If I had my way, this would be the entirety of my review:
“Meh.”
Unfortunately, my editor tells me I can’t do that. This is a year in
which Disney has had a lot of financial flops and a few truly terrible
movies. Mr. 3000 continues the recent trend of completely forgettable,
mildly entertaining movies that fill two hours and leave you walking out
of the theater without feeling burned, but also without feeling very good.
Mr. 3000 is a tale of redemption—another in the long string of movies
that perpetuates the silly dream that you can be a total jerk for your
entire life as long as you’re nice before you die.
In it, Bernie Mac plays Stan Ross, one of the great baseball hitters
of all time. Nine years ago on the day that he gets his 3,000th hit and
assures himself entry into the Hall of Fame, he retires from the game
and begins a series of “Mr. 3000” businesses. Throughout his
career, he had been equally selfish and rude with reporters as well as
fans.
The reason he quit is because in baseball, 3,000 hits is a bit of a magic
number. While it doesn’t officially grant automatic induction into the
Hall of Fame, the only players to have reached that number and not been
inducted are Pete Rose (who would be if it weren’t for that gambling thing)
and Rickey Henderson (who will be when he’s eligible).
©Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.
Unfortunately for Mr. Stan Ross, nine years later (and approaching the
end of his Hall of Fame eligibility), it is learned that three of his
hits were counted twice and he is actually Mr. 2,997. Going in to the
movie, I was mostly concerned with them finding a plausible reason why
such a screw-up would have been made in our stat-crazy age. Surprisingly,
they came up with a pretty good one. Not surprisingly, reality quickly
slips through the fingers of director Charles Stone and writers Eric Champnella
and Keith Mitchell.
After learning this, Ross decides to return to baseball at the age of
48 to get those three hits. Fortunately for him, the general manager (Chris
Noth) of his old team, the Milwaukee Brewers, is a man with apparently
no interest in baseball, but only in how many seats have butts in them.
First of all, it is impossible to imagine anybody associated with the
Milwaukee Brewers doing something not in the best interests of baseball.
Second of all, once committed, Ross gets into game shape in just a month.
Finally, if it were so easy to fill seats with publicity stunts, Rickey
Henderson would still be playing somewhere, going for more records.
Needless to say, on his bumpy road to three hits, Ross learns that he
loved the game, loved the fans, and loved Angela Bassett (and who wouldn’t).
Sadly, Bassett is shackled by inanity as Mo Sullivan. She is now a reporter
for ESPN and is assigned to cover the comeback story. Apparently, neither
she nor her producers have a problem with a reporter having slept with
the subject of her story. When she inevitably takes up with him again,
there is no sense that there might be a problem with a reporter currently
sleeping with the subject of her story. Ultimately not important, but
it was one of those needless depatures from reality that can really take
you out of a movie.
©Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.
With Bassett stuck with lameness, Mr. 3000 is truly a test of whether
Bernie Mac can carry a movie on his own. He has had several notable supporting
roles but hasn’t before been the lead. He definitely has charisma. You
kind of like him no matter how selfish or rude he is being. Every time
he smiles with those preternaturally white teeth you like him a bit more.
It really is too bad he is the only one making an effort; apparently
he didn’t get a memo that they were just making a standard feel-good,
personal-growth movie. Season 2 of Law & Order reunited with appearances
by Chris Noth and Paul Sorvino in which they do nothing, literally, in
the case of Sorvino’s non-reactive role as manager of the Brewers.
While the movie takes too long to get to its predictable moment of truth,
it is also easy to see how another 15 or 20 minutes could have helped
quite a bit. The transformation of Stan Ross into a human being seems
rushed and without sufficient cause.
If you see this movie, you won’t feel like you completely wasted your
time, though parents should be warned that swearing is prevalent for no
good reason. But in this last month of real baseball, a better idea might
be to take a cooler down to your local ballpark and watch real old guys
try swing the bat.
Paper Clips
Small-town school project touches the world
Thursday, September 16, 2004
by Alex Stroup, MousePlanet editor
Paper Clips is not a movie that is going to be widely marketed
and probably won’t make it into most of the smaller markets. If you get
the chance, particularly if you have tweener children, you may want to
seek it out.
In the rural Tennessee town of Whitwell, the principal of the middle
school had concerns about the homogeneous environment in which the
children were growing up, and how that would affect them. The students
were entirely Protestant, with no Catholics or Jews (and certainly no
Muslims); there were one Hispanic and five black students. Living in a
coal mining town in which there was no coal mine, they all even came from
similar economic situations. Realizing this, Principal Linda Hooper wanted
to make sure the students knew that the whole world wasn’t like Whitwell,
and she set two of her teachers to come up with a program.
They decided to set up a group of students who would study the Holocaust.
Eventually one of the students, overwhelmed by the idea, asked for help
in visualizing six million, the number of Jews killed. And so began a
project that would eventually come to infect the whole town and bring
them recognition from around the world.
This is not a cinematic documentary. It is plain looking, and it doesn’t
have much flair. It is told entirely by the subjects of the film, though
some bits do seem scripted or rehearsed. In the end, though, it is difficult
to tell a story about the Holocaust without touching a nerve.
Along with 30 million paper clips came more than 20,000 letters explaining
why someone was moved to donate. Many of these will leave you at least
on the verge of tears.
At its heart, though, this is a story of young children finding something
larger than themselves in the world; giving of themselves and learning
about others. I expect this movie will become a staple of middle school
teachers trying to get their students to invest themselves in something.
In an overly ironic age, it is good to be reminded that people still do
things just because they seem like a good thing to bring into the world.
It is difficult to recommend spending your $9 for this, but if you have
a child (or an adult, for that matter) you want to inspire to action it
is certainly worth checking out when it hits DVD.
Mr. 3000 is a Touchstone Pictures release
Wide theatrical release: Friday, September 17, 2004
Directed by Charles Stone III.
Screenplay by Eric Champnella and Keith Mitchell.
Starring: Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett, Chris Noth, and
Brian J. White.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language.
Running time: 115 minutes.
Alex’s Rating: 5 out of 10
Paper Clips is a Miramax release
Limited theatrical release beginning September 17, 2004;
check local listings.
Directed by Elliot Berlin and Joe Fab.
Screenplay by Joe Fab.
Rated G.
Running time: 89 minutes.
Alex’s Rating: 7 out of 10
