Review: No cheap pop-culture knock-off, 21 Jump Street (2012) is a surprisingly winning character comedy that travels its own inspired path.

21 Jump Street

2012
109 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

By all rights, this film should be a disaster.  On paper, a comedic reboot of a half-forgotten gritty 1980s crime drama that even its breakout star decried as fascist is the epitome of lazy pop-culture recycling.  But by God, this is a real movie, a genuinely clever and often inspired comedy rooted in character and with a token amount of real intelligence.  Like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, 21 Jump Street uses its property as a mere jumping off point in order to do its own thing and tell its own tale. Written by Michael Bacall and Jonah Hill, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, it's almost good enough to actually ennoble the current trend of random 1980s/1990s remakes, reboots, and reinventions.

Review: Moneyball (2011) is a light, intelligent baseball drama that doesn't over-inflate its importance or historical significance.

Moneyball
2011
133 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The greatest strength of Moneyball is arguably also its greatest weakness, at least in terms of mainstream appeal and would-be Oscar love.  It is a film adaptation of the Michael Lewis book which chronicles how Oakland A's manager Billy Beane (played in a near-flawless movie star turn by Brad Pitt) used Peter Brand's (Jonah Hill) groundbreaking statistical analysis to build a winning team out of low-cost players that were considered borderline useless by the bigger and richer teams.  That's the movie in a nutshell.  What is most refreshing about the picture is that it simply accepts that it is a small drama about one baseball team and how they achieved one successful season back in 2002. Moneyball is, give or take a few needless detours into Beane's family life, primarily about the game of baseball.  It's about how two people changed how the game was played by trying a different strategy that would allow poorer teams to compete against the likes of the New York Yankees.  If you are a fan of the game, a fan of statistical analysis, and/or a Brad Pitt fan, you'll more than get your money's worth. But the film makes little effort to appease casual viewers or those who don't already have an interest in its subject matter.  Like Gettysburg or Miracle, it is a procedural drama about its specific subject matter.  If you don't like baseball, then what you are even doing reading this review?