Long Gone: VHS Video of the Lorimar/HBO movie
First of all, this is a fun movie, and it’s great to see Paul Hemphill’s book made
into a well-done baseball flick. I’d rank it in the top 7 or 8 all-time baseball
movies. The movie stays pretty close to the book’s storyline, which is
a plus, and it’s a movie that has humor, players that look like they can actually
play baseball, and a decent feel for the AFL life…….Now, let me bitch
a while…..
I really hate it when a movie can’t make the effort to
add a little bit of realism. Some of the fields used are far too nice, with
grass so smooth it looks like Astroturf. Also, the modern vinyl padding
on some of the outfield walls and the fairly modern scoreboards just don’t fit.
They went to the trouble of putting appropriate 1950’s cars in the scenes,
why not use a field that would be somewhat representative of the average
AFL field? Viewers would have a cow if an SUV went cruising through the 1950’s
street scenes, so why is it okay to screw up the stadiums? Not only
that, but what’s the use of changing the name of the Graceville Oilers to the mythical
Tampico Stogies, and moving Crestview Florida to Crestview Alabama?
The Andalusia team is named the Rebels. Why not the Arrows? Only the Dothan
Cardinals are named acurately, and that’s because it’s important to the storyline.
I’m sure the Hollywood idiots have some « focus group » data that
says these details don’t matter, and to most folks, they probably don’t. So why
mess with it at all?? Why not try to be totally true to the book?? I guess
that’s why I’m not making movies…….
There, I feel better now. Long Gone is well worth the $7.00 to $8.00 price
tag (used on EBAY, AMAZON, or HALF.COM) or you can get a new copy at AMAZON for
about $13.00 or so. No DVD version has been released as of August, 2002.
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