Advanced Screening of Moneyball

Normally there would be something saying about spoilers but since Moneyball is the story of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane, i don't see a need for spoilers since it already happened. Billy Beane is played by Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill plays Peter Brand whos is not a real person but based off of Paul DePodesta. Phillip Seymour Hoffman rounds out the rest of the main cast as Oakland manager Art Howe. I've always liked Brad Pitt as an actor however watching him play a baseball gm just felt natural for him. This might be his best performance to date. Will he win or be nominated for an Academy Award? Probably not but that has more to do with bad nominations not with his performance. Superbad star Jonah Hill is known only for being a comedic asctor but i have to say i was quite surprised by his performance. If this is an example of how well he can do serious roles then he should do more. I'm a baseball fan so the movie makes sense to me but even if you don't like or watch baseball you shouldn't have a difficult time understanding the movie. Except of course maybe one guy sitting in the theater near me. During the film he turned to the people next him and made the comment that what Billy Beane did for Oakland, the Boston Red Sox would do a few years later. Not quite. Oakland made the 2002 playoffs with a payroll of $33,810,750. In 2004 when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the 1st time in 1918 they did it with a payroll of $125,208,542. Since 2001 the lowest payroll for any World Series winner was $49,000,000 in 2004 when the Florida Marlins win. In the last ten World Series only four of the winning teams have had a lower payroll than their opponent. So 6/10 times the team with the higher payroll will win. Of course to prove that Billy Beane was onto something about smaller payroll teams competing with higher payrolls one only has to look at the 2010 World Series in which the San Francisco Giants defeated the Texas Rangers. The payroll for both teams combined was $50,000,000 less than the highest team, the New York Yankees. Back to the movie though i highly recommend it at have to give it 8.5/10. So on September 23 go see Moneyball in a theater near you.