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Star Players: Mr Baseball (1992), Communion (1989)

 

Tom Selleck, as an affable mid-tier movie star, was an affordable muse for Australian filmmakers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, working under Bruce Beresford on Her Alibi, Simon Wincer on Quigley, and Fred Schepisi on Mr Baseball (1992). The last of these titles was one of the umpteen American baseball comedies that pervaded multiplexes in the 1990s—see also the Major League films, A League of Their Own, Angels in the Outfield, The Sandlot Kids, Cobb, Rookie of the Year, The Scout, Ed, and so on—with Kevin Costner’s great trio of baseball films (Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For Love of the Game) bookending the era. Despite my admiration for Schepisi, I'd never seen Mr Baseball before now, and my dominant point of reference for the film was a line in Bruce Beresford’s book There’s a Fax from Bruce, where the director laments local media jabs at his newest release: “Very nice of the SMH to note the bad reviews for my film. Did they do the same for Fred (Schepisi) on Mr Baseball and Peter (Weir) on Fearless? Why am I singled out!”

Mr Baseball is no Fearless, but it is well-made fun. Falling between Schepisi's Le Carre adaptation The Russia House and his stage adaptation Six Degrees of Separation, Mr Baseball lacks the sturdy source material of those works and is, as its surprisingly detailed Wikipedia page illustrates, a product of multiple chefs that nonetheless coheres well. The plot revolves around an ageing baseball player’s (Selleck) recruitment by a Japanese team, his friction with his new coach (Ken Takakura) and culture, and romance with the coach’s daughter (Aya Takanashi).

Schepisi's film captures the circus quality and eccentric pageantry of its titular sport, with an anthropological curiosity and satirical clarity afforded, I would argue, by its Australian director and Japanese setting, which remove the usual baseball movie romantic blinkers. The media plays some role in that circus, alternately hailing and cutting down the protagonist, as it did in Schepisi’s earlier film about Lindy Chamberlain, A Cry in the Dark. In its depiction of American/Japanese relations, there are whiffs of Gung Ho, Rising Sun, and Lost in Translation, though Mr Baseball is—forgive the pun—more sporting and less cruel than the latter two titles. Selleck, Takakura, and Takanashi are all solid, and Dennis Haysbert provides nice support in his second-best film about baseball (the best being Major League).

Mad Dog Morgan, probably director Phillipe Mora’s best-known work locally, is a film inextricably linked to and shaped by the eccentricity of its lead actor Dennis Hopper. Communion (1989), probably Mora’s best-known work globally, is similarly inextricably linked to and shaped by its eccentric star Christopher Walken. Of course, it’s also shaped by Whitley Streiber’s writing—recounting (?) his experience of alien abduction (?)—and Mora’s own spirited but schlocky sensibility (see also The Return of Captain Invincible, The Howling II-III, etc.). But really, it’s Walken—11 years after his Oscar-winning work in The Deer Hunter and six after his previous excursion into the paranormal, The Dead Zone—who sets the tone. Not yet entirely self-parodic and ostensibly keeping it real, but pressing into his manic intensity and affected delivery, Walken is a hoot and devours Whitley Streiber (not literally alas) like a delicious steak. Lindsay Crouse provides nice support in her second-best film about extra-terrestrials (the best being David Twohy’s The Arrival) and the practical effects work and lighting are charming and tactile.

Ben 

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