Day 66: Favorite Sports Movie
THE NATURAL (1984)
This was also a difficult choice to make. Field of Dreams and The Natural are almost always in a dead heat for favorite sports movie. The sport was always the easy answer for me: Baseball. That was a given. While some believe that baseball is boring -- and in all honesty, it definitely can be -- I also believe that it's the best sport that translates into a film.
The Natural did a wonderful job of conveying all of the standard themes that normally encompasses baseball. There's the mythology of bigger-than-life figures who become heroes, the innocence of natural talent, the fantasy of living the dream, corruption and greed, but above all, redemption.
It's really the music that gets me. My eyes well up every time I hear those chords from the instrumental during the "lights" scene. So powerful, so moving. I can't even download it to my ipod because it's just too emotional!!! lol. I'm a dork.
ReplyDeleteIt is that great. And it's always a surprise to me since I always forget that the score was written by Randy "Short People" Newman.
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