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This week: a long overdue sports film arrives, Danny McBride acts funny, attractive people get humpy, and Everwood's final season is a must see. Plus, sharks and talking birds!

For every Atlanta Braves pitcher: The Perfect Game

If you didn’t know by now that I am a huge Atlanta Braves fan, you just haven’t been paying attention. Anyway, The Perfect Game is one of those movies that bounced around the schedule quite a bit before its eventual release. This is odd in that the book from which the movie is adapted did not come out until 2008 yet filming occurred almost simultaneously. To wit, the initial release date for this project was late summer of 2008. It received some Latin America exhibitions in the first half of 2009, but wasn’t released in North America until April of last year. Finally, there has been the delay of its home video debut until now, making this project almost exactly three years old prior to DVD availability, a rarity in this day and age.

Fortunately, timeliness of topicality is not an issue here since the perfect game in question occurred in 1957. A Mexican youth named Angel Macias pitched a team from Monterrey, Mexico to the Little League World Series championship; they were the first non-American team to win the title and to this day, Macias remains the only participant to throw a perfect game in the tournament championship. Note that there will not be a lot of suspense about the game itself. The movie’s conflict stems from the events leading up to Monterrey’s participation. Their manager was a janitor for the St. Louis Cardinals who was never given an opportunity to work in baseball in the 1950s due to his Latin heritage. At least, that was the story Cesar Faz told his friends back home. History shows that he may have overstated the situation quite a bit, a story arc played up in the movie, which I saw all the way back in 2009 (or 2008?). I honestly don’t even remember that well other than thinking that it was better than Sugar, another 2008 baseball movie about a young Latino’s struggles. The Perfect Game is much more uplifting in tone and just a very sweet real life sports story developed into a solid feature film.

For people who miss Ephram Brown’s constant sulking about his relationship with daddy: Everwood: The Complete Fourth Season

While I am not exaggerating the point about Ephram being a whiny bitch throughout the 89 episode run of Everwood, I miss this show dearly At the start of 2006, there was every indication that Everwood would be on the air for years to come. In late January of that year, news of the merger of The WB with UPN changed the conversation. With two networks worth of programming and only one schedule to fill, Everwood changed from a certain renewal to a surprising cancellation. Given the quality of programming on The CW to date, the decision is all the more infuriating. Everwood is that rare gem of programming that focuses on characters and story more than faux drama. It was a spiritual successor to Northern Exposure and I miss it dearly. I own the first three seasons and will be buying this DVD season quickly. The best news is that with Foreverwood Parts 1 and 2, the producers of the show did manage to bring closure to the primary storylines of the series. These are the relationships between Ephram and his father and the romantic connection between Ephram and Amy. I enjoy the resolutions so much that Foreverwood has stayed on my TiVo for over five years now. Everwood is warm, comfortable television I highly recommend.

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