? Yes and No. If you’ve seen everything else or nothing really appeals to your extensive movie palate, then this makes a great date or loner movie.

Grade: B++

Abduction Review:

I combined these two reviews because I really didn’t have much to say about Abduction, but I felt that it was necessary to let the masses know that I stooped oh-so-low in my movie viewing.

This “action” flick was just an all around flop. My moviefone rating told me to skip it and so did rotten tomatoes, but I was lured in by naughty thoughts about Taylor Lautner’s cute face and awesome abs. (Yeah, I realize he is like 8 years younger than me, but he is a cutie pie. Also, I don’t care what any woman says, they see them and they like ‘em. Abs– that is.)

Aside from getting to see his abs a few times and some okay stunt work the movie was predictable and the dialogue (what dialogue?) was atrocious. Why do they allow John Singleton to make movies, seriously? It’s like he was trying to make a Jason Bourne movie for teenagers. Big fail!

Do not waste your time or money unless you are a 14 year old girl. I’m pretty sure they would like it….

Grade: D ( although it was still better than Drive)