Two summers ago, I was interviewed for a documentary about Japanese baseball called Land of the Rising Fastball, directed by Lance Miccio. It took them a while to actually finish the movie, and worse, while they were finishing up production, the editor, Andrew Koenig (probably best known as "Boner" on Growing Pains), committed suicide.
But, Lance did send me a DVD of it a few months ago and I watched it. I was embarrassed to note a few mistakes, and one of them was my own (I said Soukeisen went back to 1905, when it was infact 1903. But that's probably not as bad as them labelling Shigeo Nagashima as a Waseda star; you better hope that nobody from Rikkio ever watches this movie).
Overall, I'd say that the movie is an interesting watch if you're an English-speaking fan of Japanese baseball; there are some great segments of interviews with guys like Sachio Kinugasa and Masanori Murakami, done in Japanese and subtitled in English, and even some amusing stories from guys like Doug DeCinces and Gabe Kapler. And of course, you can see people like me and Michael Westbay babbling as well (and, embarassingly, you can hear me sing Hichori's ouenka. I think that was my biggest "OMG MUST TURN OFF THE DVD NOW" moment when watching it).
I will also say that there are definitely times when it drags; notably when Lance is trying to make a point about how World War 2 was Very Very Bad and there's like 5 minutes of various footage that doesn't really add to the movie as a whole.
Anyway, the actual reason I'm writing this post right now is that if you happen to be in the Bay Area, the movie is going to be screened at the Other Cinema in the Mission district of San Francisco, and you can meet Lance and ask him questions about the movie and all. It'll be shown on September 25th at 8:30pm, I believe.
Also, it's really embarrassing, but I did actually write a post about the filming and just never took it out of the draft pile on here because I was busy and absentminded, so here's my post about the movie filming if it didn't already show up backdated on your RSS readers.
3 comments:
I'm going to try to catch that theater showing. Thanks for the heads up!
The scheduling is a little unfortunate for San Francisco baseball fans, though, because the Giants are playing the Rockies that day for what may be a shot at the division title. The game will probably be over by the time the movie starts, but those who don't live very close to the theater might be a bit late.
Also, since this is my first time commenting, I wanted to mention that I really enjoy this blog. I've been reading it for awhile now, and it's a great window into a world I previously knew nothing about. So thanks for all you do here; it's definitely appreciated.
Hi, thanks for your comment!
I actually know absolutely nothing about the theater or the event at all, but I had a feeling some people might be interested in it so I made a post. So if it is inconvenient or crowded or you think the movie sucks, I'm sorry in advance :)
You have an imdb page now, congrats!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3358126/
You should put up a fancy headshot.
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