Fever Pitch EXTENDED RED SOX EDITION [HD]

Movie Gets 4 Stars, DVD Edition is a rip-off, though
I'm a Red Sox fan and a sucker for romantic comedies, so I waited for the "Special Red Sox Collectors Edition" before even seeing the flick for the first time -- I knew I wanted to buy it. This review contrasts the two editions, with some minor comments about the movie at the end.

Now I see I paid an extra $4 for the "Collector's Edition" over the regular DVD release for what amounts to about a minute of extra Red Sox highlights interpolated at the end. That's it. That's the only difference. That, my friends, is a rip-off from the marketing people, and a pretty crummy one.

Not to say that as a DVD this isn't a very nice package. The gag reel is pretty funny. The directors' commentary and a couple of the featurettes are interesting enough. And the deleted scenes, frankly, make it into a better movie; I only wish they'd done a Director's cut and re-inserted the deleted scenes, because it makes the occasionally thin plot a lot fleshier. In particular, the deleted...

A true romance
Selfless love exists in many forms. "Fever Pitch" artfully weaves two of them.

One of Ben Wrightman's (Jimmy Fallon) 9th grade muses asks him, "When have the RedSox ever loved you back?" But for all of us who have loved and lost and loved some more, the answer isn't so clear.

Especially during these past few years (thank you John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Theo Epstein), that love has been requited. But the years of Jimmy Williams and Dan Duquette weren't so bad after all either. And we'll always have Ted Williams (and Harry Hooper, and even Babe Ruth for a few years . . .)

Drew Barrymore plays her second romantic movie ending on a baseball field (Never Been Kissed) extremely well. She's a vulnerable cutie with lots of female power and a straight shooter. In my opinion, she shares her secret shame of "seeing patterns of numbers and rearranging them into new patterns" quite well. Her buddies are convincing women characters that test and question...

a love/hate relationship between a city and their baseball team
forget Jimmy and Drew. This is really not about them. It is the actual story of how the city of Boston has developed a love/hate relationship with the baseball team that has broken their hearts for too many years. Every spring, the fans of Red Sox nation begin their courtship of a championship season and every autumn they are once again left at the alter. Except the year this movie was made. Somehow, someway, the Sox did it and it was captured in this movie. Buy it just to keep your Red Sox highlight disk company.

Is God a movie fan..He must be!

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