Moneyball (2011)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Sound Mixing    Just when I get through saying that I can't get to the theaters anymore, Rob pops in and asks if I want to go see Moneyball.  It wasn't top of my list (I figured it was a rental at best) but I jumped at the chance to get out of the house for a while.

It's fall of 2001 and the Oakland A's are struggling.  They have missed the playoff for the World Series to the New York Yankees and their three best players are leaving for greener fields.  General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) has to find players to replace them for a fraction of the money other teams have to spend.  While trying to make trades in Cleveland, he notices a younger guy influencing the discussion.  Afterwards, he finds the kid in the cubicle pool and presses him.  The kid is Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an economics grad from Yale with a radical idea.  The idea that games are won by players is archaic.  Games are won by runs, so you don't need big-name expensive players, you just need people who can get on base consistently.  This does not go over well with the other managers or the coach (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

This is based on a true story, of course, so anybody who has watched baseball over the last 10 years knows that the Oakland A's broke a record for 20 consecutive wins to end the series 103-59 that year.  They still lost the play-off to get into the World Series, though.

Ok, this is where Rob and I have differing opinions of the film:  The Red Sox owner approaches Beane with an obscene amount of money to move to Boston and try his system there.  Beane turns it down to stay with the A's.  Two years later, the Red Sox win the World Series.  Now, Rob thinks that's a satisfactory ending because he stayed with the team that he loved and didn't sell out.  I think that he was afraid of failure on a grander scheme and he didn't trust either himself or his process, which the Red Sox admitted that they used.  (And then, as soon as they won the World Series, they stopped using and haven't won since.  But that's a different story.)  Go see the movie and decide for yourself.