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Blu-Ray Review: Fantastic ‘Sugar’ Deserves Wide Home Audience
CHICAGO– As the baseball season winds to a close, take some time to catch up with one of the best dramas of the year and one of the best movies made about the changing face of the sport in Ryan Fleck...
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DVD Review: ‘The Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers’
CHICAGO– Timed perfectly for both the start of the 2010 Major League Baseball season and with Father’s Day only a few months away, MLB’s “The Essential Games of the Detroit Tigers” box set is the...
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‘The Perfect Game’ Proves That Baseball Fiction is Duller Than Truth
CHICAGO– The 1957 Little League team from Monterrey, Mexico, was the first non-U.S. team to win that league’s World Series. That is a fact. “The Perfect Game” creates a story based on that fact that is...
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Blu-Ray Review: Ken Burns Returns to National Pastime With ‘Baseball: The...
CHICAGO– Steroids, interleague play, expanded playoffs, the Red Sox finally winning, McGwire vs. Sosa, Bonds vs. the world, the strike, the influx of Hispanic players, The Yankees, The Braves, and, of...
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Video Game Review: Amazing ‘MLB 11 The Show’ Improves on Greatness
CHICAGO– Sports games are like automobiles — every year produces a new release but it’s bound to drive in much the same manner as last year’s model. It’s especially rare for a bestselling,...
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Video Game Review: ‘Major League Baseball 2K11’ Commits Too Many Errors to...
CHICAGO– I have defended the 2K Sports baseball games in the past, even personally preferring the “Major League Baseball 2K10” edition for gameplay during last year’s baseball season over Sony’s “MLB...
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Interview: Director Robert Lorenz Pitches ‘Trouble with the Curve’
CHICAGO– Baseball gets the metaphor-for-life treatment once again in “Trouble with the Curve,’ starring Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams. Eastwood plays an aging baseball scout estranged from his daughter...
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Film Review: Clint Eastwood Whiffs in ‘Trouble with the Curve’
CHICAGO– Clint Eastwood keeps going and going. His reputation as an actor is secure in a long career, and his power as a director is Oscar worthy. His ability to recognize a limp script? Not so much,...
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Interview: Ken Burns on Justice for ‘The Central Park Five’
CHICAGO– Mention “documentary,” in word association, and the next response is often “Ken Burns.” Burns brought a new voice to the documentary, and re-engineered the art form so much, that his technique...
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Film Review: No Scrooge in Billy Crystal with ‘Parental Guidance’
CHICAGO– As the bells toll this Christmas morn, the critical knots are untied and the new comedy, “Parental Guidance,” is deemed to be not bad – even though the marketing might have indicated...
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Film Review: ‘42’ Celebrates Jackie Robinson, the Promise of America
CHICAGO– It took baseball, that noble sport, to recognize in 1947 what the universe had dictated since day one – all persons are equal and all deserve an equal chance. Jackie Robinson was the first...
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Interview: John C. McGinley Channels Red Barber in ‘42’
CHICAGO– John C. McGinley will probably always be known for the classic TV character Dr. Perry Cox on the long-running “Scrubs.” But through his character actor career, he has taken on a variety of...
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Film Review: ‘Million Dollar Arm’ Misses the Strike Zone
CHICAGO– “Million Dollar Arm” harkens back to a period of shameless family friendly schmaltz that used to play to families in theaters and then run in perpetuity on “The Wonderful World Of Disney” on...
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Interview: Theo Epstein, Peter Gammons at ‘Hot Stove Cool Music’ in Chicago
CHICAGO– With the 2014 Major League All-Star game coming up next week on July 15th, that break is a time to reflect on the current season and your favorite team. At the “Hot Stove Cool Music” event in...
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TV News: Smithsonian Channel Premieres ‘The Hammer of Hank Aaron’
CHICAGO– One of the greatest records in baseball, the total home run record held by Babe Ruth, was challenged by an unassuming ballplayer named Henry “Hank” Aaron in the early part of the 1970s. The...
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Interview: Director Steve Chan Hits a Home Run with ‘Weeds on Fire’
CHICAGO– The most American game of baseball gets a new spin in the film “Weeds on Fire,” directed by Steve Chan. The story explores a youth team in the 1980s whose exploits coincided with a renaissance...
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