Very often you watch a movie and think to yourself, “I feel like I’ve seen this before. This is a lot like (fill in the blank).” Often times it’s easy to make these statements about romantic comedies. I mean, how
Very often you watch a movie and think to yourself, “I feel like I’ve seen this before. This is a lot like (fill in the blank).”
Often times it’s easy to make these statements about romantic comedies. I mean, how many will-they-won’t-they scenarios are even possible?
“Gladiator” infused aspects of “Braveheart” into a different European empire.
I recently found myself comparing a pair of movies that may have never before been linked in the history of film analysis, thinking how similar they actually are.
Is “The Sandlot” really just a younger version of “Goodfellas”?
Now, before you become horrified and think a different version of “The Sandlot” exists where the team buries one of the preppy players beneath the pitcher’s mound, it doesn’t. Obviously there is nothing nearly as sinister going through the minds of the young baseball players as there is in the deranged brains of Scorcese’s gangsters.
But in looking at the way the two stories are told, they have much more in common than a first glance may indicate.
We have the main character narrating the story from some point in the future. In “Goodfellas,” Henry Hill talks about how he quits school and starts working for the local Mafia. In “The Sandlot,” Scotty Smalls moves to a new town and spends his summer days playing baseball with the rag-tag group of poor, local players.
They are both then shown the ropes by the respective bosses of the two crews, each of whom has the ear and admiration of everyone else.
Each movie goes to great lengths to inform the viewers of the personalities of the crew members. Just about all of them have nicknames and their idiosyncracies make them endearing.
Smalls had friends named “The Jet,” “Ham,” “Squints,” “Yeah-Yeah” and “Repeat.”
Hill knew “Johnny Roastbeef,” “Billy Batts,” “Frenchy,” “Stacks,” “Nicky Eyes,” “Jimmy Two-Times,” and “Spider.”
Each would get into heists ranging from small-time to what seemed to be extremely dangerous. Squints faked a drowning in the town pool so lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn would give him mouth-to-mouth and he could steal a kiss in the process.
But when Smalls grabbed the Babe Ruth autographed baseball and hit it over the fence, he and his crew had to go through a series of failed recovery missions before Benny decided to cowboy up and outrun “The Beast.” This was their Lufthansa score.
Each had a rival group who they were always aware of, but just wished would leave them alone. For the boys, it was the cross-town baseball team, with its fancy uniforms and scoreboard.
For the gangsters, it was the FBI, or perhaps the other Mafia members who “took care” of Tommy.
As adults, both lead characters look back with fondness on those naive stages of glory days in their youth.
Is it a perfect analogy? Probably not.
But it could change the way you think any time you watch “The Sandlot.”
Fooorrr-evvv-errrr.
