This is a guest review from contributor, J Rock. He is a close friend to TheMovieBanter family and wanted to shed light on Brad Pitt’s latest film Moneyball.

I was a little scared going into this movie. Moneyball happens to be my favorite book and I wasn’t sure how the writers would translate a story about a baseball-GM-using-statistics into an entertaining movie.  Fortunately for myself, and even most of the theater who had no idea what Moneyball was about, the movie was entertaining from start to finish and had humor throughout.

For those who don’t know, Moneyball was based on Michael Lewis’ best selling book with the same title, which tells the story of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics (“A’s”) who used an extremely unorthodox method of putting together a winning baseball team. Having to compete with big budget powerhouses like the Yankees and Red Sox year after year, Beane and his team devised a way to put a winning team together with about one fourth of the latter team’s payroll.  This is where the “Moneyball” concept comes from.

In the movie, Brad Pitt does a great job of playing the eccentric and slightly awkward Billy Beane. Despite being initially skeptical of Brad Pitt playing Beane, I have to say that his performance far exceeded my expectations.  The movie also stars Jonah Hill, who I originally thought was a horrible casting choice as Beane’s sidekick Peter Brand, but was definitely wrong in my judgment.  I, along with most of you, am used to seeing him as the goofy fat kid who we all laugh at as opposed to a serious statistician set up winning baseball games.   His character Peter Brand, a Yale graduate, goes to work with Billy Beane as the assistant general manager of the A’s.  Note in real life, Peter Brand is actually Paul DePodesta, former GM of the dodgers and current VP of player development for the Mets.   The real DePodesta said that Hill’s character wasn’t portrayed like him and thus requested that the character’s name be changed. Hill was great as Brand and had true onscreen chemistry with Brad Pitt. The odd couple duo really nailed it in this film.

Relying heavily on statistics published years back by famous baseball guru Bill James, the duo places an extra emphasis on the percentage of a player getting on base rather than the traditional method of home runs, steals, or defense.  This new scientific method to putting a team together did not sit well with baseball lifers and the film definitely shows it.  As stated in the book and the movie, while you aren’t going to replace Jason Giambi in his MVP year, you can duplicate his value to the team by adding a certain type of players. Even for those who don’t follow baseball, you couldn’t help but believe in their theory and root for the A’s regardless of your affiliation, much like how you felt towards the Indians in the ‘Major League’ comedies.

The movie also stars the talented Philip Seymour Hoffman as former A’s manager Art Howe.  After leaving the A’s, Howe went on to become manager of the Mets, my beloved team, for a few seasons. If the events onscreen were remotely true, it makes me angry that the Mets actually hired this guy.  Howe is shown more disagreeable than wise.  However, Pitt and Hoffman created many of the film’s humorous moments as the increasing tension of their two very different philosophies continued to clash.

Moneyball did a great job of explaining everything so that non-serious baseball fans were completely clued in.  Whether you are a die hard fan of the game or just a Brad Pitt fanatic looking to use a 2-for-1 living social coupon that was about to expire, Moneyball will leave you satisfied.  The film is simply awesome.

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I mean, I guess it is a definite possibility to have just missed Hill’s new look because he’s not really that big of a star (not yet anyway) and therefore not that highly photographed (compared to a Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt, let’s say). After all, the last movie he was in, where he didn’t play an animated character, was the just-okay Get Him to the Greek, and then the independent Cyrus before that. And although he is starring in the upcoming David Gorden Green’s quasi-homage to Adventures in Babysitting, The Sitter and alongside Brad Pitt, Robin Wright and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in this fall’s Bennett Miller adaptation of Moneyball, it is the same-looking (and, more importantly, same-weighing) Jonah Hill we have all grown to love in movies like Superbad and Knocked Up.

But here’s the thing. Since his weight loss (or maybe during, given the timing), Jonah Hill has been cast in two relatively, or rather hopefully, big hits, and is now in negotiations to join a third. Hill will be in 21 Jump Street, which he also co-wrote, with Channing Tatum and Johnny Depp and The Good Time Gang with Mark Wahlberg. Now, news has just broke that he is most likely joining the cast of the Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg co-written comedy Neighborhood Watch of which Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn are already attached. And Hill has already signed on to voice Snotlout in How to Train Your Dragon 2, to boot!

I just have to wonder if the long-time working Hill is set to be one of the next (small but) big things? Not to necessarily say that Hill is going to be the next Hollywood heartthrob, but he’s definitely getting more (and bigger) roles than he has ever before. And what I’m wondering even more is if his recently up-ed star power just happens to coincide with his more-than-just-noticeable weight loss, or if it is, in fact, in direct correlation of said weight loss? I’m not trying to be vain or anything, I’m just pointing out the facts here, guys.

I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter, just as long as Hill keeps banking these jobs, because really, it has been a long time coming.

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“Pirate Radio” is the new film about Rock and Roll fanatics who broadcasted, via the ocean, to England in the 1970′s. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays ‘the count,’ the cool, hip DJ who dominates the air waves. Bill Nighy plays the lead producer of the boat, essentially the boss, and runs the radio station. Nick Frost and Rhys Ifans are also intriguing DJ’s and are big part of the station.

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Laid to Rest video

Unfortunately this movie is a bad combination of “Almost Famous” and “Outside Providence,” both of which were very good films. This film dragged on a bit. Yes, we get the picture, they all loved Rock & Roll.  And yes, they had to announce it every scene in order to remind  me.

While the music was great, mix of personalities interesting, this film as a whole was nothing special. The main character, Carl, a struggling high school student played by Tom Sturride, was an awkward and unconvincing lead.  His inability to be comfortable in front of the camera caused the movie to take a turn for the worse.  He was a ‘pulling-teeth’ version of the weird guy from “American Beauty.”

All in all this movie was ok. Music lovers may like it, but will most likely be unsatisfied.  The story was choppy, the sequence of events had little flow, and the ultimate goal of this movie was simply to show these guys were passionate. Umm, that’s not enough for me. I’d give Pirate Radio a 5/10.

Check out my video review below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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