Eephus

A charming, memorable cast makes this movie special. Every actor gets his time at bat, and by the end of the movie I was amazed how well I knew and understood these characters. The small town charm and loving tribute to the passing of time and legacies contribute to a story that pulls you in. I can't say it's an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but you will still care every time a character steps up to the plate (literally and figuratively). In many ways the movie reminded me of a David Mamet play. I was also impressed by the cinematography; the final 15 minutes of the movie are a technical marvel of lighting and camerawork. Overall an excellent film!

Let's face it, most of us live lives that don't add up to much in the grand scheme of things. But we can still construct a meaningful life, if we act with integrity and see things through.

That's what I see as the main idea being explored in this movie about a New England small-town adult rec-league baseball game. The game is "meaningless" according to standard criteria. It's a make-up game being played in mid-October between two middling teams that aren't contending for the league championship. Most of the players are middle-aged men without any particular talent.

But it's also the last game that will ever be played in this league, because the field is scheduled to be paved over to build a new school. The players understand that a part of their lives is about to end, and accordingly they invest the game with a sense of purpose. There are umpires, concessions, and even an official scorer. When light starts to fade and the score is tied, the teams refuse to quit, using their car headlights to keep playing until there is a resolution.

My description sounds heavy and the movie could have easily been preachy or cliched, but the filmmakers convey their ideas in a low key, shambolic way, with lots of understated humor and random moments of grace.

Movies storyline was great! Good to get a new perspective for a baseball movie It wasn't just a dream story. Background music was a little dramatic at some point, but overall a great entertaining movie showing something more realistic than the average baseball movie. Says minimum required characters were not met so filling in the extra characters with this. There should not be a minimum character amount. Or at least it should be lowered because this is a lot of writing. I don't know why there's a minimum character amount. Maybe someone should tell me I would definitely recommend the movie for everyone.

Every day life is go go go... stimulation overload. Social media and the internet broadly are a constant dopamine rush. In chase of something bigger and better.

This movie, without the dramatic flare and with its every day 'common' plot/comedy, reminded me that the little things: community (even a rag tag group of misfits) and a shared purpose (even if a bland one) can bring true joy. It reminded me that by slowing down to appreciate what we have ... we can have fulfillment.

I'd recommend this movie for anyone who is ambitious. It will remind you to keep going AND that there is likely a lot to appreciate in what we already have.

As a lover of baseball, I was really interested to see what a new hardball flick (there being less and less of those these days) might bring to the table. Alas, I found Eephus more boring than the poignant emotion it was going for.

For a very basic overview, Eephus tells the story of a men's rec league baseball game on their beloved small-town field--which is about to be torn down for a new school to spring forth on its grounds. Through players leaving, a lack of baseballs & umpires (and talent, generally), and the encroaching darkness, the final game stretches far longer than anyone anticipates.

I clearly see what Eephus is trying to accomplish--a sort of minimalist commentary on the sport and camaraderie of baseball at a local level. One character says something to the extent that baseball is like "waiting for something to happen--and then it's over" and while that is a fun metaphor it doesn't work as the basis of a feature film.

Instead, Eephus is mostly boring and lacking any of the necessary plot or character development that could have made it interesting. A cardinal sin is that it features far too many characters to ever really let attachments form. This whole flick should have been about the uniqueness or outright oddity of grown men playing a kid's game in their spare time, but director Carson Lund never quite gets it there because there are just too many players and their "backstories" are either too droll or too brief to make much of an impact.

Eephus seems like a film that was entirely built around the "baseball is boring" criticism often lobbed that sport's way. So, the filmmakers here try to "get inside" that tedium and make an interesting film. But, at least for me, it (somewhat ironically) ended up exactly that: boring.

Truth be told, I am rarely truly bored by any film. I can usually find something to hold my interest. But with Eephus, I found myself checking "how much was left" on more than one occasion because everything is so sparse within its construction.