'Trouble with the Curve' trailer is a homerun for baseball purists

Posted Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 3:02 PM Central

by John Couture

When Moneyball came out, the baseball purists cried foul. How could you possibly reduce the nation's pastime to a bunch of 0s and 1s?

Despite the success of Oakland A's in the film (and in real life) after they subscribed to a sabermetric approach to assembling a baseball team. That's really just fancy talk for saying that they put aside the antiquated approach to evaluating talent that included such tried and true measures such as gut feel and whether the player has a "hot" girlfriend in exchange for computer statistics to back up a player's worth to a team.

Are you sleeping yet?

Well, if Moneyball was the film to glorify the future of baseball, then Trouble with the Curve is that film's direct response. I'm sorry Brad Pitt, but you sir are no Clint Eastwood.

Everything that Moneyball chided and dismissed is exalted by everyone in Trouble with the Curve. Well, everyone that is but Matthew Lillard, who is clearly playing a character who would rank Moneyball in his top five movies of all time.

The trailer gives us vintage Clint spouting off his iconic one-liners and while Brad didn't walk away with Best Actor for his baseball movie last year, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see Clint succeed where Brad failed.

Amy Adams is radiant as Clint's daughter and maybe it's just the new-found sap in me from having a daughter of my own this past year, but her passion hit me especially hard. Heck, even Justin Timberlake works, which I still haven't made up my mind on him. He's either really talented or extremely annoying, but he holds his own with Clint here.

Trouble with the Curve hits theaters on September 21.