What I’m Seeing This Week: ‘Tis the season for blockbuster fare that I’m not *that* interested in, but will see anyway for want of better options. This week that means Jurassic World: Rebirth and/or Superman, both of which are now playing at both Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall.
Also in Theaters: The Phoenician Scheme, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, has now tied Sinners‘ Movie Year 2025 record for most consecutive weeks (four) as my favorite new release in local theaters. I also enjoyed 28 Years Later, which is there and at the Regal, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which is just at the latter. This week’s special events are highlighted by a screening of the film Open Country at Cinemapolis on Monday that benefits WRFI Community Radio and local publisher PM Press and features both live music and a Q&A with the filmmakers. Finally your best bet for repertory fare is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with showtimes at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday.
Home Video: The future is starting to look bright again for Mets fans as we head into the All-Star break following a Subway Series win over the Yankees and with Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga returning to action, but the month of June was a reminder that it doesn’t matter how good a team is if the entire pitching rotation is on the DL. No matter what this season has in store for us, one thing is certain: the ending won’t be as embarrassingly tragicomic as the final outs of the one depicted in the movie Rookie of the Year, which is currently streaming on Disney+.
For those unfamiliar with the plot, Thomas Ian Nicholas plays a 12-year-old boy named Henry Rowengartner who recovers from a broken arm with the ability to throw a 100 mph fastball (which as Wikipedia helpfully notes “is well beyond the normal range of a Little League player”) and is signed by the Cubs. He leads them to within three outs of winning “the division,” which of course would earn them a berth in the World Series. Their opponent in the fateful final game of the season? My Metropolitans. When Henry slips on a baseball has he heads out onto the field to pitch the ninth and loses his supernatural abilities as suddenly as he gained them, the Mets seemed primed to advance to what would presumably be their first crack at a title since 1986. But that’s not how things go. Instead, leadoff hitter #45 Arnold (B.J. Sanabria) gets himself picked off following what is effectively an intentional walk to open the inning after falling victim to what John Candy’s announcer Cliff Murdoch refers to as “the old hidden baseball trick”:
Henry also gives a free pass to his teammate #16 White (Cristian Mendez), who even more frustratingly allows himself to be goaded into a foolish attempt to steal second by taunts of “chicken”:
This sets up a rematch with #6 Heddo, the gargantuan power hitter who weeks earlier in the film welcomed Henry to the majors with a home run. But while he may “eat fastballs for breakfast,” he can’t handle to slow stuff, and Henry strikes him out on three straight pitches:
Roger Ebert called Rookie of the Year “pure wish-fulfillment” in a contemporaneous review that ended with him saying, “I really shouldn’t give it three stars, but I’m going to anyway.” It has actually aged pretty well, though, in large part because it never forgets it’s a fantasy, as demonstrated by this clever reference to The Wizard of Oz:
First- (and only-) time feature film director Daniel Stern makes lots of other interesting decisions, including devising a wide variety of ways to satisfy Twentieth Century Fox’s desire for him to play pitching coach Brickma but not actually appear on screen much by (as he told Kent Garrison in a 2020 interview for The Athletic) coming up with multiple gags where he misses games because he’s locked himself inside something, all of which somehow work:
Anyway, as painful as the climax was for me as a fan of the losing team, and despite the fact that this overcrowded boat full of kids not wearing life jackets traumatized my loving wife the rowing coach:
Rookie of the Year made for one of our most enjoyable Family (née Friday) Movie Nights of the past year. There are surprisingly few good films about baseball considering that it’s the “national pastime” of the country that Hollywood is located in, so consider this one if you find yourself getting antsy as you wait for the games to resume next week!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 