There's no crying in baseball!
I have to admit I love A League of Their Own. It's plot is rather predictable, and sometimes it's rather preachy, but it's still fun.
Directed by Penny Marshall, the movie's big star 'name' was Tom Hanks. The male stars (Hanks, David, Jon Lovitz, Gary Marshall and Bill Pullman), however, play second fiddle to the girls in the movie. And so they should! (Don't get me started about the fact the studios still wanted a male getting top billing.)
Geena Davis is Dottie, the catcher for the Rockford Peaches, and 'star' of the newly formed league. Most of the story centres on her and her sister's (Kit-Lori Petty) relationship. In between we get to see how the league ran (yes, they did have to go to charm school!) and a couple of fun B-stories of the rest of the team. There's the bad girl (Madonna, seemingly type-cast in her best role), the tough loudmouth (Rosie O'Donnell, also type-cast), the girl who can't read (I do love when Mae/Madonna teaches her to read with smut!), the 'ugly' girl who can bat better than anyone (her finding love is so sweet), the shy down-trodden mother with the bratty kid (the only time I got a tear in my eye in the movie is when the kid meets Dottie in the end scene), the girl who receives a telegram from the war office and the pretty blonde one. Enough diverse women for us to identify with one of them!!!!
Hanks (who put on a lot of weight for the role) is Jimmy the Manager/Coach. He starts out as an ass, but in usual movie fashion, he redeems himself and becomes Dottie's friend. I must say that the hint of attraction between Jimmy and Dottie is probably my least favourite part of the movie. Can't women and men, who for all intents and purposes in this situation are workmates, simply be friends? The movie doesn't 'go there', because Dottie is married to Bob, played by the gorgeous Bill Pullman. (Like David, Pullman was becoming a little bit of a 'supporting star' around 1992 when this movie was made and he starred with Hanks and O'Donnell again the next year in Sleepless in Seattle.)
Our David plays Ira Lowenstein, the man hired by the owner of the league to run it. He's quite an interesting character. He is the brains behind the league, and a clever and sometimes ruthless businessman.
To me, his standout scene is when he confronts Jimmy at the first Peaches' game. "...couldn't tell if you were drunk or dead." and "If we paid you a little bit more, Jimmy, do you think you could be just a little more disgusting?" Hee. And of course, DS delivers them great. He really has no issues holding his own with 'stars'.
Ira is also the character who pushes to keep the league going after the men return from the war. He's a real feminist in that he recognises that all women in general were being empowered by their new occupations and that they'd all struggle to come to terms with returning to the kitchen at the end of the war.
My favourite Ira/David scene, however, is one where the characters are attending charm school and Mae/Madonna sashays past and gives him a flirty look. DS is so great in his dismissal of her efforts. It's so funny.
There really was a league, run by chewing gum Wrigley and not chocolate bar Harvey. *snort* It folded when televised games became popular.
Any thoughts, squees, whines, boos, cheers, whatever at A League of Their Own?