61* - any thoughts? (1 Viewer)

[EricW]

i just got this disc... what do people think?
let me start off by saying i am a huge baseball fan - i've read more books on the sport than i can count (my favourite autobiographies are probably those of Whitey Ford, Hank Aaron and Jim Bouton), and i'll give any baseball movie a chance.
Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and Major League are the best baseball movies out there (and just great movies period), all for their own reasons.
The Babe was far from perfect, yet the ending still left a tear in my eye The Natural was great and nostalgic, and the Major League sequels sucked A League of Their Own was good.
anyways, i'd have to say this movie left me a bit dissapointed. maybe it's the fact that the story was about an era that was so magical in my mind that nothing could compare; all the stories and anecdotes being portrayed on screen, i'd read about countless times in different books. But then Eight Men Out was a much better movie and that too was non-fiction.
In the end i think it was the direction... the CG shots looked staged and the camera was frequently still on composite shots. and when the camera did move it looked fake (of course you could say the same thing about Gladiator)
still, i could feel the enthusiasm of Billy Crystal. the way he talked about baseball in City Slickers made me feel warm all over and damn those two actors looked exactly like Mantle and Maris!

 

[Ashley Seymour]

A great sentimental film. You can see the reverence that Billy has for baseball and his Yankees.
You can also see that he could not make a movie of the life of Mantle. Oh, you could, but it would be XXX. In fact, it may be quite interesting. I think the Mick had a discerning eye for women.
I still like the Natural best.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

How did "Yankee Stadium look in the film? FYI, Crystal actually filmed the movie at abandoned Tiger Stadium, dressed up to look like Yankee Stadium. I have not seen 61*, but would be interested in how close they made the ole ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull look like The House That Ruth Built.
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My DVD Collection
AFI 100 Films to watch: 40 -> 4
[Edited last by Scott Merryfield on October 02, 2001 at 10:07 AM]

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

They did a great job of making Tiger stadium look like early-60s Yankee stadium. The documentary on the DVD has a lot of information about how they did this. If you watch too critically, you will become obsessed with how parts of it are obviously CG. If you watch it for what it is, you will be in awe of the field-level shots of Mantle & Maris with the "lefty-friendly" right-field wall in the background.
Regards,
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Ken McAlinden
Livonia, MI USA

 

[bill lopez]

1)PRIDE OF THE YANKEES 2)LEAGUE OF THIER OWN 3)8 MEN OUT
4)61 5)BULL DURHUAM THE WORST 1)BABE RUTH STORY 2)all MAJOR LEAGUE 3)all BAD NEWS BEARS sequals