Movie Review: The Way
Oct 2nd
Martin Sheen plays Tom, an ophthalmologist who doesn’t understand his adult son’s penchant for travel and life. Sheen’s real-life son Emilio Estevez directs and plays Daniel, Tom’s son. There is minimal screen time for Emilio since his character dies in the first five minutes. He‘s caught in a storm on a spiritual pilgrimage in France. El Camino Santiago, aka The Way of St. James, is a real Christian pilgrimage that dates back a thousand years.
The movie has personal significance for the Sheen clan. Father and son have been talking about this project for years and finally pulled it together. This is not a typical Hollywood movie. It is character driven and deals with internal growth. Tom decides to continue his son’s vision and scatters his ashes throughout the Pyrenees.
Tom is a bit antisocial but manages to attract some company in spite of himself. Everyone has different reasons for making the 800-kilometer trip. Tom is compelled as well. He never understood his son; regret pushes him on and it becomes a mission for him.
Slowly, the trip transforms Tom. He eventually understands what made Daniel tick and why his son ventured out into the world. The other characters do not go through a metamorphosis like Tom, but they do figure some things out for themselves.
I applaud the undertaking of such a project and enjoyed the film. I must say I am a little biased, since I have also traveled to remote places. The landscape is lovely, the photography is breathtaking and it is always great to see a movie in which characters go through more on the inside than out. The film comes out October 8. See it right away because it won’t be in the theaters long. It’s hard to compete without sex or violence.
Why is the Game too Long?
Sep 15th
One of the controversies that plagues the game of baseball today is length of game. More specifically and to quote the naysayers, “It’s too long.” Over the last decade, the game has slowed down, some would say to a snail’s pace, which I believe is relative.
Players today work the pitching counts, are more discerning and take more walks. The strategy for teams that possess a cumulative “good eye” is to bounce the starting pitcher early in the game in order to feast on the mediocre middle relief.
Certainly that puts more minutes on the game, but the really big time suck is by pitchers who dawdle. This annoys the batter so much he calls time out and there is a delay. The batter steps back in for another Mexican standoff and eventually there is a pitch, unless he has to keep the runner honest at first base by throwing over.
I must come clean right away: I have not been affected by the pace change. I love a baseball game and the longer it is, the more I get out of it. It is a different philosophical approach. Most of the proponents of a faster game have other things they would like to do. They figure three hours at the most is enough time to throw back some beer and eat bad food. These are the same people who have lost track of the beauty of the game. In that way, it is like religion: most people believe but don’t know why.
Baseball, for those of you who don’t know, is about hanging out. That’s why people headed down to the ball field in 1876: to hang out, drink a beer, eat a sausage and wait for a guy to hit a ball over a fence with a stick. It was a chance for the city folk to be with their friends and family in a big space, enjoying the green grass and sunshine.
Time passed, the world advanced (technologically speaking), options arose, there was more to do. There are more sports and entertainment now. There are video games and other nonsense to distract and confuse, but that is another subject.
People want baseball in the box they have time for. But baseball does not fit into a box. It is a diamond. The time of the game is infinite; there is no clock ticking away. You have as much time as you need and if you can’t figure out the winner in nine innings, you can take ten, eleven or more. More innings, more time, hence, more baseball. What’s the problem?
