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Full body massage. Hydrating facial. Exfoliation.
This entry would probably sound more irritated if I'd written it right after I saw the movie, but the spa has mellowed me. I saw Seabiscuit last night and was majorly disappointed, even moreso than I expected.
When Seabiscuit was traveling around the country the press nicknamed him "Movie Star" because of the way he posed for cameras. The name fit. Unfortunately, this movie forgot who the movie star was. WHERE WAS THE HORSE? Seabiscuit is one of those nonfiction books that reads almost like fiction it's so perfectly structured dramatically, so you can imagine my surprise when the movie, rather than tell that story, decides to start 20 years too early and give me a half hour of quasi-made-up history about three guys I have no reason to care about UNTIL THEY MEET THE HORSE! It was just amazing. They have this straightforward, perfectly satisfying story in front of them and choose to spend their time reaching for questionable ideas like Seabiscuit-as-the-common-man-who-lost-his-money-in-the-depression. You know what? He's more interesting as himself. It's not a story about the depression. It's not a story about a father trying to replace his dead ickle only son. It's not a story about cars replacing horses. IT'S ABOUT A RACEHORSE!
David McCullough, whose voice sounds so good on PBS, would have incited me to violence if he interrupted the story one more time with yet another inane voiceover. Who on earth thought that an eighth-grade oral report on mass production was a bang-up way to start a movie? It was like a study in tell-don't-show. The worst moment had to be Tom Smith's (Chris Cooper) first meeting with Seabiscuit which is just one of many cinematic moments that really happened. Cooper looks out into the fog. Seabiscuit approaches...and then the narrator pops in to tell us what's about to happen so there's no reason to watch it. Not that it's filmed well anyway. Without the narrator telling us something interesting happened there we wouldn't have known it. If you can't dramatize that moment, why make this movie?
Once we finally meet Seabiscuit (by which time we've forgotten there even is supposed to be a horse in this movie) things pick up a bit but not enough for me. I never believed Seabiscuit would ever lose a race or that all that much was at stake if he won. The producers keep telling us (literally!!) how people are crowding the infield and sitting around their radios when they should have been making me one of those people. I was amazed that not once did we hear the trademark cry of the commentor at the moment in each race when Seabiscuit made his movie: "And heeeeere comes Seabiscuit!" What a blast this moment must have always been, but we don't get it in the movie. Watching the races I kept finding myself thinking of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. That's also a true story, this time about a juvenile chess champion. Despite being about chess, SfBF is a great sports movie. It works because the screenwriter and director make the audience understand what's going on in every game so we know when Josh is in trouble. I don't play chess at all but I still gasp in that movie when Josh loses his queen. Plus they made Josh's opponent intimidating.
Seabiscuit does none of these things. Even War Admiral, against whom Seabiscuit ran the "race of the century" comes across as a non-entity. We hear that he's snooty but we never really feel like he's a threat. This is amazing because I've seen short film clips and even still photos that dramatically capture the difference between these two horses: Seabiscuit really does look like a cow pony next to War Admiral. We also don't get much glimpse of War Admiral's fiery personality--probably because they gave it to Seabiscuit. Rather than presenting us with the maddenly charming horse he was or trying to put across his enormous attitude the movie settles for having him kick and make a lot of noise while several people try to calm him...which by all accounts would be typical War Admiral rather than Seabiscuit. It's really sad this movie doesn't attempt to make this horse a character when it was that character that made him famous. I'm not a big horse-lover at all but you just had to respect this one.
Without Seabiscuit the character--the star--we just get a sort of meandering story about three guys. Three guys who are somewhat interesting, but not as interesting as they all became through this horse, which was the passion of their lives. Instead of Seabiscuit carrying them to greatness he becomes more of a catalyst for others to work out their own angst, some of which is hastily manufactured by the movie to offer neater resolution. Things like the father/son relationship between Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) and Red Pollard, which should be a subplot that grows naturally out of the main story, is blown into the main story. It's like the movie is so busy trying to project everyone (and I do mean everyone) onto Seabiscuit the real horse can't be seen at all.
The racing world, too, pretty much disappears. Half the time it seems like it's just a hobby for the main characters, which is amazing because this is where most of the grittiest drama came in the book. There's no sense of the dangerous life jockeys led (Pollard's occasional refusal of food seems almost like a self-esteem problem rather than the torturous way of life it had to be for him), the weight handicap Seabiscuit always ran with. Even Pollard's accident is curiously divorced from racing. A horse he's training bolts at the sound of a car backfiring near the track, like something out of an episode of The Waltons, rather than during a race. In fact both Pollard's horrific accidents (the first one is omitted) happened during a race, as did the injury where he lost his sight in one eye. (The real George Woolf died on the track.) We lose the constant battle between Tom Smith and the press (and thus a lot of Tom Smith's funniest moments). I'm not saying the movie should have been a documentary on horse racing (I can hear the annoying voice overs for that now...) but that it's amazing that world wasn't just there in vibrant life. Instead everything centers around the Howard's home.
Without the racing world and the people and horses that populate it, one race might as well be another. Everyone's issues always come out of their personal backstory when they should come out of Seabiscuit's story. Take, for instance, the moment when Red Pollard loses his best friend, George Woolf. The movie breezes over this, making it basically a Father/Son problem. Pollard feels like Dad's rejected him (like his real dad boo hoo hoo!) and Howard's afraid the still-badly-injured Pollard will die if he rides (just like his real son boo hoo hoo!). You lose the actual racing drama: Woolf had last ridden Biscuit in the race that maimed him. Pollard had lost this race for Biscuit before (the movie does tell us this information). Howard was worried for Pollard and also wanted the better jockey to ride, so he left the spot open, accidentally pitting the two of them against each other. This, to me, was so much more painful and dramatic than Howard getting the courage to let fate take its course with his new "son."
Seabiscuit's comeback in general isn't all that dramatic anyway. The movie makes it seem like the Santa Anita is the first race he runs after his recovery. Isn't it naturally more dramatic to include the painful losses beforehand that had the world saying how sad it was that this once great now ruined horse was being humiliated by his owners? Oddly, too, given the grating history soundbites, the movie never hints at Seabiscuit mania and its ridiculous novelty items This is probably just as well, though, because it probably would have been included in an annoying voice over that linked Seabiscuit hats to New Deal Program rather than actually shown.
But then, those type of things might have seemed off here, since the public in this movie isn't shown cheering for the horse so much as cheering for these three guys. And social security. And soup kitchens. And employment. And the handicapped getting a chance. And fathers finding sons. And sons finding fathers.
And anything else besides the damned horse.
Having now written the entry I see it comes across as extremely irritated despite massage and facial. Oh well.
For the shorter version, I make these few observations:
* I love the foreign lady whose friends took her to this movie because I loved the way she pronounced the title see-bis-CUTE. ("Vat ees dis seebisCUTE?")
* I find Chris Cooper's head disturbing. There I said it. It is more egg-shaped than I expect and he has a very feminine mouth.
That is all.
This entry would probably sound more irritated if I'd written it right after I saw the movie, but the spa has mellowed me. I saw Seabiscuit last night and was majorly disappointed, even moreso than I expected.
When Seabiscuit was traveling around the country the press nicknamed him "Movie Star" because of the way he posed for cameras. The name fit. Unfortunately, this movie forgot who the movie star was. WHERE WAS THE HORSE? Seabiscuit is one of those nonfiction books that reads almost like fiction it's so perfectly structured dramatically, so you can imagine my surprise when the movie, rather than tell that story, decides to start 20 years too early and give me a half hour of quasi-made-up history about three guys I have no reason to care about UNTIL THEY MEET THE HORSE! It was just amazing. They have this straightforward, perfectly satisfying story in front of them and choose to spend their time reaching for questionable ideas like Seabiscuit-as-the-common-man-who-lost-his-money-in-the-depression. You know what? He's more interesting as himself. It's not a story about the depression. It's not a story about a father trying to replace his dead ickle only son. It's not a story about cars replacing horses. IT'S ABOUT A RACEHORSE!
David McCullough, whose voice sounds so good on PBS, would have incited me to violence if he interrupted the story one more time with yet another inane voiceover. Who on earth thought that an eighth-grade oral report on mass production was a bang-up way to start a movie? It was like a study in tell-don't-show. The worst moment had to be Tom Smith's (Chris Cooper) first meeting with Seabiscuit which is just one of many cinematic moments that really happened. Cooper looks out into the fog. Seabiscuit approaches...and then the narrator pops in to tell us what's about to happen so there's no reason to watch it. Not that it's filmed well anyway. Without the narrator telling us something interesting happened there we wouldn't have known it. If you can't dramatize that moment, why make this movie?
Once we finally meet Seabiscuit (by which time we've forgotten there even is supposed to be a horse in this movie) things pick up a bit but not enough for me. I never believed Seabiscuit would ever lose a race or that all that much was at stake if he won. The producers keep telling us (literally!!) how people are crowding the infield and sitting around their radios when they should have been making me one of those people. I was amazed that not once did we hear the trademark cry of the commentor at the moment in each race when Seabiscuit made his movie: "And heeeeere comes Seabiscuit!" What a blast this moment must have always been, but we don't get it in the movie. Watching the races I kept finding myself thinking of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. That's also a true story, this time about a juvenile chess champion. Despite being about chess, SfBF is a great sports movie. It works because the screenwriter and director make the audience understand what's going on in every game so we know when Josh is in trouble. I don't play chess at all but I still gasp in that movie when Josh loses his queen. Plus they made Josh's opponent intimidating.
Seabiscuit does none of these things. Even War Admiral, against whom Seabiscuit ran the "race of the century" comes across as a non-entity. We hear that he's snooty but we never really feel like he's a threat. This is amazing because I've seen short film clips and even still photos that dramatically capture the difference between these two horses: Seabiscuit really does look like a cow pony next to War Admiral. We also don't get much glimpse of War Admiral's fiery personality--probably because they gave it to Seabiscuit. Rather than presenting us with the maddenly charming horse he was or trying to put across his enormous attitude the movie settles for having him kick and make a lot of noise while several people try to calm him...which by all accounts would be typical War Admiral rather than Seabiscuit. It's really sad this movie doesn't attempt to make this horse a character when it was that character that made him famous. I'm not a big horse-lover at all but you just had to respect this one.
Without Seabiscuit the character--the star--we just get a sort of meandering story about three guys. Three guys who are somewhat interesting, but not as interesting as they all became through this horse, which was the passion of their lives. Instead of Seabiscuit carrying them to greatness he becomes more of a catalyst for others to work out their own angst, some of which is hastily manufactured by the movie to offer neater resolution. Things like the father/son relationship between Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) and Red Pollard, which should be a subplot that grows naturally out of the main story, is blown into the main story. It's like the movie is so busy trying to project everyone (and I do mean everyone) onto Seabiscuit the real horse can't be seen at all.
The racing world, too, pretty much disappears. Half the time it seems like it's just a hobby for the main characters, which is amazing because this is where most of the grittiest drama came in the book. There's no sense of the dangerous life jockeys led (Pollard's occasional refusal of food seems almost like a self-esteem problem rather than the torturous way of life it had to be for him), the weight handicap Seabiscuit always ran with. Even Pollard's accident is curiously divorced from racing. A horse he's training bolts at the sound of a car backfiring near the track, like something out of an episode of The Waltons, rather than during a race. In fact both Pollard's horrific accidents (the first one is omitted) happened during a race, as did the injury where he lost his sight in one eye. (The real George Woolf died on the track.) We lose the constant battle between Tom Smith and the press (and thus a lot of Tom Smith's funniest moments). I'm not saying the movie should have been a documentary on horse racing (I can hear the annoying voice overs for that now...) but that it's amazing that world wasn't just there in vibrant life. Instead everything centers around the Howard's home.
Without the racing world and the people and horses that populate it, one race might as well be another. Everyone's issues always come out of their personal backstory when they should come out of Seabiscuit's story. Take, for instance, the moment when Red Pollard loses his best friend, George Woolf. The movie breezes over this, making it basically a Father/Son problem. Pollard feels like Dad's rejected him (like his real dad boo hoo hoo!) and Howard's afraid the still-badly-injured Pollard will die if he rides (just like his real son boo hoo hoo!). You lose the actual racing drama: Woolf had last ridden Biscuit in the race that maimed him. Pollard had lost this race for Biscuit before (the movie does tell us this information). Howard was worried for Pollard and also wanted the better jockey to ride, so he left the spot open, accidentally pitting the two of them against each other. This, to me, was so much more painful and dramatic than Howard getting the courage to let fate take its course with his new "son."
Seabiscuit's comeback in general isn't all that dramatic anyway. The movie makes it seem like the Santa Anita is the first race he runs after his recovery. Isn't it naturally more dramatic to include the painful losses beforehand that had the world saying how sad it was that this once great now ruined horse was being humiliated by his owners? Oddly, too, given the grating history soundbites, the movie never hints at Seabiscuit mania and its ridiculous novelty items This is probably just as well, though, because it probably would have been included in an annoying voice over that linked Seabiscuit hats to New Deal Program rather than actually shown.
But then, those type of things might have seemed off here, since the public in this movie isn't shown cheering for the horse so much as cheering for these three guys. And social security. And soup kitchens. And employment. And the handicapped getting a chance. And fathers finding sons. And sons finding fathers.
And anything else besides the damned horse.
Having now written the entry I see it comes across as extremely irritated despite massage and facial. Oh well.
For the shorter version, I make these few observations:
* I love the foreign lady whose friends took her to this movie because I loved the way she pronounced the title see-bis-CUTE. ("Vat ees dis seebisCUTE?")
* I find Chris Cooper's head disturbing. There I said it. It is more egg-shaped than I expect and he has a very feminine mouth.
That is all.
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From:
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Are you sure it's not just your memory of him trying to kiss Kevin Spacey in American Beauty?
Visiting here on a tip that you had reviewed Sea Biscuit.
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From:
Now, Magpie, don't hold back...
All your points are well taken....however, I liked the movie. It was fun, uplifting and the kind of pic I could watch without fearing that someone's head was going to get blown off at any moment.
I have not read the book, however, and maybe that would have colored my judgement a bit more. But it was nice (and unusual) to go to a film where more than 3/4 of the audience was made up of people over 60. Made me realize how seldom you see older people at a common event and how few movies there are that really appeal to this age group.
From:
Re: Now, Magpie, don't hold back...
It wasn't so much that I was hating the movie so much as I was watching it, it was more like I just couldn't figure out why they decided to do certain things and that ended up interesting me more than what was on screen. I liked the performances (even the disturbing Chris Cooper!) and they got a couple of moments just right (SB kicking the goat and my favorite, "So long, Charlie!" during the match race).
From:
Come on, Seabiscuit???
But I knew something was missing. And I ended up coming to the same conclusions, if not so wonderfully expressed, as you did. Every time you tried to get emotionally into the movie, that damned voice-over yanked you out. Over and over again. Pretty soon the viewer's involvement was nullified, period. No drama.
It could have been a great movie. As it was, it was merely good. Better than some, worse than many.
I wasn't even disappointed. I was NULL. Damn.