Bayside resident Mark Metcalf is an actor who has worked in movies, TV and on the stage. He is best known for his work in "Animal House," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Seinfeld."
In addition to his work on screen, Metcalf is involved with the Milwaukee International Film Festival, First Stage Children's Theater and a number of other projects, including the comedy Web site, comicwonder.com.
He also finds time to write about movies for OnMilwaukee.com. In this week's installment of the Screening Room, Mark looks at "The Final Season."
THE FINAL SEASON (2007)
True story. The Norway High School baseball team won 19 state championships in Iowa. It is 1991, and budget cuts and the nationwide move toward a corporate management style in all things are going to close Norway High and end its run.
The school has one final season to get its string to 20 and close with dignity intact. To make matters worse, or better dramatically, the legendary coach who won 12 of those championships is gone, so they have to do it with "Rudy," -- no, that's a different movie -- they have to do it with a guy who has only ever coached a girl's volleyball team.
Sean Astin, who also played "Rudy," plays the part. Small town America, sinking into the sunset of the Internet age, with one last chance to turn the magic and the double play. It is a perfect story for a classic sports movie.
I love baseball, so I stayed with it until the end, but I don't recommend it.
The filmmakers manage to find every cliché and hit it with a hammer. To use that metaphor more accurately, it's more like they swing at every cliché with a big hammer but they are off by a little bit and they just manage to bend the nail, smash a thumb or dent the tabletop. They never drive the nail into your heart, which is what you are supposed to do when you are dealing with stereotypes, and clichés and classic baseball movies.
Stereotypes and clichés are fine when you are dealing with a classic baseball movie, but you have to come at it with your own personal energy, your own unique vision. In other words, try not to use capital letters all the time when stating the obvious.
The demise of the family farm, and the dissolution of small town America by corporate style greed and notions of efficiency, and the drying up of the economy of the individual are all good themes to run through a movie. And baseball in Iowa is a perfect metaphor for it all. They miss the mark so completely because they take it all so seriously.
From the constant and tendentious music, to Powers Booth's slow moving and gravel voiced performance of the "legendary" coach, they are squeezing the pillow of sentimentality so hard you can hear the down scream. They should have used a whoopee cushion once in a while.
Sean Astin, who is so simple and sweet, and brings a nice Midwestern innocence to the part, doesn't have the reserves of power and authority to make you believe that he was able to galvanize a team that had given itself up for dead.
So, it doesn't work and it's a waste of time but a good baseball yarn is hard to find. You almost have to go back and re-read some old Roger Angell columns in the New Yorker to get a taste. Or, watch "Field of Dreams" and try to imagine someone with just a little bit of edge, anyone other than Kevin Costner, in the part. Or, just turn on the Brewers game and enjoy that.
Mark Metcalf is an actor and owner of Libby Montana restaurant in Mequon. Still active in Milwaukee theater, he's best known for his roles as Neidermeyer in "Animal House" and as The Maestro on "Seinfeld."
Originally from New Jersey, Metcalf now lives in Bayside.
