Last movie you watched......

"Long Gone" is a special peeve of mine.
Almost everybody who remembers it rates it one of the best baseball movies they've ever seen, particularly in comparison to its near-direct contemporary, "Bull Durham."

Yet "Long Gone" seems to have just sunk like a stone. It was originally an HBO production, and it hasn't been seen on the flagship channel for years, and isn't available anywhere for streaming as far as I know.

It's usually available on YouTube in a fairly crudely dubbed version copied from a VHS tape -- some of the soundtrack is missing.

I've read at various times that the main problem is the evolution of broadcast standards from the SD image quality of the 1980s to the HD pretty much universal now. As I understand it, "LG" was shot in SD with outdated image proportions and cannot be effectively remastered and HBO doesn't think it's worth the effort to clean up.

But taking all that at face value, my next question would be, "why not remake it using modern day technology, maybe modify the script a bit?"

Or even do a sequel; pretty much the whole cast is still alive and active except for Larry Riley (Joe Louis Brown) who died of AIDS-related causes in 1992. I'm sure some kind of offbeat sequel storyline could be cooked up focusing on "where they are 35 years later."

They could even bring Teller back as some kind of executive VP of MLB.

But really I think a better idea would be to reboot the whole thing as a miniseries.

In any case it seems sad that a really outstanding baseball movie has pretty much been just forgotten about.

 

I wonder if that’s the same reason I can’t find “Dream On” anywhere anymore. Another great HBO production memory-holed.

 

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke -- Stud Cantrell

 

Even more recent fare like "Vinyl" the Bobby Canavale/Martin Scorsese follow up to "Boardwalk Empire" has completely disappeared.

 

I do love a good Long Gone threadjack. Let's knock their dicks off!

 

Saw Oppenheimer on Wednesday afternoon, the crowds have thinned out.
Fantastic movie, there was a lot of character development and a long time frame to cram into the almost 3 hours but they did it. It helped that I’d read most of “American Prometheus” so was familiar with the major impact of the kitchen scene in Oppie’s life.I hope it does well come Oscar time.
The one drawback for me was the miscasting of Marr Damon as General Groves. I like Damon and have seen quite a few of his movies but in ‘Oppenheimer’ I just kept thinking ‘it’s Matt fucking Damon’ and although there’s only so many ways the character can be portrayed I didn’t think he nailed it at all. Better to have had a lesser character actor IMO. Robert Downey was excellent as Strauss.
It seems that usually movies are extremely well cast but Damon seemed to be a miss. I’m sure there have many but none come to mind right now.

 

Dumb Money. It was fine, but not for me. Way too broad and corner cutting.

 

I liked Dumb Money, the unfortunate part is that people holding Game Stop couldn’t get their $$out without screwing their fellow small guys over. Writer told story as succinctly as possible.

 

John Wick 4 is kinda dumb and pointless. Like No. 3.

 

We watched I, Tonya last night. I thought it was really clever and Margot Robbie gave a great performance. Allison Janey, whom I love, was more chewing the scenery for me than delivering an Oscar worthy job.

 

Charlie Wilson's War, which I had never seen before. Pretty good. Enjoyed the witty dialogue, especially the Hanks/Hoffman scenes, though Hanks is miscast. But Emily Blunt.....OMG

 

Reptile, with Benecio starring. Damn it’s been a while since The Usual Suspects. Not bad for a freebie.