I’m not a movie critic. And since my column appears on the front page of the sports section, I try to stay in my lane and confine my remarks to sports with occasional snide remarks about politicians – one bonehead in particular.
But this week, I’m in quite the quandary. How do I write a movie review and make it sound like a sports column?
Can it even be done? This all started when my internet service went out last week. Since I don’t have cable or satellite, I was horrified.
I stared at my dead television and realized that I was face-to-face with existential loneliness beyond human endurance. I needed entertainment and fast.
I thought about scrolling through my Facebook feed, but my phone was nearly dead.
I thought about making inflammatory remarks on Twitter, but I don’t have enough followers for it to matter.
So, I grabbed a DVD, the one on top of the stack, and watched that.
It turned out to be the Kevin Costner classic “Field of Dreams.”
It is a film I never get tired of, and every time Ray Kinsella says, “Hey dad, you wanna have a catch?” at the end, I get misty-eyed. I suppose it reminds me of my own father.
Then, a day or two later – on Father’s Day, coincidentally – my son and I went to see “Top Gun: Maverick” at the Parkside 8. Good movie.
My son and I have a tradition of rating movies on a scale of 1 to 10 during our post-viewing conversation.
I gave the film an 8, but my son gave it a 6.5.
I was somewhat surprised by his lack of enthusiasm, since I thought the story was well told and the flight sequences were marvelous. But I suppose he doesn’t have the same level of nostalgia for the original “Top Gun” as I do, since it came out 12 years before he was born.
To each his own, I guess.
It got me wondering about the preferences of Costner and Cruise when choosing film projects.
Costner seems to like westerns and sports movies (“Bull Durham,” “For Love of the Game,” “Silverado,” “Wyatt Earp”) while Cruise leans toward sci-fi and action films (“Mission Impossible,” “Jack Reacher,” “War of the Worlds,” “Edge of Tomorrow”), although he did make two decent sports films: “Jerry Maguire” and “All the Right Moves.”
I started to wonder what “Field of Dreams” and “Top Gun” might have looked like had the two actors switched films with Costner as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and Tom Cruise as Ray Kinsella.
Picture Tom Cruise walking in the cornfield talking to himself: “Talk to me Goose,” he says. Then you hear the voice: “If you build it, he will come.”
“Is that you, Goose,” Kinsella replies.
“How’d you know it was me?” the voice responds.
“Cuz you’re dead and I still feel guilty about it,” Kinsella responds. “What does ‘if you build it, he will come mean?’”
“Well, you’re supposed to figure that out over the course, of the film,” the voice says. “It drives the story toward a powerful conclusion.”
“That’s fine just tell me what I have to build and who will come,” Kinsella says.
“Ok, I’ll meet you halfway,” the voice says. “Your Mission, Mr. Kinsella, should you decide to accept it, is to plow under your corn and build a baseball field.”
To which Cruise, as Ray Kinsella, replies: “Can I plow under the corn by dropping a bomb on it from an F-18 fighter jet.”
“OK. Just don’t buzz the farmhouse while you’re at it?”
Cut.
Or picture Kevin Costner as Maverick. This is a little more difficult, but it’s doable.
Let’s say Costner, as Maverick, is walking between two rows of F-14s with Goose (played by Tim Robbins) who blurts out: “I feel the need, the need for speed.”
To which, Maverick replies. “You don’t need speed, you need a curveball, meat.”
“You’ve lost that loving feeling, Maverick,” Goose says.
OK, that’s quite enough of that. I think I have succeeded in squeezing some sports into this nonsense.
In all seriousness, the “Top Gun: Maverick”movie is a solid effort.
During the opening sequence when Captain Pete Mitchell is trying to break Mach 10 in a hypersonic plane, I couldn’t help but think about “The Right Stuff” and Chuck Yeager’s effort to break the sound barrier.
In “The Right Stuff,” Yeager counts down the climb to Mach 1 with Mach .94, Mach .95, .96, etc.
In “Top Gun,” Mitchell counts his climb to Mach 10 as well, Mach 9.4, Mach 9.5, 9.6 etc.
I think this is entirely intentional and entirely cool. The producers of Top Gun hired Ed Harris to play a small role as Admiral Chester Cain. Harris played John Glenn in “The Right Stuff.” Also, Glen Powell, who plays Lt. Jake “Hangman” Seresin in the new “Top Gun,” played John Glenn in the excellent film “Hidden Figures.”
There is also a nod to “Star Wars: A New Hope,” but I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself.
So, go see it.