DMP172 – Moneyball_mixdown

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Brennan: You’re listening to Dodge movie podcast. Your hosts are Christi and Mike Dodge, the founders of Dodge media productions.

We produce films and podcasts. So this is a podcast about films. Join them as they share their passion for filmmaking.

Christi: Welcome back everybody to the Dodge Movie Podcast. This is episode 172, and we are going to be talking about the 2011 film Moneyball. The director was Bennett Miller, who also did The Cruise [00:01:00] from 1998.

I don’t remember that movie. 2005’s Capote, I do remember that one. And I also remember 2014’s Foxcatcher. So I see with those, that last film, there’s a sports connection.

Mike: Sports connection.

Christi: I don’t know about The Cruise.

Mike: I think Philip Seymour Hoffman made Capote before he died, right?

Christi: He did. And so he liked working with. Philip, or it was just a coincidence because Philip was in this one too. Okay. Brad Pitt stars in this one with Robin Wright, Jonah Hill like I meant the aforementioned Philip Seymour Hoffman, may he rest in peace. And Chris Pratt, a very young Chris Pratt.

Mike: Yeah. One of his first movies, I think,

Christi: I think so. The DP is Wally Pfister. And he was credited for also being the cinematographer with The Italian Job in 2003.

Mike: Oh, the one with Seth Green?

Christi: Yes. The writer is Steven Zalian. Aaron [00:02:00] Sorkin and Stan Shurvin. That

Mike: Sorkin kid, I think he can write.

Christi: I think, was he called in to kind of clean it up, I believe I read in Trivia.

Mike: Could be,

Christi: yeah. Or maybe not clean it, he, cause he hesitated even having his name on because he just did some touch ups, I think. And so he said, no, I don’t, I don’t even want my name there, but.

Mike: If memory serves, the Writer’s Guild has a panel. that reviews contributions and dictates who gets credit and who doesn’t.

I don’t think you can say no or yes. I think it’s the writer’s guild that chooses whether your name is on there or not.

Christi: And I always thought there was a rule like there couldn’t be three, but there’s clearly three on this one. Again, I think it’s director.

Mike: I think the writer’s guild has some, some like rough rules, but yeah they apparently dictate what that is.

So. But you know, Sorkin. Was there a walk and talk? I thought there was. So that makes sense.

Christi: I think there was. Yeah. We watched this on Netflix and the synopsis for this film [00:03:00] is Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beans successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer generated analysis techniques.

to acquire new players. And it is based on a true story, although I believe that a lot of the characters were like amalgams of different folks.

Mike: I think Jonah Hill’s character was an amalgam. I think Billy Bean and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, I forget his name right now, sorry, Mr. Manager, Art Howe.

Yeah, Art Howe. They were both actual historical figures.

Christi: Right. I only got one tagline for you, so let’s hope it’s a good one.

Mike: Let’s hope.

Christi: What are you really worth? Okay.

Mike: At first I was like, man, I bet he grew on me.

Christi: Yeah, I think it does speak to the film. And, and, you know, I mean, the whole thing was kind of team players.

Mike: Right.

Christi: Worth. All right. Why don’t you kick us off with your pickup line?

Mike: I have two. There was actually an offscreen announcer who [00:04:00] gave us ball one to Johnny Damon and we are underway. But there is also when it comes to the characters, Billy Beans line is, it’s okay, Joe. So I actually think the announcer is probably a little closer to the film.

Christi: Mm hmm. Yep. So we talked about this when we watched it. My recollection of the marketing of this film. Was that Jonah Hill had like cracked the code of knowing, like he knew some like secret information or based on the…

Mike: He was Rain Man..

Christi: Statistics that he used it in a way to like supercharge the effectiveness of, I guess, how far the A’s money could go, or knowing which player would be the, And, and watching it the second time, I was like, Oh no, this isn’t anything about that.

Mike: Yeah, definitely. The marketing was about Saber metrics, which was, I think kind of, you know, a hot topic in baseball at the [00:05:00] time. But this is really more about the Billy Bean character played by Brad Pitt.

Christi: And kind of how driven is he going to be by his past? As he moves forward in the future,

Mike: Which is sad because I actually think the conflict between saber metrics and wishful thinking is a really interesting story.

And my guess is there’s a 30 for 30 from ESPN about this, but ultimately, right? The premise for this is that baseball is as superstitious as sailors. I mean, pick your incredibly superstitious group and baseball was in there. So, to me, that was a fascinating thing to, that clash between the old traditional way of doing things and the new data driven, that would have been an interesting story.

Not that this wasn’t, it just wasn’t that story, right? This was the story of, like you said, Billy Bean, who had played baseball, he was in love with baseball, he wanted to be a baseball player. But he just didn’t [00:06:00] have the magic to make it in the big so he became a manager and then or I guess general manager in this case.

And then yeah, what is he willing to sacrifice to win? So interesting that just like you said, the, the marketing was different.

Christi: So here’s a question for you. Billy was visiting, I believe it was the Atlanta Braves. when he saw Jonah, is that correct?

Mike: That sounds right.

Christi: Do you feel like Billy saw something in what, how Jonah was analyzing the data that that was kind of like the big discovery of the film?

Like, was he being underutilized with the Braves and did Billy utilize him better with the A’s?

Mike: That certainly, yeah, the story of the film is he has a comment and they’re like, You were the only person in the room that wasn’t looking at the general manager or something. He, the dialogue established that he saw that the Peter Brand character played by Jonah Hill [00:07:00] was, was not following the herd.

He was kind of on his following his own path, right? So paddling his own canoe, I guess, to use Nick Offerman’s phrase, but So that’s what we’re told is, is the reason. But again, Peter Brand is an amalgam, so I don’t know if in real life there was a particular activity other than that, that, that caused Billy Bean to get involved with those folks.

Christi: But, I mean, the proof kind of is in the pudding. The A’s went on to play in the World Series that year, that, or I guess,

Mike: Yeah. And a few years later, the Red Sox won the World Series. And to me, this is fascinating. The baseball purists will probably, you know, throw eggs at my house, but that this is even a discussion that it’s really driven by data, not by, for example, one of the keen insights of the scouts in that first meeting was ugly girlfriend means no competence.

That was their assessment. And by the way, [00:08:00] most of those were real scouts in that room. I bet these things have been said in scouting meetings. But I’m, I’m saying they actually didn’t have actors for that. Those guys were actual scouts for the A’s. But that’s how they thought in baseball. They had all these ridiculous things, you know, a guy, he, he swings his bat too many times in the on deck circle or whatever, just, it’s ludicrous.

And how that much money is involved and they don’t actually use data was bonkers. When you compare it to, for example, like the NFL. Where the teams scout each other rigorously and they come up with all sorts of analyses of Of, you know, in this down and distance and these situations, what are the percentages?

So to me, baseball was kind of this holdout that, that wanted to stick with this, Oh yeah, well, you know, I looked at the cat end trails and they said that catfish hunter is a better choice. How, how did that even persist into the 21st century? Right.

Christi: So how much do you [00:09:00] think that, that they had to Hollywood up this story, or do you think there was a story there that was worth making into a Hollywood movie?

Mike: Oh, I think there was a story at that time, right? I think at least the narrative we heard watching SportsCenter was that the A’s were crappy and Billy Bean was you know, trying this new thing and everybody thought he was crazy.

And then they played very well. And then people had to, to, to change their mind. So I think Yeah, there probably was a good story there.

Christi: Well, I mean, the proof is in the pudding. They, they put it in the, in the title card, I believe at the very beginning. And I can’t remember what the actual numbers were, but I felt like it was a low two digit number of millions of dollars that the A’s had to spend.

And it was a very, Like moderate three digit number of millions that the Yankees.

Mike: Yeah. So the Yankees, I think have in the modern era, historically spent more than any other [00:10:00] team by a large margin. You could argue that that’s acceptable because they sell more merchandise, right. They could afford it, but they definitely overspend in some sense.

And to me the scrappy little team is Bad News Bears. It’s an American like story, like Americans love the underdog. And then the idea too, of basically getting a deal. I think that appeals to a lot of people who don’t have a ton of money and they’re always looking for a good deal. So when you hear about this team and there’s a great line in there, something about there’s rich teams, there’s poor teams, then there’s 50 feet of crap, and then there’s us.

I think a lot of people responded to feeling like they were on the bottom. And so to see the little guy use his brain and hustle, I think it’s a good story.

Christi: Well, and after living in the Bay area, the A’s are kind of like the ugly step child to the Giants. The Giants are in San Francisco and they’re in camp.

Well, not, not a more Candlestick [00:11:00] park, but they’re in this, you know, The the fancy schmancy park with pesto french fries. Yes, exactly. I was just going to say with the fancy french fries. And so, and you know, like the rich people go to see the Giants and it’s the working class that goes and sees the A’s is, is my impression from living down there.

So any A’s fans don’t get mad at me. That was what I was observing.

Mike: But I think any town that has two ball clubs, I’m thinking Chicago and New York. One is considered the a snooty one and one’s considered the blue collar, right? So that’s very much true. The A’s were blue collar. Oakland has never been a fantastic kind of neighborhood. . It’s always been like a blue collar, but a lower income working class and you know Nob Hill in San Francisco’s kind of a stereotype for that er, so there’s there’s yeah, there’s like I said, I think that scrappy little nobody A narrative. There’s a story there. [00:12:00] I didn’t know as much about.

Christi: It was the same with the Niners and the Raiders basically.

Mike: Sure. When they were in Oakland. Right. Which, I don’t know, maybe the Raiders do belong in Las Vegas, but that was, I thought, a really nice dynamic to have, you know, Joe Montana and all the, all those Niners and then the, you know, Lyle Alzado and the Raiders, right?

That was, that was that good.

Christi: Exactly. All right. I feel like we’ve done our service with the plot. Yeah. Or do you want to talk about cinematography or the plot?

Mike: Oh, we didn’t talk about cinematography, but I was just going to say regarding the writing, maybe this is Sorkin. There is a very funny line in there where the, the, the scouts are sitting around.

And somebody says, I think Brad Pitt’s character says something about Fabio, and one says, Who’s Fabio? And the other guy says, A short stop in Seattle. Right. So, I mean, that was kind of funny to show how, how out of touch they were. So maybe it wasn’t Sorkin, but I’ll give him credit for that. Yeah, the cinematography is very interesting.

How the [00:13:00] cinematographer chose to, to shoot this. Early on, there is an extreme, extreme close up of Brad Pitt’s eyelid, he’s sitting in his car, or his truck, thinking, I guess, and I mean, it’s like right up on his grill, like, I think the camera would have bumped him in the, in the eyebrow, it was so close.

Not sure why, but it was there. So I noticed that it was like almost noir sometimes in its lighting. One light source, a lot of dark, a lot of stops fall off to the background. In particular, There’s a scene where Billy Bean goes to meet David Justice in a batting cage like some below the stadium or something, and it’s super dark.

And, as I recall, hitting a baseball requires seeing the baseball. And I would think your batting cage would be extremely well lit. Cause otherwise, you couldn’t see the dang ball that you’re trying to hit. It was really just bumped me. Like, I mean, I’m sure it would’ve made for a cool, moody shot. [00:14:00] But I’m thinking, I don’t, I don’t know if you ever want like a dark batting cage that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Daytime rain. This is one of the only movies I’ve seen where they actually have rain during the daytime. That’s fantastic. So, good job on that. And then I have to give credit to the people in the visual effects department because they, they took footage they’d shot of the, the actors and they agefied it so that it would seamlessly match with the actual footage from, you know, like 20 years ago.

So that was super well done. It was seamless. So credit to them.

Christi: I hope that was fun for them. I hope so too, yeah. Cause sometimes those kinds of things are fun, but. Sometimes they can be a headache.

I have a note under sets that since there was no money to shoot in all the stadiums that the Oakland Athletics played in, that Dodger Stadium was dressed up as eight different ballparks.

Mike: Wow. That’s fascinating because it looked to me like they shot at Fenway Park [00:15:00] and I had a note that like, wow, they got Fenway.

But I did notice that they dressed whatever it was, whether it was the Oakland Coliseum or Dodger Stadium. The ton of Raider stuff to make it look like back in the day the Raiders in the 8th shared that. Yes. Same stadium.

Christi: Yes. I did see that. There was lots of Oh, shoot. Commitment to excellence.

Mike: Yeah.

The banners. So again, is that fun for the people in production design? It would be. I would think so. I think if that’s your job, it hopefully it’s fun.

Christi: Yeah. No, I, I really liked this movie. I thought it was really well done. I didn’t, I thought it was more I was trying to think, not the big short, but I thought there was more explanations of the math of it all and there wasn’t.

It was, I really enjoyed how we kept seeing Brad Pitt’s character, Billy Beans. How his experience as being a player and yeah, I thought that was good. And then also his turmoil with [00:16:00] his ex wife and his daughter. And you know, it even said he was offered a very, I think this was the last title card at the end.

He was , offered a very big salary to move, but he, he opted to stay there with the A’s. And I can only imagine that it’s to stay close to his daughter. Cause it did seem like. At least in the movie that they were trying to depict him as someone who was trying to be a good dad.

Mike: Yeah, certainly they offered him more money to go to the Red Sox.

The Red Sox had more money and just a few years later, they won the World Series. So from a career perspective, I think that would have been a better move for Billy. So I didn’t really connect the dots like that, but that makes sense that he stayed for his daughter. That makes sense. I suppose.

Christi: Maybe it was a loyalty with the A’s because they stuck with him and they didn’t boot him.

When they weren’t winning,

Mike: right? Regarding the, the more details on, on kind of the Sabre metrics, I do agree. You know, it’s, it’s difficult to [00:17:00] make statistics exciting visually. But I do feel like there could have been maybe. Some more discussion about why it made sense that that I feel like they kind of glossed over It was just like a hand wave like oh jonah hill has this, you know K pro computer and he he typed some numbers in and and And I don’t know the whole system very well, I’ve only read like the wiki article, but one of the things that I did take away was this idea of wins above replacement player that they talk about each player Assigning him a statistically derived mathematical rating for how likely they are to make you win, which is what you’re trying to do.

And then you can take that and then there’s their price and you can do a bang for buck assessment. And to me, that is very accessible to the average person. They would understand, Oh, well, maybe this car is twice as good, but it’s 10 times expensive. So I can’t, it’s not a good deal. I think people would get that.

And so to me, that would have [00:18:00] Maybe made this a little bit elucidated more kind of what was going on, but the director maybe went avoided that because he wanted it more to be about the underdog and not necessarily a well duh moment, which I feel like to me that that really is when you see that the statistics broken down.

It’s pretty logical There’s no mystery.

Christi: I was just gonna say that doesn’t it make the stakes higher if Billy You He is making these choices and advocating for certain players. If it’s not a done deal, if it’s not a sure thing,

Mike: If the audience doesn’t know that it’s a good idea,

Christi: yeah, that he’s going out on a limb and he’s being wild, you know, kind of

Mike: wild and crazy general manager. I don’t know, did they talk to Steve Martin for the role before they talked to Brad Pitt? For Brad Pitt. Speaking of Brad Pitt, I do have a note here that he was eating at at least one point in the film. Good to see.

Christi: Shocking. That’s so [00:19:00] against type.

Mike: I know. Who would have believed that? So you know, sets is related to costumes right next to each other in my template here.

. And I would like to have some feedback from a super fan. Because there was a color guard at opening day from the Air Force, and I would like to know if those uniforms were period correct, because I think at least one of our super fans Was in the air force at that time. And could have told you that.

And would be able to review those uniforms for me because they did not look period correct to my civilian eyeball.

Christi: That seems like something that would be really easy to check out for the sound or for the costume department.

Mike: It is. And as we kind of talked about speaking of another Sorkin joint with A Few Good Men.

Is they still got some of the uniforms wrong in a movie that’s entirely about people in the military. So it’s apparently hard to get it exactly accurate. Go figure. But superfans, feel free to dial in. Maybe use something other than Siri that [00:20:00] doesn’t always give me the best translation. So just throw that out

Christi: there.

Just throw that out there. Yeah,

Mike: yeah.

Christi: Was there any head trauma in this film?

Mike: That one picture came pretty close because he almost hit some batters. Reminded me a little bit of Major League, but no actual head trauma that I saw.

Christi: Oh, good thing. And we didn’t really have a love story.

Mike: Smoochie, smoochie, smoochie!

We didn’t, I didn’t notice any smoochies.

Christi: No smoochies. Wow. This is going to be quick and short. Driving?

Mike: There was some driving. So first of all, Billy Bean beats the crap out of the headliner in his 98 Dodge Ram pickup early in the movie. Not really a fan of that. That transistor radio sacrificed itself.

The other thing is when he’s driving do not cut in front of other vehicles at highway speeds. That is a bad driving maneuver. Kids do not do anything in a car that Billy Bean does in this film. He’s an anti pattern.

Christi: Shall we go to the numbers?

Mike: Let’s go to the numbers.

Christi: This is the third baseball movie [00:21:00] to be nominated for Best Picture.

Mike: Wow.

Christi: At the Academy Awards after the Pride of the Yankees in 1942. And wait, the natural? No. Oh. And Field of Dreams in 1989.

Mike: Oh, huh.

Christi: You didn’t like that movie as much as The Natural, I take it?

Mike: Yeah, I think The Natural is a better film and a better baseball movie.

Christi: Are you, are you a little bit clouded by your distaste for Kevin Costner?

Mike: Possibly. OK. Right. I mean, The Natural has Robert Redford

and Glenn Close? No. No.

Christi: I don’t know who the, is it, I want to say Kelly McGillis, but anyway, I might be thinking of Witness.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, okay. All right. All right.

Christi: This movie had a budget of 50 million and it made domestically 75. 6 million, which adjusted for today would be double their initial investment, 102. 7 million. And worldwide it made 111. 3 million. [00:22:00] So it doubled its initial investment, which I guess with marketing just kind of, it kind of falls even, but it does get a 7. 6 out of 10 from IMDb. Critics liked it at 94 percent and audiences were a little bit lagging behind at 86%.

So a B, a good solid B, which I feel like I’d give that movie.

Mike: That’s fair. That’s a fair rating.

Christi: It runs two hours and 13 minutes. Go ahead.

Mike: A little over the Morrow line. Speaking of baseball. Yeah.

Christi: I need to put like an official definition of the Morrow line. Is it 97 minutes? 86, I believe. Oh my goodness, even less.

The rating is PG 13. Like we said, it’s a biography drama about sports. It is a Columbia Pictures movie and Oh, it does say it took place in Fenway Park. Fenway Park, A’s Stadium, Blair Field in Long Beach, Downtown LA, The [00:23:00] Guitar Store where he took his daughter, Santa Monica, I believe. Oh, I was going to say that’s where they

Mike: I bet they used Dodger Stadium for all of the archive footage and like the minor league play and stuff like that.

Christi: Yeah. And then 29 wins, 82 nominations.

Mike: I was going to say, I think the A’s won more than 29 games that year, but now I get where you’re going.

Christi: Brad and Steven Zalian. won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and Critics Choice Award and Bennett won the Hollywood Film Award.

Mike: So I got to go back a little bit to you’re talking about we have this common metric that I’ve heard many, many places you didn’t invent it.

That they spend as much in marketing as they do on making the film. And, and I just as you said that with this film, then you’re right, they barely would’ve broke even. And that makes no sense to me. We know the studios lie about their books all the time. Just a movie this successful. If they just broke even, they’d be outta business.

. I agree. ’cause there’s a ton of films that don’t even get that far. . So I, [00:24:00] I don’t know about how, how they, how they, do that math though because I would think this is actually a pretty successful film I mean, like you said 29 wins and 80 nominations. I think a lot of people saw this. I don’t know I think this was a pretty successful film.

Christi: Well in 94 percent of critics liked it. So I agree. , I think you’re right I don’t know how Hollywood works quite honestly, and I don’t know if anybody does cuz you know We’ve had peripheral experience and and just the amount of money that sometimes is wasted on, like, I just keep thinking of when they, I mean, lately our children’s heads explode when they make complete huge Marvel comic book movies and then just trash them because it’s cheaper,

Mike: right?

I, I don’t know any other business that would invest a hundred million dollars in something and then just throw it away.

Christi: But then all the money we know over the time and all the different, you know, kind of, I guess, research we’ve done where they will option a script and then never make it or You know, I mean, it, it is kind [00:25:00] of mind boggling the money that does seem to be quote unquote wasted.

Mike: Right. And so the money for optioning a script, that’s, that’s the kind of thing where I said they have to make more money on a film like Moneyball in order to support the 20 films, the option for a hundred grand a piece and then never do anything with it. Right. Just from that standpoint. Or are they like the airlines?

Are they just like slowly losing money? The entire, but see, I don’t think the government props up the movie industry, but maybe it does. If so, I want to get some of that government money.

Christi: But then is that why then they ditch these movies? Cause they need that massive write off.

Mike: Right. I don’t know. Oh, wait.

This is kind of like the producers. Do we make a film about a director who specializes in making crappy movies that they throw away? And so if the IRS ever looks, they said, they show him the film and they say, look how bad it is. We couldn’t release this. Oh, that would be great. And his name would be Alan Smithy.

Christi: We do have a super fan that wanted to do [00:26:00] a podcast with me that. That talked solely about the economics of the business. Which

Mike: would be fun, except I don’t know that we, that we have an insider that could break it down.

Christi: Right. And that was my problem is I didn’t feel like we, that at least I knew of a source that could be reliable enough on enough movies.

It could be a one off episode maybe.

Mike: Yeah. I’m not going to say the name on air, but I think you know, a person who could give you some insight. But I think that is hush hush. I don’t think anybody would ever talk about it in public.

Christi: I agree. I think they keep that all pretty quiet or inflate, right? It’s either, either overblown or undersold probably for different reasons.

Mike: Disinformation. I learned that from the CIA, but yeah, it’s not that you say nothing, you just say random other stuff to confuse the issue.

Christi: All right, let’s see what we are going to watch next week.

Mike: Drumroll, please. Oh, this is a [00:27:00] film that I saw a while ago that I don’t really remember much about. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Christi: Oh, that one will be fun. . All right, everybody, I hope you had a great weekend and watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind this week and join us next week. But never forget,

Mike: Dodgers never stop and neither do the movies.

Brennan: Thanks for listening to Dodge Movie Podcast with Christi and Mike Dodge of Dodge Media Productions.

To find out more about this podcast and what we do, go to DodgeMediaProductions.com. Subscribe, share, leave a comment, and tell us what we should watch next.

Dodges never stop, and neither do the movies.