Moneyball

Pitt plays Billy Beane, a former player-turned-general manager of the Oakland A’s who must rebuild the team – on a shoestring budget – after its star players are poached by baseball’s wealthier franchises. Forced to think outside the box, Beane recruits a nerdy but numbers-savvy Yale grad, Peter Brand (Hill), to help him fill the roster. Brand makes his picks based on a sophisticated computer-generated analysis of attainable (i.e. cheap) players who know how to get on base. Everything else becomes secondary, or totally inconsequential.

The computer-model approach doesn’t exactly sit well with the team’s old-school scouts or its manager, Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman). But they don’t have much choice but to go along – and bite their tongues when the strategy starts to work. Cue the montage/highlight reel as the A’s embark on an unprecedented 20-game win streak!

The premise would sound like a non-starter if not for the fact that it’s based on a true story, as told in the 2003 book, “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” by Michael Lewis, the same guy who wrote “The Blind Side.”  Moneyball doesn’t have the same emotional pull as The Blind Side, but it does raise some interesting questions about salaries and statistics and what goes into building a championship team in the modern sports world. Who am I kidding? All I really cared about was the chemistry and clever banter between Pitt and Hill. Their relationship makes the movie– especially for the non-baseball aficionado. Pitt is ruggedly handsome (in a Robert “The Natural” Redford sort of way) and Hill is truly endearing as Beane’s unlikely sidekick. Let’s go A’s!

Hilary Swank plays Betty Anne Waters, a young woman who is so convinced that her brother’s been wrongly convicted of murder that she gets her GED, goes to law school, and spends nearly 20 years fighting the system for her brother’s release. Victory doesn’t come without some major sacrifices. The journey is a long and personal one filled with setbacks and doubts as Betty Anne retraces the steps that led to her brother’s arrest and embarks on a near-impossible search for evidence, old and new.

Waters is relentless in her efforts, even when her imprisoned brother encourages her to throw in the towel. With the help of her best friend, Abra Rice (played by Minnie Driver, who looks amazing by the way) and eventually, Innocence Project lawyer Barry Scheck (the king of exoneration through advances in DNA testing), Betty Anne uncovers the truth and gets her brother his (new) day in court. And it only took 18 years! Score one for us little sisters!

Conviction is sort of an edgy Erin Brockovich. It’s rated R, but I’d call it a ‘soft R’. It doesn’t get terribly violent and I only recall one brief butt shot, so I’d give it more of a PG-13+ rating. Two-time Oscar winner Swank does an admirable job as Betty Anne and could very well get another nomination out of the role. But I was actually far more impressed by Sam Rockwell’s performance as Betty Anne’s older brother, Kenny, who walks the fine line between endearing, mischievous and potentially murderous.

Conviction has some obvious holes, especially when it comes to the intricacies of the courtroom. In many ways, it’s a family drama more than a legal drama, and if it weren’t based on a true story, it probably wouldn’t resonate near as much. But somehow, knowing that there really is a Betty Anne Waters who really did go to the mat for her brother makes this a bittersweet, root-for-the-underdog movie that will play well on DVD if it gets lost in the sea of Fall flicks. Conviction is good, but 127 Hours is better.

All three felt excessively slow to me. Excellent performances seem wasted on scripts and pacing that will surely fail to spark – or keep – the interest of mainstream audiences. They will likely find an appreciative niche among festival-goers, arty Netflix queuesters, and curious industry insiders in aviation, poetry and fashion. But that’s about it.

Coco Before Chanel is a French film with English subtitles (so if you’re prone to close your eyes when the action gets slow, prepare to miss out on some dialogue!). It centers on the early, formative years of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel as she evolves from a young girl raised in an orphanage to a struggling bar/lounge singer and seamstress to a uniquely fashionable courtesan, hat designer, and icon-in-the-making.

Audrey Tautou (The Da Vinci Code, Amélie) is charming as Chanel, bringing a range of wry wit, intelligence, romantic joy and despair, and a fashionable flare to the role. And her love interests in the film – Benoît Poelvoorde as French playboy Étienne Balsan and Allesandro Nivola as British businessman Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel make the most of their supportive roles (literally and figuratively speaking). But the movie just plods along at a uniformly lackluster pace. And by the time it ends, you’re ready for a nap…. in your less than fashionable pj’s.

In Coco Before Chanel, we do get a glimpse of what inspired Chanel to forego the stifling corsets of the early 20th Century in favor of trousers, jackets and the mainstay of every modern woman’s wardrobe – the little black dress. And while her liberating sense of style is certainly worthy of celebration – you’re probably better served honoring Chanel at the department store rather than the cineplex.