Friday, May 22, 2009

Sugar

An intriguing film continues to play at Des Moines' Fleur Cinema through this holiday weekend, and perhaps in your town as well. "Sugar" is the latest offering from husband-and-wife filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who previously gave us "Half Nelson," winner of the 2006 CMFA (Chris Moeller Film Award) for Best Picture/Director. In a marvelous twist of fate, Boden and Fleck have now taken on the subject of baseball, one of my personal favorites, and they came to our state to film part of the feature.

"Sugar" tells the story of a teenage pitcher from the Dominican Republic transplanted to the minor league baseball environment of an Iowa river town. Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport was used as the principal backdrop for the baseball action in the film. A meditation on ambition and the immigrant experience, "Sugar" promises to be one of those (rare) great baseball films that is about something much larger than just the favored game of the Americas, the same way that "Eight Men Out" was about the collapse of the public trust in civic and social institutions, and "Bull Durham" was about gettin' it on with your lady.

"Sugar," in theaters now. Rated R.

2 Comments:

At 1:07 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I heard a rumor that the great Jose Rijo is in the movie. Is that true?

 
At 2:48 PM, Blogger CM said...

I thought it was some of his best work.

 

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