The Perfect Game

Starring: Clifton Collins Jr., Cheech Marin, Jake T. Austin
Directed by: William Dear (“Angels in the Outfield”)
Written by: W. William Winokur (debut)

It’s not easy to swing for the fences when the pitcher can’t even get it over home plate.

Therein lies the problem for “The Perfect Game,” the true story of the first Mexican baseball team to win the Little League World Series. While the material is there to develop an inspirational underdog sports movie, director William Dear and screenwriter W. William Winokur seem more comfortable lobbing Wiffle balls into the air when all the narrative is begging for is something with a bit more momentum. Sadly, “Game” plays like a lightweight athlete despite its big, misplaced heart.

In the film, a group of ragtag kids from the poverty-stricken, industrial town of Monterrey form a baseball team to compete against the best in the world. They enter the tournament when Cesar (Clifton Collins Jr.), a washed up local who was recently fired from the Major League, agrees to coach the boys and turn them into a competitive team. Cue the formulaic training montages and siesta jokes.

While “The Perfect Game” is exactly the type of story Hollywood needs to sit up and pay attention to, there’s no sense in supporting something that feels so unauthentic and glossed over. Never mind that the movie is in English (at least the kids fall back on their thick, cartoonish Mexican accents), the real eye-rolling should begin during a scene where a baseball literally falls from heaven. Then there’s the scene where the team recruits a player based on how hard he hits a piñata and another where the team stops for lunch at a diner and proceeds to dip their fried chicken into chocolate sauce to make molé.

The best line in the movie comes from team pitcher Angel Macias (Jake T. Austin) when he asks his coach where he learned how to throw a fastball.

“Who taught you how to pitch?” the young ballplayer asks.

“Cardinals,” Coach Cesar says referring to his days with the professional team in St. Louis.

“From the Basilica?” Angel asks with a sweet innocence.

There are a few other cute moments like that one when “Game” gets away with flaunting its cloying script, but those moments don’t come close to outweighing the massive amount of sports, religion, and cultural clichés from both sides of the border.

“It would take a miracle to make these kids into a real team,” Cesar says at one point.

It would take a heck of a lot more to make “The Perfect Game” as interesting as the black and white photos of the real-life players it displays during the closing credits. That’s the story everyone should really be rooting for.

Extract

Starring: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig
Directed by: Mike Judge (“Office Space”)
Written by: Mike Judge (“Office Space”)

As a frustrated owner of a flavor extract company, actor Jason Bateman is as good as the role allows him to be. That’s the problem with Mike Judge’s screenplay. The majority of the characters are one-trick ponies. It works for characters like Milton in “Office Space,” but an entire film crammed with these people is just too much to bare for a feature-length film. Still, there are some humorous situtations that play out fairly well.

Clifton Collins Jr. – Star Trek

Line up the characters that actor Clifton Collins Jr. has portrayed during his nearly 20-year career and it’s no wonder people might not recognize him once he’s off the set.

In “Star Trek,” Collins Jr. (second from the right at the L.A. premiere), who is the grandson of the late comedic actor Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez (“Rio Bravo”), plays Ayel, the right-hand Romulan henchman of Nero (Eric Bana). The Romulans are the alien race who threatens the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

During an interview with me, Collins Jr., 38, talked about what it’s been like playing a variety of roles over the years and why he thinks we’ll soon be living in a world full of Trekkies.

The last time I interviewed you was for your amazing work in “Capote.” How has your life changed since that breakout role?

I’ve just been branching out. I’m even directing music videos. I’m diversifying my talent and doing different things across the board. And then I still go after these [acting] roles. I still have the same work ethic. I love acting. I love pounding the pavement and getting in the room and doing the dance. For “Star Trek,” J.J. [Abrams] offered me the role. I think everything else I’ve ever been in I had to audition for.

In the span of two months I’ve seen you in “Star Trek,” “Sunshine Cleaning,” and “Crank: High Voltage.” Do you ever worry about a Clifton Collins overload?

Not yet. I don’t really look like Clifton Collins in most of my films. I think I’m pretty safe right now. I think if I was one of those actors that always wanted to play himself then I would definitely be afraid of that. I do think that I’m starting to run out of disguises though. (Laughs)

Is that something your conscious of when preparing for your next role?

Totally. I try to find ways to make characters original and different and interesting. Doing this brings me growth as an actor. That’s been one of the joys of acting – playing all these different types of people.

Is that something you learned from your grandfather since some people might say he wasn’t as lucky in terms of landing diverse roles?

I’d have to disagree with that. A Mexican American Tejano who couldn’t read or write and who became a contract player for John Wayne I think would be considered incredibly lucky. It’s hard enough to get work in this town. Also, the roles that he took, I don’t see anything wrong with playing the common man. It’s like Johnny Cash singing about the issues of the common man, the middle class, the lower class. He played to people he grew up with. [My grandfather] wasn’t Ricardo Montalban. He wasn’t José Ferrer. He was not privileged and didn’t live in Beverly Hills. He was very poor. To be able to be the hit that he was and be the only person to one-up Groucho Marx, who at the time was the greatest comedian living, is pretty sensational.

Is it safe to say that you were not a Trekkie before landing this role?

I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to watch all the episodes of “Star Trek” and become a Trekkie overnight. But this movie is an amazing ride. Whether you’re a Trekkie or not it’s a great film. It would actually make a great Western.

I’m sure you know there is a stereotype associated with people who like “Star Trek.” A Trekkie wouldn’t be considered the coolest guy to know. Do you think this film is going to change that?

Let’s just throw that out the window right now because that idea is goooone! If to be a fan of this film is to be a Trekkie then I think the whole world is going to be Trekkies. (Laughs)

Does it worry you at all that this film already comes with a huge fan base, some of whom may examine this new movie with a fine-tooth comb?

I don’t really think that way. I think doing a job that people will microscopically dissect is not really exciting for me. What’s exciting for me is knowing if people enjoyed the piece. I want to know if they get lost in it. If people want to be meticulous, I think it’s more of a personal thing for me.

What role in the early part of your career would you tell someone to revisit if they want to know more about who you are as an actor?

They’re all crazy and different. I don’t think I could choose. I’m an actor. You tell me what kind of movie you want to see and I’ll tell you which movie to watch.

Sunshine Cleaning

Starring: Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, Alan Arkin
Directed by: Christine Jeffs (“Sylvia”)
Written by: Megan Holley (debut)

It’s no surprise first-time screenwriter Megan Holley fashioned the script for her dark comedy “Sunshine Cleaning” from a report on National Public Radio. It’s just the type of mildly off-beat story one would expect to hear on a show like “All Things Considered”: Two female friends from Seattle start a crime-scene clean-up company.

The inspiration itself might have easily ruined a feature film — characters written with sensitivity and humor usually don’t ride tragedy’s coattails — but Holley and director Christine Jeffs (“Sylvia”) are able to detail the job’s unpleasantness with fake blood and synthetic brain chunks while still managing to create sympathetic characters and a strangely intimate world.

Relocating the women to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and rewriting the female duo as sisters, “Sunshine Cleaning” follows Rose Lorkowski (two-time Academy Award nominee Adams), a 30-something single mother who’s making ends meet as a cleaning lady. Once the popular head cheerleader in high school, Rose relives her glory days through an ongoing affair with married ex-boyfriend Mac (Zahn), who now works as a police officer.

Rose decides she needs a career change after she ends up cleaning the house of a former classmate. She’s also desperate to make extra money to send her eccentric son to a private school because his principal wants her to medicate the boy for his harmless, albeit peculiar, classroom antics (most recently, licking everything he can put his tongue to).

Taking advice from Mac, Rose begins mopping up the blood, and she recruits her burned-out sister Norah (Blunt), who has emotional problems stemming from (minor spoiler alert) their mother’s suicide when they were kids. Why these two would ever decide to start a company where suicide cleanup is part of the job is beyond comprehension, but the lazy parallel does most of the screenwriter’s heavy lifting, and the gals are fairly good at what they do, despite their initial naiveté concerning biohazard-disposal regulations.

Luckily, they receive a crash course in decomp (Tip Number One: You can’t just throw a blood-soaked mattress in a Dumpster) from Winston (Collins), a one-armed model-builder who owns a cleaning-supplies store.

Rose and Norah become haz-mat-suited cleaning women with support from their father (Academy Award winner Alan Arkin, who basically rehashes his grandfatherly role from “Little Miss Sunshine” minus the cocaine), and attempt to scrub away death’s aftermath. In one subplot, Norah searches out a woman named Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub of “24”), a suicide’s daughter whose photo Norah discovers while cleaning up the mess left behind.

It’s these small strokes of sincerity — away from the yellow police tape, decontamination suits, and a few standard pseudo-indie-film clichés — that make “Sunshine Cleaning” a bittersweet, honest, and well-acted gem.