It Ain't Over (2022) and Eephus (2024)

Jack and I loved both of these very different baseball movies: It Ain't Over is a documentary about superstar Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra and Eephus is fiction about a ragtag group of adult recreational players in New England.

It Ain't Over starts with Yogi's granddaughter Lindsay Berra talking about going to games with Yogi (1925-2015) and then features interviews with his sons Dale, Tim, and Larry, his wife Carmen (1925-2014), dozens of admiring celebrities and ballplayers such as Billy Crystal, Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher, Bob Costas, and so many more, skillfully edited with archival footage.

Director/writer Sean Mullin and his editor Julian Robinson have put together a wonderful movie with music by Jacques Brautbar and John Forest. When the song Bronx Bombers came on I turned to Jack and said, "Why have I never heard this song before now??" because I am a lifelong Yankee fan. Turns out Forest wrote the song specifically for this movie. You can hear the ditty on soundcloud.

"It ain't over" is one of many so-called Yogisms--things he famously said--the full expression is "It ain't over til it's over." During the course of the movie it's explained that early in his career, Berra sat on the ground with his knees out and feet crossed, like a person practicing yoga would do, and the nickname stuck.

Most of the baseball fans among my friends and family have already seen it and loved it, too, regardless of their feelings about the Yankees.

Brautbar was last blogged for Bob Trevino Likes It. Mullin, one of the producers of Bob Trevino Likes It, has directed and written two other features and written one more. Forest has scored one feature before this and Robinson has cut a few dozen TV series and one of Mullins' movies. One of the producers of this and Bob Trevino told me it took almost five years to make this doc with full support of the Berra family.

It's far from over with Rotten Tomatoes' critics averaging 98% and its audiences 96. We rented it on August 13. There is bonus footage at the end so don't turn it off right away.

Eephus, set in the 1990s, takes place all in one day, when two teams are playing their last game before the field is demolished to build a public school. Arguably the most famous actors in it are not actors at all: 95 year old documentarian Frederick Wiseman provides the voice of radio announcer Branch Moreland (an homage, no doubt, to baseball player, manager, and owner, the late Branch Rickey) and 78 year old former Red Sox and Expo player Bill "The Spaceman" Lee plays a character named Lee. The large cast rehearsed on the ball field and they have a wide variety of skill levels.

Director/co-writer Carson Lund and co-writers Michael Basta and Nate Fisher all make their feature debuts. Eephus is a kind of pitch, a very slow one that often is a success for the pitcher, as explained by a character played by Fisher. And that can describe the movie, too. Apparently Lee used a version of the eephus pitch so many times in his career that it was occasionally called a Leephus.

I see no composer nor soundtrack listing on imdb and elsewhere, other than a mention of the Tom Waits track Ol' 55 from the closing credits. The movie is supposed to be set in New Hampshire, but the shooting location Soldiers Field is in Douglas in central Massachusetts.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics give it a grand slam with a 100% average, but its audiences not so much at 64. We rented it on July 22.

Milestone alert! This marks 1600 movies summarized on babetteflix. 23 of them I saw before I began writing it on September 3, 2008, so the math makes it 1577 that I've seen for the first time since then (actually, at this moment I have two more in draft form and will get to writing about them soon). For the full alphabetized list, see my index. No, I do not have a favorite!

The Wedding Banquet (2025)

We quite liked this updated remake of the 1993 Ang Lee movie, which I saw when it was new. In both versions, a gay couple (Chris and Min played here by Bowen Yang and Han-Gi Chan, respectively) plan a wedding of one of them to a woman to satisfy his traditional parents. In this version, Chris and Min's best friends are a lesbian couple played by Lily Gladstone as Lee and Kelly Marie Tran as Angela, who need money for IVF and Chris and Min agree to pay for it. Youn Yu-jung is Min's mother and Joan Chen is Angela's. In the original, the woman is a single straight woman needing a green card.

Director Andrew Ahn co-wrote the script with James Schamus, who co-wrote the original screenplay with Lee and another writer.

The soundtrack by Jay Wadley doesn't seem to be available online, but there's a long list of songs, some of which are in this playlist.

Interesting trivia: Chen was considered to play the woman needing a green card in the original.

Yang and Ahn were last blogged for Fire Island, Gladstone for her Oscar-winning performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, Tran for Raya and the Last Dragon, Youn for her Oscar-winning turn in Minari, Chen for Didi, Schamus for Indignation, and Wadley for We Grown Now (he also scored Fire Island). This is Chan's second feature after a few TV series.

 

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are united in their appreciation, averaging 86 and 84%. We rented it on June 24.

Ex-Husbands (2023)

I've long been a fan of Griffin Dunne, which led us to this dramedy about a man, mourning the end of his marriage, who crashes his son's bachelor party in Mexico. I think Jack and I liked it? WE saw it over a month ago. Rosanna Arquette, James Norton, Miles Heizer, and Richard Benjamin are among the cast.

Noah Pritzker directs from his own script. I did jot down that women are given short shrift. The soundtrack by Robin Coudert, a French man apparently also known as ROB, is not available online.

After I profiled Dunne in The Great Buck Howard, he's been in over a hundred projects, notably eight episodes of House of Lies, eight of I Love Dick, and 47 of This Is Us. Arquette has even more credits than Dunne, particularly starring in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), appearing with Dunne in After Hours the same year, Pulp Fiction (1994), and The Whole Nine Yards (2000). Norton, a Brit who here uses a very good American accent was in Little Women, though I didn't write that in these pages. Heizer is best known to me as Drew in 103 episodes of Parenthood. The reliable Benjamin is perhaps best known for Goodbye Columbus (1970) Diary of a Mad Housewife (1971), the title role in Portnoy's Complaint (1972), The Sunshine Boys (1975), and Deconstructing Harry (1997). This is Pritzker's second feature and Coudert has dozens of credits.

Rotten Tomatoes's critics aren't in love with this, averaging 78%, but its audiences are happier at 86. We rented it on July 20.

Sacramento (2024)

Jack and I liked this indie story of two man-boys on a road trip from LA to the title city. It has some laughs and a lot of cringe (we do like cringe) as Michael Cera's Glenn gets more and anxious dealing with his free-spirited pushy friend Rickey, played by director/co-writer Michael Angarano. Kristen Stewart is Glenn's pregnant but patient wife Rosie and Maya Erskine is Rickey's hookup in the first act.

Trivia: Stewart dated Angarano briefly, years before she married her current wife, and Erskine is now married to him since 2023. Watch for brief shots of their actual kids in act three. A yellow 1966 Mustang makes more than a cameo.

Angarano's co-writer is Christopher Nicholas Smith, credited here as Chris Smith, and the composer is Erskine's father Peter Erskine. The soundtrack isn't streaming but I'm enjoying one of his jazz albums on Apple Music as I type.

Angarano, last blogged for acting in Haywire, was also in Lords of Dogtown (2005), Oppenheimer, and seven episodes of This Is Us (Emmy nominated), among his many credits. He directed one other feature, which he starred in and wrote solo. Cera was most recently in these pages for Barbie and Stewart for Spencer. Maya Erskine was wonderful in all 25 episodes of Mr & Mrs Smith. This is Chris Smith's feature debut after working as a staff writer on eight episodes of Friends from College (I liked that series on Netflix), and it's Peter Erskine's first feature as a composer, though he's recorded dozens of albums as a drummer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics have driven their average up to 84%, while its audiences stayed at the rest stop with only 61. We rented it on June 20.

Bob Trevino Likes It (2024)

Jack and I loved this story about a young woman who befriends on social media someone with the same name as her narcissistic father. Director Tracie Laymon based her screenplay on her own experience. 

Barbie Ferreira is wonderful as Lily, French Stewart is so good that I absolutely hated him as her dad, and John Leguizamo is warm as the other Bob Trevino. Strong support comes from Lauren 'Lolo' Spencer, who is in a wheelchair with ALS, as Lily's employer.

Some of the score by Jacques Brautbar is on his site, and Apple Music has a playlist of songs featured in the movie.

This got on my radar because I met two of its 35 producers last year at a baseball game. One of them said, "You'll laugh, you'll cry," and he was right! The other explained to me today that Laymon's mentor is special effects manager Bob Trevino, and she decided to name the character after him, rather than her own father Bob Laymon.

35 producers ties the movie for ninth on the Producers Plethora Prize list. All the filmmakers have earned many wins and nominations, including the Grand Jury and Audience awards from the SXSW Film Festival.

Leguizamo was last blogged for The Menu. This is Laymon's feature debut after a handful of shorts and TV series. Ferreira has been in three other features and more. I know Stewart best for 139 episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun and 37 of Mom, among his dozens and dozens of credits. I didn't see Spencer's other movie but I did see her in 15 episodes of The Sex Lives of College Girls. Brautbar is new to me, despite his 73 credits as composer.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences heart <3 it, averaging 94 and 98%, respectively. We rented it on June 15.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

We liked the other Deadpool movies a lot as well as others in the Marvel Comics Universe and this was fine, as far as I can recall after almost two months. Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool is his typically talky and snarky self and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is grumpy, as usual. Some highlights of the large cast include Emma Corrin, Chris Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Morena Baccarin, Dafne Keen, Jon Favreau, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, and voices provided by Matthew McConaughey as Cowboypool and Reynolds' real-life wife Blake Lively as Ladypool.

Shawn Levy directs from a script by him, Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Zeb Wells. I did jot down at the time that the movie is about 50% fighting. Which inspires me to quote once again the brilliant cartoonist Nicole Hollander, who wrote in her comic strip Sylvia that a chick flick (which this definitely isn't) has "too much talking and not enough hitting." Note that the link takes you to what looks like daily new strips, but they are archival.

Rob Simonsen's original score can be streamed on Apple Music, as well as this playlist of many pop songs featured.

During one of those battles, a poster on the side of the bus pays the anticipated homage to Stan Lee (1922-2018), who created many of the Marvel characters. Viewers will also be rewarded with the customary post-credits scene.

Reynolds, Reese, and Wernick were last blogged for Deadpool 2, Corrin and Simonsen for Good Grief, Evans for Knives Out, Macfadyen for The Assistant, Baccarin for Millers in Marriage, Keen for Logan, Favreau for Elf, Delaney for Love at First Sight, Uggams for American Fiction, McConaughey for Interstellar, Lively for A Simple Favor, and Levy for This Is Where I Leave You. Wells has co-written one other feature and several other things.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics aren't fighting too hard, with an average of 78%, while its audiences are ready for battle at 95%. We streamed it May 30 with our subscription to Disney+.

Nonnas (2025)

Jack and I quite enjoyed this movie which is based on the true story of an Italian-American man who creates a Staten Island restaurant in honor of his late mother and grandmother, hiring a quartet of random grandmothers (nonna means grandma in Italian) to cook. Vince Vaughn is the restaurateur, and the nonnas are Brenda Vaccaro, Talia Shire, Susan Sarandon, and Lorraine Bracco. Because I care, I have sorted the actresses by age above, respectively 85, 81, 78, and 70. I think Bracco makes a remark about 70 being old (I can't find it now) but I do remember our laughing out loud at it, considering that we're a bit older than that and she is the baby of the group!

Also supporting are Linda Cardellini, Joe Manganiello, Drea de Matteo, and Michael Rispoli. And the real Joe (Jody) Scaravella, whose story this is, has an uncredited cameo as the guy with the cloud of chin length curly gray hair.

Steven Chbosky directs from the script by his wife Liz Maccie and Scaravella has story credit. Everyone named above, except Chbosky, has some Italian blood. 

I'm streaming Marcelo Zarvos's score on Apple Music and the movie has plenty of other music, especially Italian. 

The real restaurant, Enoteca Maria, has this story on its website. And, presumably because Enoteca Maria is still up and running, the movie was shot at Spirito's in Elizabeth New Jersey, which apparently was famous before it closed.

Vaughn was last blogged for Hacksaw Ridge, Sarandon for another movie about four boomer women: The Fabulous Four (this is better), Shire for Megalopolis (this is better), Cardellini for Green Book, de Matteo for New York, I Love You, Rispoli for The Rum Diary (this is better), Chbosky for The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Zarvos for May December.

Vaccaro is best known for Midnight Cowboy (1969) and dozens of credits in TV and film and Bracco for Goodfellas (1990) and 71 episodes of The Sopranos. I wasn't familiar with Manganiello, despite his long resume. And this is Maccie's third screenplay.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are mostly savoring this one with an average of 83%, while its critics, at 71, are pushing it around their plates. We watched it on Netflix on May 26.

This will be #34 on my list of food movies.