Field of Dreams

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) has an interesting, baseball-laced background.  His father had a brief career as a minor league baseball player and tried to pass down the traditional American love of baseball down to Ray, but as a rebellious teen about to throw himself completely into the hippie lifestyle of the sixties, Ray wanted nothing to do with his father or baseball.  Now, at age thirty-six, Ray is a pretty normal guy with a wife, Annie (Amy Madigan) and a little girl, Karin (Gaby Hoffmann).  He decides to become a farmer in Iowa and soon, starts hearing a voice in his cornfield.

“If you build it, he will come.”  The voice is vague, mysterious and rather haunting, Ray can’t find a way to shake it.  Through a vision, he figures out that the ‘it’ he should build is a baseball diamond and the ‘he’ will be Shoeless Joe Jackson, an expelled baseball player his father used to tell him stories about.  To build this field would mean destroying some of his crop, a huge financial risk.  To not build is more logical and safe, but would only leave Ray with a huge what-if.  He realizes a part of him that fears aging, turning into his father and never doing anything great.  What if his father ignored voices?  It’s a huge leap of faith, but building this diamond could be his only chance.

So Ray and Annie decide to go for it and build a beautiful baseball diamond right next to their corn and house.  Now everyone in this little Iowa farm town thinks they’re crazy.  It takes a long time, and just when the financial issues are rising up, Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) shows up to play ball.  Soon, more dead ball players come out of the field, but only the people who believe can see them.

As the financial issues become more serious, the voice returns, with Ray and Annie interpreting that it wants Ray to take Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones), a controversial author of the sixties, to a baseball game.  When you’ve done this much at the whim of a disembodied voice, you’ve got to see it through to the end.

Now, I know that some people look at Field of Dreams as just a baseball movie, it’s not.  Baseball just happens to be the physical theme that can be passed down from generations, with stories and action that can make anyone feel in their prime.  It works well to bring out a simple past-time.  The film does recognize that baseball is not the most important thing a man can do in his life, even if it is his dream.  When we meet Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), we understand how close he was to his dream of becoming a baseball star.  He only played for five minutes in the majors and went on to become a doctor.  For Ray, he finds this to be a tragedy, to come so close to a dream and back down to a normal vocation.  Graham puts a larger perspective on his decision, saying, “Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”  Baseball is a dream life, those five minutes on the field should be cherished, but the world does not revolve around it.

While this idea is mystical, intriguing and wonderful one thing really irks me…does this idea only apply to baseball?  Could there be another person somewhere hearing voices and having visions to build a giant greenhouse where dead gardeners will show up and his/her dead and estranged parent will show up and they’ll bond by watering some flowers together?  I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but rather hopeful.  Why should there only be a personal heaven built for baseball players?  How many people have ignored the voices and left the rest of us hanging in the non-exclusive parts of heaven?  If you ever hear a voice telling you to build an outdoor theater showing Raider of the Lost Ark with a never ending supply of beer and chicken wings, don’t ignore it and let me say thank you in advance.

“Iowa?  I could have sworn this was heaven.”

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

Can you imagine what it would be like if Star Wars had never existed?  The whole world might be a little darker, less imaginative and with fewer openly proud nerds.  When meeting someone named Luke, there would be no “I am your father” response to break the ice or annoy him.  Backwards Yoda sentences would only be heard in mental wards and giant danishes would not evoke a hairstyle.  Hell, my brother was named Lucas because we were trying to figure out a name for him while watching Star Wars.  Who knows who he would be today without it.  Like it or not, we have all been affected by the film giant the Star Wars saga has become.

I’m sure there are nerds out there still fuming over the film’s loss in the Best Picture category, but my goodness people, this weird little sci-fi film came so far.  There are plenty of documentaries out there about the story behind Star Wars and all the odd obstacles that were in its way.  You watch a half an hour of any of those and you will learn more than I can recite on my little blog.

Now I’m not that old, but I’m proud to say that back when I was first being introduced to Star Wars, we didn’t have all that CGI Special Edition junk just added in for the sake of ten seconds of new footage.  Those puppets are still more lifelike to me than any computer rendered character.  The Cantina scene is one of my favorite examples of the creativity behind Star Wars.  There’s such a wide variety of puppets, robots, people in odd masks and even the music is something out of this world.  Does anyone know the proper term for the race of the Cantina band?  Every set, from Luke’s farm home on Tatooine to the Death Star are full of meticulous details.  Every little thing has a new space-aged twist to it.  Swords are lightsabers, chess has holographic monsters, sixth gear is light-speed.

For a kid first being introduced to Darth Vader and the Empire, it can be scary.  Just visually, Darth Vader has an intimidating presence. but that breathing raised the hairs on my neck.  When Darth Vader double crossed Princess Leia, after she gave up the information to save her planet, and they still blew up Alderaan with the Death Star, well that was just terrifying.  Right away, we realize the power of the Empire and the dangers of being a rebel.

Then there’s The Force, that mystical energy that binds us all together.  Suddenly, we have a film with a new mystic interpretation of religion within a science-fiction/fantasy film about revolution and coming of age.  It may sound like a mess, but these moments with Obi-Wan explaining the ways of The Force to Luke may be a moment of clarity for those spiritually seeking and losing faith within conventional religions.  And what Star Wars presents isn’t anything controversial, it’s good advice to be mindful of your feelings and trust your instincts.

At the Oscars Star Wars won most of the technical and artistic award, but the Academy also awarded Ben Burtt an honorary award for his amazing work with sound effects.  Think about all the noises we just associate with Star Wars now:  the hum of light sabers, Chewbaca’s Wookie growl, R2-D2’s excited digital babel.  The phrase, “You sound like a Tuscen Raider,” is completely understood in my family when describing a cough.  Burtt was the man behind the noise, mixing bears and walrus growls into a new breed of sidekick and turning a baby’s coo into a robot’s worried sound byte.  The imagination and ingenuity behind all the sounds, all the little details in Star Wars is simply amazing and deserved some extra recognition.

With Star Wars, there’s no concern about people missing out.  Everyone has seen it and future generations undoubtedly will too.  The real question is how do we present Star Wars to kids today and in the future.  With no plans or concern for spawning little film nerds anytime soon, my husband and I have already decided that Star Wars will be shown to any future offspring before the age of three, but none of the second trilogy until they’re old enough to understand the original.  This video may be a joke, but I find it has some good advice, especially on how to make sure children develop an appropriate attitude towards Jar Jar.  And parents, please don’t make the mistake of thinking Star Wars is only for boys.  Your daughters need to be exposed to more than the Disney Princesses.  Leia is one of the strongest female role models on film you can give your daughter while also filling in the term Princess.

“Darth Vader.  Only you could be so bold.”