AN OKAY YEAR AT THE MOVIES 2012 - Week 4: Money's Ball

Last year Bill Maher gave a closing monologue about the fundamental difference between football and baseball: that football is socialist, and baseball is capitalist.  The NFL splits all TV revenue evenly among its teams, while Major League Baseball does not.  That's why super-rich teams, like the Yankees, usually have the leg up, while not-so-rich teams, like the A's, do not.

If Moneyball does not quite represent a movement of baseball toward the even-handed conventions of football, it is the story of a true game change, in which the general manager of a lesser team figured out that throwing a pile of money into your team is not necessarily how to win.  It's less a David-and-Goliath sports story than it is the legend of a financial hero.  He doesn't revolutionize the system, but he does revolutionize how to work within the system.  Billy Beane took a $40 million team to a 20-game winning streak, against teams that were spending upwards of $100 million per year.

It's a fascinating film, but in the same way that The Social Network lost to The King's Speech, I have a feeling that the "game change" movie will once again lose the Best Picture nod this year.  Though I previously predicted that The Help would win, I think I'm changing my vote to The Artist.  Though I haven't yet seen it, it seems to be making an unexpected splash and is now the favorite.


17. The Golem (1920): Jan. 22
18. Apollo 18 (2011): Jan. 23
19. Moneyball (2011): Jan. 28