Eight Men Out

Amazon.com

Eliot Asinof's detailed book Eight Men Out illustrates how the system of American sports collapsed in 1919, the year the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. Filmmaker John Sayles worked on his script years before the 1988 film (or before he had the rights to make the film) as a labor of love. Sayles's adaptation proves one can make a historically accurate film in the day and age of artistic license. And what a story. Although many know about the "Black Sox," made famous--again--in the 1989 hit film Field of Dreams, the details of the saga are far less known. The center of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson (portrayed correctly by D.B. Sweeney as illiterate and left-handed in Eight), is not the core of this film; it's ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte (Sayles favorite David Strathairn), who took the money, and third baseman Buck Weaver (John Cusack), who did not. The film fits nicely into Sayles's (Lone Star) strong suit: the ensemble drama. We are introduced to bickering owners, famous crooks, high-minded judges, lowlife gangsters, investigative reporters (played by Studs Terkel and Sayles himself), and, most of all, players who are at the breaking point when it comes to low salaries and degrading rewards. While some may feel the film is not as visceral as it should be, there is a great amount of verisimilitude when watching finely tuned athletes telling their bodies to play poorly--heartbreak on the nation's diamond. Beautifully detailed (like Sayles's previous labor-drama, Matewan), Eight Men Out gives us powerful lessons in which everyone lost: players, gamblers, and especially the fans who love the game. --Doug Thomas

Description

John Cusack (Con Air) and Charlie Sheen (Major League) lead a "superb ensemble of actors" (Newsweek) delivering "striking performances" (The New York Times) in this "mesmerizing story" (Los Angeles Times) about the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal, certainly one of the saddest chapters in the annals of professional sports. Buck Weaver (Cusack) and Hap Felsch (Sheen) are young idealistic players with the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey Â- a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.

Customer Reviews:

Should be rated!.......2007-08-23

I didn't get to finish it because of the profanity. It should be rated PG-13 for the language.

8 Men Out.......2007-08-23

Awesome movie it really describes the history behind one of the biggest baseball scandles of all time.

Shoeless Joe had Shoes, but No Money.......2007-08-06

Great movie. Tells the story, of course, favoring Shoeless Joe's viewpoint, of the famous gambling incident. Whether it is the book or the video, you get the impression that old Joe should be in the Hall of Fame rather than the Hall of Shame.

This is a movie you and your kid should watch, because it is clean, tells a good story and a good moral. After all, it is baseball!

Eight Men Out.......2007-08-03

Excellent movie protraying a time gone by, when things were quite different and yet still the same in baseball. What the players did was wrong, but you still felt sorry for them, and wished it didn't happen. So many lives and careers were destroyed through greed and stupidity.

I felt the acting was quite good. Anyone who loves baseball and especially baseball history would enjoy this movie.

SOX GET WASHED!.......2007-07-15

Over the last couple of decades we have had a few excellent movies made about the game of baseball. This particular movie concentrates on the Chicago White Sox scandal of 1919. Several players agreed to accept money to throw some games in the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The event became known as "The Black Sox Scandal" but that was not the reason why they became known as "The Black Sox". The real story behind that nickname is that the owner of the White Sox discovered he could save a few nickels by having the team be responsible individually for their own clothing maintenance. This resulted in shabby appearances in their uniforms and therefore "Black Sox" became the team name. Well, the fact is that the owner was gracious to those who could make him look good, as in the press. He is shown treating them like gold. The players are treated as some sort of bottom feeding basement trolls who don't deserve anything but leftover scraps from the King's table. The truth lies somewhere in-between and this movie conveys the message very well. There are not many major actors, no big leads, but the film plays out well and there are interesting game scenes in what is basically almost a clean movie. There was no radio back then so every situation was delivered over morse code messages by wire. It is very entertaining, interesting and portrays the era well enough. Well worth a viewing.

Grand Slam DVD Giftset (Bull Durham / Eight Men Out / The Jackie Robinson Story / The Pride of the Yankees)

Average customer rating:

Great Baseball Movies

Grand Slam DVD Giftset (Bull Durham / Eight Men Out / The Jackie Robinson Story / The Pride of the Yankees)
Starring: Grand Slam Giftset
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00015HVO2
Release Date: 2004-03-16

Description

Disc 1: THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY Disc 2: EIGHT MEN OUT Disc 3: BULL DURHAM Disc 4: THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES

Customer Reviews:

Great Baseball Movies.......2007-07-25

Some of the best baseball movies every made. I loved the old movies as well as the newer ones. Set could have included "The Love of the Game" or "Field of Dreams" but it still is a great collection. A must for any baseball fan.

Average customer rating:

Combines two other sports movie giftsets plus 8 additional films

The Ultimate Sports Giftset

Manufacturer: MGM
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Sports | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000NSGUKS
Release Date: 2007-04-10

Customer Reviews:

Combines two other sports movie giftsets plus 8 additional films.......2007-03-17

This bundle combines two very good sports giftsets:
The Grand Slam Giftset -(Bull Durham/Pride of the Yankees/Eight Men Out/Jackie Robinson Story)
Sports Giftset - (Bull Durham / Hoosiers / Raging Bull / Rocky )
This total of seven movies are five star films, and if your interests are mainly baseball, or you prefer the finest films from several sports, you might be better off getting just one of these two giftsets. However, this Ultimate Sports Giftset also has several good films not included in these other two giftsets, such as the more watchable sequels in the Rocky series - Rocky II and Rocky III, along with That Championship Season, and Diggstown, which is an unusual vehicle for James Woods and Lou Gossett Jr. that did end up working well for both of them. Also included is a rarely seen documentary film from 1970 entitled "AKA Cassius Clay", which has Ali talking about his career with his usual verbal wit along with some great footage of Ali's early career fights.

Finally, there are three films in the turkey category that get slipped into the total package. "Monkey on My Back" is a 1957 film that was supposed to be about fighter Barney Ross. The movie is bad, but the accuracy must have been even worse, because Ross sued the producers of this film over the content and won. "Body and Soul" is not the classic version starring John Garfield. Instead this is the poor 1998 pseudo-remake. There's plenty of bad acting to go around in this movie, and even the good actors seem to think they're all performing in different films. Worst of the pack is the 2002 version of Rollerball. Like many of the 23-year-olds that make today's films, the producers of this remake of the 1975 classic just don't get that the original was great because of its portrayal of futuristic society, not because of violent action scenes. Weighing the good with the bad, this set is probably worth purchasing for the 12 good films in the bunch.

Average customer rating:

Should be rated!
8 Men Out
Shoeless Joe had Shoes, but No Money
Eight Men Out
SOX GET WASHED!

Eight Men Out [Region 2]

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( E ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B0001Y9YNO

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Should be rated!.......2007-08-23

I didn't get to finish it because of the profanity. It should be rated PG-13 for the language.

8 Men Out.......2007-08-23

Awesome movie it really describes the history behind one of the biggest baseball scandles of all time.

Shoeless Joe had Shoes, but No Money.......2007-08-06

Eight Men Out.......2007-08-03

SOX GET WASHED!.......2007-07-15

DVD:

DVD

DVD