A League of Their Own

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

Amy & Paul hit a grand slam for 1992’s Penny Marshall baseball comedy A League Of Their Own! They make the case this is a film about female friendship as much as a sports movie, dig into the camaraderie between Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell, and ask what was really going through Dottie’s head in the final game. Plus: Amy met a Rockford Peach!

This is the fifth episode of our Underdogs series; next week tune in for our preview of the 2020 Oscars! Learn more about the show at unspooledpod.com, follow us on Twitter @unspooled and Instagram @unspooledpod, and don’t forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify. You can also listen to our Stitcher Premium game show Screen Test right now at https://www.stitcher.com/show/unspooled-screen-test, and apply to be a contestant at unspooledpod@gmail.com! Photo credit: Kim Troxall

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

This one is in a weird space for me, in that it's a movie I enjoy very much but I don't feel the all-out love that someone like Amy clearly does. It's also pretty clear this movie means a lot to young women who grew up with it, so I don't want to harsh that buzz. There are a lot of much worse movies to have imprinted on in your youth.

Things I like:

-The whole cast is great, and they have great chemistry. Hate to single out the one male lead, but . . . Tom Hanks is completely brilliant in this. Almost everything out of his mouth is pure comedy gold.

-The baseball action looks great too. There's some great color footage of the real league over here, and I'd have to say the movie nailed the look of it.

-In general the comedy and the gags have kept working even after multiple rewatches, which is no small thing. It's a very entertaining movie.

-One thing that makes me think about voting for it is that it does deviate from the same old "underdog" narrative that runs through Rocky and Hoosiers and Cool Runnings, being more focused on the interpersonal relationships and the story climax being more about that than about the result of the final match. It is doing more of its own thing than most other sports films.

Criticisms:

-The framing device with Old Dottie is bad. It's the Saving Private Ryan problem all over again: the story is over, but then we've got to have these extra scenes at the end that put a hat on a hat and reiterate the same message and theme we'd already gotten. The story is over when the World Series ends and Dottie reconciles with Kit after the game. The epilogue that introduces everyone at an older age simply goes on too long and adds little more than sentimentality.

-I get that some of those original reviews had a misogynist bent, but the criticism about Penny Marshall not fully committing to the feminism of the story is fair. I also find the feminism of this movie a bit muddled.

Take the treatment of Marla. The scene when the scout won't take her but Dottie and Kit stand their ground is good, and the way she meets her husband is sweet, but I also get the sense that the MOVIE is making fun of Marla's looks quite a bit. There are a lot of jokes at the expense of her appearance, and I'm not sure the tone always reads as satirical/critical of the person making the joke. It's just kind of thrown out there and in some ways validates what the Lovitz character thought.

Then the movie also just goes with the assumption that when each of these players has a man who is ready to marry them, they'll do that and stop playing ball. I know, it's the 40s, but again here I'm not sure the presentation is telling the audience to view this with a critical eye. Like the Ugly Marla jokes, it's just kind of put out there. The only character who ever criticizes one of these decisions is Jimmy, a man who is hardly presented as a sage full of wisdom.

Again, I think it MOSTLY works, but there are these nagging issues that keep me from considering it a great film. It's a marginal no vote.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

Yea I haven't listened to the ep yet, but I have to vote no. It's definitely a fun movie and really good story, but I feel like it's told in the cheesiest ways possible; so much so that it actually hurts the story being told. I reckon the upcoming tv show about it will feel more important.

[FictionIsntReal 79]

I found it odd the hosts described this as a "reversal" of their normal pattern, since Amy is a professional film critic and seems to watch movies more than Paul. In fact, when Unspooled began I remember them discussing how he hadn't seen many of the films on the AFI list.

It's been many years since I saw this, but from what I do recall it's not quite space capsule worthy. For a recent movie about female friendship which pointedly avoids making anything melodramatic I can point to Dan Sallitt's "Fourteen".

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

i took that to mean how Paul is usually the one to watch like one movie a million times over and over, and Amy is more likely to watch a million movies.

here it was reversed, Paul watched League once in the past and Amy's seen it over and over.