I know, I know. I still need to post about Christmas break, and it was fantastic, don't get me wrong, but I have to post first about the Sundance Film Festival, because I just had a wonderful experience.
Ever since my time at BYU, I have wanted to go to the Sundance Film Festival. There have been films that I thought looked like they would be a good pick, but I never ended up getting tickets (it's SUPER difficult), and then come to find out, those are the ones that get picked up by big studios and released to a larger audience. (500 Days of Summer, Be Kind Rewind).
I finally went to my first showing a couple years ago. A friend had gotten tickets and invited me along. It was shown at the Rose Wagner in downtown SLC, so we didn't have to deal with the hustle and bustle of Park City. It ended up being a fantastic movie, though I don't know how big it ended up getting. I heard that Sony had picked it up, but from there, who knows.
This year, a friend from high school posted on his facebook page that his documentary had been accepted at this year's film festival. I knew immediately that I had to do whatever it took to get tickets to it.
When tickets went on sale last week, the only showing that wasn't sold out yet was for last night at the Tower Theater in the 9th & 9th district. I was happy to again, not be driving all the way up to Park City.
I had read early reviews of the film, and they all had great things to say about it, which made me even more excited to attend. Plus, to be able to see an old friend of mine again, after almost 9 years, made it more worth it for me. Plus, baseball. No explanation needed.
This film, "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" is about Bing Russell's venture into owning an independent baseball team in Portland, named the Mavericks. His son Kurt, also played for the team for a year before his acting career took off.
The documentary was beautifully put together, showing how Bing got into baseball (he was buddies with Lefty Gomez and Lou Gehrig as a boy!), how much he LOVED it (he made Kurt the star of his "how to" baseball video series), and the start of the Mavericks.
They had video footage from the 70s, photographs, and interviews with the batboy (filmmaker and actor Todd Fields), Bing's wife, his son Kurt, two writers from newspapers in Oregon, and a couple of the former players. They all spoke highly of Bing and of the team, and of their time there. It was funny, it was entertaining, and it made me nostalgic for a time that I never lived through. To a time when baseball was about having fun, and the fans knew the names of all the players, and the players interacted with the fans.
The directors did a great job of editing in the voice-overs and the interviews with the footage and photographs, to the point that everyone in the theater felt sad when the Mavericks were kicked out of Portland, because the MLB didn't like the way they were winning and making their organization look bad. We felt emotions because of the way they presented the story, and that, I think, is what a film should do.
The directors did a Q&A afterwards and people had some really good questions, asking how they got interested in the story (Bing was their grandfather), what happened after the Mavericks were moved out of Portland, if there are any reunions, and I asked the ever important question, whether they got picked up for distribution (in the process of working out details). It was really great to see my friend again, and yes, he did recognize me when I raised my hand to ask a question, but I went up to say hi and give him and his brother a hug after the Q&A session.
I'm so proud to know such talented people, and not only that, but to have the opportunity to support them in their endeavors.
I hope that they're able to get the film distributed so that everyone can go see it. It really is a fantastic film!
Here are some good links talking about the film, and interviewing Chap and Maclain.
https://www.facebook.com/mavsdoc
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/01/13/kurt-russell-sundance-baseball/
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5876754/sundance-2014-kurt-russell-nephews-talk-the-battered-bastards-of-baseball
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