Category: #WWMD

#140RVW

Best kids baseball movie ever. As enjoyable as they come. After 20 years: “They say the Jet’s lost a step or two”, but don’t believe it…

What’s more:

This isn’t just my favorite kids baseball movie ever, its my favorite baseball movie ever. And that’s saying an awful lot, because there are so many great films about the game.

But like so many baseball movies, this really isn’t about baseball. It’s a coming of age story, the spiritual descendant of Stand By Me and very nearly as good. It’s far more obvious, straightforward family-fare that lacks Stand’s edge, but it equals that films connection to its setting and depiction of Americana. A Christmas Story‘s Gene Shepherd wouldn’t have sounded out of place narrating this film.

Directed by first-timer David M. Evans who also narrates the story he wrote, it is a great throwback picture, with an idealized, Rockwellian past captured forever. Not a thing wrong with that, particularly for a baseball picture.

Scott Smalls is the new kid in town, unsure of himself and awkwardly settling in with having a new stepfather. He finds fun and himself by joining the local ballplayers at the neighborhood sandlot. Boom. That’s the story. Everything after that is just for color. There’s the usual coming of age stuff:

• Girls

• Identity

• Embarrassment

• Fear of being eaten by a monster hound…wait, that one’s new…

The whole supernatural turn to the story as they need to recover the MacGuffin (a baseball signed by Babe Ruth) is just all good comedy stuff, and really works well. It’s the part of the movie that works best the first time you see it – the madcap adventures usually do – but it’s still funny stuff 21 years later.

The young actors are a blast, and none of them are annoyingly precocious, which is practically unique. These are sort of like the rough around the edges kids that you grew up with. Sort of – not quite realistic enough.

The Sandlot would be worth a watch if the only good scene was the Fourth of July “Night Game”, but it is a highly enjoyable movie throughout.

 

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

Main Cast	Tom Guiry Scotty Smalls, Mike Vitar Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, Patrick Renna Hamilton ‘Ham’ Porter, Chauncey Leopardi Michael ‘Squints’ Palledorous
Rating	PG
Release Date	Wed 07 Apr 1993 UTC
Director	David M. Evans (as David Mickey Evans)
Genres	Comedy, Drama, Family, Sport
Plot	Scotty Smalls moves to a new neighborhood with his mom and stepdad, and wants to learn to play baseball…
Poster
Runtime	101
Tagline	The adventure of a lifetime, the summer of their dreams…the dog of their nightmares
Writers	David M. Evans (as David Mickey Evans) (written by) &, Robert Gunter (written by)
Year	1993