O/T "Sugar" (2008)

Highly recommended. As much an immigrant story as it is a baseball movie.

I liked the film a great deal, too. The academy stuff was fascinating, and watching Sugar adjust to life in America was gripping, too.

I may not boo a young player again after watching this.

SUGAR: Eggs.
WAITRESS: How do you like ’em?
SUGAR: …Yes.
WAITRESS: Um, scrambled, over easy, sunny-side up?
SUGAR: …… French toast.

Really interested in this movie. Heard nothing but positive things about it.

It’ll be in my dvd collection pretty soon.

Very good film. I think I read when it came out that it was considered one of the most realistic baseball movies ever made.

It’s in my queue, but I’m on a gangster movie kick right now.

Thanks for the heads-up, Hans. I have to admit that it wasn’t quite what I expected, but it was a very involving, fascinating, and touching film nonetheless.

I saw Sugar. I thought it became uneven once he left the team and I found his actions in doing so generally incomprehensible but that didn’t take away from my overall affection for the movie. Also, the fact that he had a foot injury, from which he fully recovers, and suddenly can’t pitch sort of miffed me as well. I guess there was no time in the timeline of the film to blow out his elbow.

Well acted and the baseball is excellent.

I liked it, and it was very interesting, but like Andrew said, it seemed to stumble in the final act. Also, at no point did it completely suck me in. Sugar wasn’t the best protagonist, but at the same time that speaks to its realism. It was a good film, and a well appreciated vicissitude from the heroism in most baseball movies. Definitely worth seeing, but I think I built it up too much in my own mind before seeing it. There was some poignant moments regarding the language barrier. Those were memorable.

I thought that the movie was amazing and a great illustration of modern baseball.

The same people who wrote and directed this film also made a great little movie called “Half Nelson” a few years back. The story is about a privileged white guy who choses to teach in the inner city, but the movie opts for realism over a cliche feel-good storyline we’ve all seen. Sugar is by no means a cliche baseball movie and offers more enlightening social commentary than it does pure entertainment. Both are great films well worth a watch.

The final scene showing all the Latin players who were enjoying playing ball for the sheer fun of it, to me, was the point of the film. It was as though they had lost their way while trying to make baseball their profession, but had rediscovered the joy as amateurs. They seemed genuinely happy with their lot. We, as fans, tend to think it tragic when a young player washes out, but I didn’t get any sense of tragedy watching the final scene.

liked it.

I just finished it. I enjoyed the film.