Sunday, December 11, 2022

Movie review - "The Church of Baseball" by Ron Shelton (2022)

 Terrific book, read it in one sitting. Extra good because it covers Shelton's life in the minors, and his early days of filmmaking. I knew a fair bit about the 

Loved script stuff especially:

- writing the opening monologue he made sure he after Annie's lofty speech he then went low brow at the ball park

- an Annie/Crash scene where she talks about her past was loved by everyone, on stage and on film, but held up the film - and once he cut it the film flowed - he realised it was because it was too intimate between the characters when they hadn't reached that spot yet

- his ins and outs behind various creative decisions.

The film on one hand was easy - Thom Mount liked the pitch, agreed to make it, Kevin Costner came on - but was also very difficult: it was saved solely by a good review about No Way Out. Shelton punched out a producer who told Susan Sarandon the rushes made her look bad - he was lucky not to get fired. Didn't realise Shelton was open to Anthony Michael Hall - it was Hall who blew it not reading the script. The suits sacked the DOP just to throw their weight around. Costner was a prince, the cast was divine. Laura San Giacomo was cast as Millie but had to pull out, JT Walsh was the manager but got a better offer, they wanted Charlie Sheen but he was attached to Eight Men Out.

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