Fifteen years later, ‘Moneyball’ still has game
- Craig Shapiro
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS
Brad Pitt received a best actor Oscar nomination for his nuanced performance as Billy Beane, the driving Oakland A’s GM who bucked the system, and rewrote the playbook, when he used sabermetrics to field a team. Leaving his comedy roots behind, Jonah Hill earned a supporting actor nod as Peter Brand, the Yale-trained economist and analytics savant.
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“MONEYBALL”
4K Ultra HD, 2011, PG-13 for language; Digital copy via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), DirecTV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Movies Anywhere (4K), Verizon (4K), Xfinity (4K)
Best extra: The short feature “Billy Beane: Re-Inventing the Game”
LOTS OF FOLKS probably wondered the same thing as the boss did when he asked about checking out “Moneyball”: Why didn’t Sony time its release to coincide with the start of the MLB season?
Point taken. In one sense, it is a baseball movie, though not in the same mold as fairytales like “The Natural.”
Based on Michael Lewis’ 2003 book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” written by Steve Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”) and Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) and directed by Bennett Miller (“Capote”), it opens with the Oakland A’s’ fifth-game loss to the Yankees in the 2001 ALDS. Soon after, three of the team’s key pieces — slugger Jason Giambi, table-setter Johnny Damon and closer Jason Isringhausen — leave for greener pastures: the Yankees, Red Sox and Cardinals.
Looking at a major rebuild, GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, “Fight Club,” “12 Monkeys,” etc.) sits down with the team’s owner to ask for more money. No chance, he’s told. The A’s can never compete with the likes of the deep-pocketed Yankees, whose team salary was nearly three times that of Oakland’s modest $39.7 million in 2001. He’ll have to make do.
(1-3) Reflecting on how close Oakland came in 2001, Beane goes to team co-owner Stephen Schott (Bobby Kotick) to ask for more money. He’s told the A’s will always be a small-market team and that he’ll have to make do. (4-5) Beane listens as head scout Grady Fuson (Ken Medlock) and his old-school compadres make the same tired pitches.
Beane does more than make do. On a trip to Cleveland to pitch a trade, he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, “The Wolf of Wall Street”), a bookish Yale economics grad who has a different idea about fielding a team — using sabermetrics to assess on-base percentage and the like to determine those players who fit best. Brand’s based on several people in Lewis’ book but mostly on Paul DePodesta, who collaborated with Beane in rewriting the playbook.
No surprise that the new way doesn’t sit with everyone back home, in particular skipper Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Capote”) and head scout Grady Fuson (Ken Medlock, “Undisputed”) and his old-school compadres.
It’s here where “Moneyball,” which collected Oscar nominations for best picture, actor, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, editing and sound mixing, diverges from the formula, and why it’s so rewarding. Intense, smart and melancholic, it’s not about wins and losses, it’s about striving for success, as another review put it, in the face of your regrets and doubts.
Beane was a five-tool, high-school phenom who gave up a full ride to Stanford to sign with the Mets. Not unlike other phenoms, he flamed out, then signed on as a scout for Oakland and worked his way up. Obsessed with not losing, he won’t watch games; instead, he drives around in his truck and listens on the radio.
Pitt’s nuanced performance is one of the best of his career — he gives Beane a sheen of see-through bravado as the A’s open the 2002 season on an 11-game losing streak and keeps his guard up even when they reel off a record 20 straight wins.
Leaving his comedic roots behind, Hill is superb, too. You’d hardly know Brand is in the room, but his belief is unyielding as he grows into his new role as assistant GM. The film is peppered with other standout performances, among them Hoffman, Robin Wright (“The Princess Bride”) as Beane’s ex-wife Sharon, Kerris Dorsey (“Walk the Line”) as his daughter Casey, Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) in an early role as catcher-turned-reluctant first baseman Scott Hatteberg and Stephen Bishop (“Friday Night Lights”) as veteran outfielder David Justice.
(1-2) Beane meets Brand on a trip to Cleveland, brings him back to Oakland and gets the rundown on how the number work. (3) Skipper Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) talks to Beane about a contract extension. (4-5) Catcher Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt) sits down with Beane and coach Ron Washington (Brent Jennings) — they want him to be their first-baseman.
VIDEO/AUDIO
This 4K presentation from Sony is a bizarre one. “Moneyball' made its first 4K UHD showing on digital Apple TV in 2018, without any HDR grading. At the time, the resolution looked first-rate, with plenty of natural film grain. It was sourced from a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, also used for a previous Blu-ray edition.
Eight years later, the new 4K edition is also missing the expanded color and contrast of HDR10 or Dolby Vision grading. Was this a rare cost-saving decision by the studio or an artistic choice by the director? Whatever the case, the imagery here is slightly warmer and the clarity is more refined with distant objects, uniforms and grain structure. With a consistently higher video bit rate, it’s an obvious uptick.
Rather than a Dolby Atmos mix, the disc uses the DTS-HD track from the earlier Blu-ray, but since the movie is dialogue-driven, it’s not a big deal. Besides, the locker-room sequences are lively, the airport scenes buzz and you can almost feel the crack of the bats.
(1) Robin Wright is Beane’s supportive ex-wife Sharon and Spike Jonze, the Oscar-nominated director of “Being John Malkovich,” is her husband, Alan. (2-3) Beane takes his daughter Casey (Kerris Dorsey) to pick out a guitar, then listens to a song she wrote. Dorsey is among the standouts in the film’s superb supporting cast.
EXTRAS
“Billy Beane: Re-Inventing the Game” (16 mins.) - Beane, Bennett, Lewis, Zaillian, and Sorkin sit down for the featurette, which is the highlight of the extras picked up from previous releases. For his part, Beane says hiring DePodesta was “the smartest move I ever made.” Most telling, though, are Lewis’ thoughts on the state of the game. With every team, especially the bank-rolled free-spenders, on board with sabermetrics, baseball is just “more unfair.”
“Drafting the Team” (21 mins.) - pretty much your typical casting reel with Pitt, Hill, Hoffman, the director and the producers.
“Moneyball: Playing the Game” (19 mins.) - what went into re-creating the games, which were based on archival TV coverage. The production was filmed at the Oakland Athletics Stadium, Dodger Stadium, and Fenway Park. Plus, they spent three months building a replica of the A’s locker room.
“Adapting Moneyball” (17 mins. ) - the skinny on bringing Lewis’ novel to the screen.
Deleted Scenes (12 mins.) - Billy Tells Art: Play Bradford, Tara, and Billy dinner, and Peter offered GM job.
Blooper (3 mins.) - Brad loses it.
— Craig Shapiro and Bill Kelley III, High-def Watch producer
(1-2) The 2002 season gets underway. (3-4) Beane implores Howe to stick to the system then dresses down the team for partying in the clubhouse after another loss.
(1) Undeterred when the A’s open with 11 straight losses, Brand stands by the system. (2-4) The mood changes when Oakland goes on a record 20-game winning streak. (5-6) Hatteberg steps up to the plate and belts a late-inning big fly to seal No. 20.
SPECS:
100 GB disc
TRUE 4K mastering
Captured in the 35mm Super 35 format using Arriflex cameras (1.85:1 aspect ratio)
Video bitrate: Averages in the mid-70 megabits per second, with a running time of 133 minutes.
Box office: Domestically $76 million, worldwide $113.6 million, with a production budget of $50 million.
Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 91 percent, Audiences 86 percent
Metacritic: Critics 87 percent, User Score 8.0
Awards: Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Adapted Screenplay.
Critics Choice Awards: Nominations for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture.
Golden Globes: Nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Motion Picture
Harper's Bazaar 18 Best Baseball Movies of all time – “Moneyball No. 6 and “A League of Their Own” (1992) selected No. 1.
Hollywood Reporter The 10 Best Baseball Movies of all time – “Moneyball” No. 2 and “Eight Men Out” (1988) selected No. 1.
IMDb.com Top 25 Baseball Movies – “Moneyball” No. 3 and “Field of Dreams” (1989) rated No. 1.
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