Wayne Fleming Movies
Nick Hornby's acclaimed memoir about one man's struggle to balance his love of a woman and his love for soccer was the basis of a well-reviewed British film in 1997, and now gets a Americanized rewrite with this picture, in which the game is changed from soccer to baseball. Ben (Jimmy Fallon) is a high-school teacher who meets Lindsay (Drew Barrymore), who has a successful career in business. Ben and Lindsay don't appear to have much in common on the surface, but they hit it off and are soon involved in a serious romance. But when spring rolls around, Lindsay becomes aware of the true love of Ben's life -- the Boston Red Sox. Despite the team's lamentable record, Ben has been a fiercely loyal Red Sox fan since childhood, and Lindsay finds it hard to compete with his passion for baseball, while Ben is forced to choose between the obsessions of his youth and the enthusiasms of a responsible adult. Fever Pitch was shot in part in Boston during the 2004 baseball season, which to the surprise of the filmmakers saw the Red Sox winning baseball's world series for the first time since 1918. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon, (more)
- 1988
- PG
The 1920s-era play The Front Page was about a Chicago reporter who wants to retire and get married but is tricked by his editor into doing one last story -- which proves to be complicated. It was made into a classic film in 1931 and inspired the 1940 hit movie His Girl Friday, in which the reporter was changed into a woman. Billy Wilder also remade the original film in 1974. Switching Channels is a 1988 remake of His Girl Friday, with Kathleen Turner in the starring role, which has now morphed into that of a cable television network news anchor, Christy Colleran. She wants to marry a rich and handsome sporting goods manufacturer, Blaine Bingham (Christopher Reeve) and move out of town. But her ex-husband, John L. Sullivan IV (Burt Reynolds), who is also her producer and boss, gives her one final assignment to try to keep her around. Her reporting leads her into an investigation of a jail escape that follows a botched-up execution. Writer Jonathan Reynolds updated the original material. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, (more)
- 1987
- R
Josh Wheeler has it good these days as the entertainment director at a golf resort in the Bahamas, but he used to be a pretty active criminal. He owes his freedom to the fact that one of his compatriots went to jail in his stead when he bungled their getaway attempt after a robbery. Now that same man is asking him to do him a favor by arranging free stays for a group of gangsters. In order to explain their presence at the resort, he tells his boss that they're golfing big-shots, and as a result he has to stage a phony tournament for the golfing-impaired thugs to be involved in. What's more, he has to make sure the results of the tourney are profitable to the gangsters, or else... ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ben Gordon, Ron James, (more)
Filmed in just four weeks one fine autumn in 1984, this amateur teen sex romp, with not a lot of sex but a lot of trying, was released a few years later as Screwballs II. A melange of young men and women with only physical contact on their minds have been put together in the same boarding school by their trusting parents. Some inkling of the level of the comedy involved is revealed by the names of these erstwhile students: Steve Hardman, Hugh G. Rection, and Marvin Eatmore. Enough said. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Genesse, Lance VanDer Kolk, (more)
