"Field of Dreams" has to be one of the craziest, weirdest movies ever made. I own it on DVD, but man, is it nuts. It requires a huge suspension of disbelief. This is the "Star Wars" of baseball movies -- no, the "Close Encounters" of baseball movies. A total fantasy unconnected in any way with reality. That it works is a miracle.
I say it's like "Close Encounters" in that it's about an Everyman who has a brush with the otherworldly, and seems to lose his mind in a mad attempt to follow his passion. In the Spielberg film, Dreyfuss threw away his family to chase aliens. Here, Costner bets the farm, literally, on making contact with the ghosts of baseball legends past.
This movie is funny and charming and contains some wonderful baseball scenes. Kevin Costner carries it with a goofy grace that he has long since lost. James Earl Jones again demonstrates his sensitive intelligence. Amy Madigan grates a nerve, but she's kind of tolerable toward the end. Really liked Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe. The cast is terrific.
But, geez, this guy plows under his cash crop, builds and lights a baseball stadium, and just sorta shrugs off the bank's attempts to foreclose on the mortgage. The whole movie is about Kinsella reconnecting with his dead father; he doesn't seem too worried about the living wife and child for whom he is responsible. "Field of Dreams" lands on the right side of movie magic, but in the real world, Ray Kinsella would have been divorced, thrown out of his house and ended up in the nuthouse for hearing voices. Not exactly a role model.
I say it's like "Close Encounters" in that it's about an Everyman who has a brush with the otherworldly, and seems to lose his mind in a mad attempt to follow his passion. In the Spielberg film, Dreyfuss threw away his family to chase aliens. Here, Costner bets the farm, literally, on making contact with the ghosts of baseball legends past.
This movie is funny and charming and contains some wonderful baseball scenes. Kevin Costner carries it with a goofy grace that he has long since lost. James Earl Jones again demonstrates his sensitive intelligence. Amy Madigan grates a nerve, but she's kind of tolerable toward the end. Really liked Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe. The cast is terrific.
But, geez, this guy plows under his cash crop, builds and lights a baseball stadium, and just sorta shrugs off the bank's attempts to foreclose on the mortgage. The whole movie is about Kinsella reconnecting with his dead father; he doesn't seem too worried about the living wife and child for whom he is responsible. "Field of Dreams" lands on the right side of movie magic, but in the real world, Ray Kinsella would have been divorced, thrown out of his house and ended up in the nuthouse for hearing voices. Not exactly a role model.