The Colgate Maroon-News
September 29, 2011
This Week at the Movies:
Moneyball
By Srikar Gullapalli Maroon-News Staff
Moneyball is a highly understated, deeply intimate baseball epic. In the movie, the protagonist Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), strives to rewrite the rules of baseball, and indeed the movie as a whole expands on this vision, rewriting the rules for sports movies everywhere. There’s no inspiring 10-minute speech given by the coach to the players; everything doesn’t fall into place perfectly; there are no clear cut heroes and villains at the end and the sports team itself is not the central attraction of the movie. For someone with extreme sports movie fatigue (which I’m guessing is most of us), Moneyball is quite the antidote. Welcome to the most complex and intimate portrait of the baseball industry and the people who populate it ever shown on the big screen. The film opens with the Oakland Athletics losing a postseason game to the New York Yankees, followed by their three star players going to free agency. Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, starts to get frustrated with the extremely limited amount of money that he has to manage his
PLAY BALL: Pitt returns to the big screen this Fall to portray Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.
neontommy.com
team with. He visits the Cleveland Indians to trade players with them, and there he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young Economics major who just graduated from Yale. Brand swears by a statistical approach to picking baseball players as opposed to having subjective scouts “scouting” out talent. Beane gives Brand a job as assistant General Manager after Brand tells Beane that he would’ve drafted Beane in the ninth round with no signing bonus (Beane was a former baseball player who showed a lot of promise during the scouting season, but never managed to perform throughout his career). Beane utilizes the statistical methods to pick his team for the new season to the dismay of the scouting team for the Oakland Athletics and Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the manager of the Athletics. While the Athletics start the season by losing most of their initial games, hence drawing the ire of critics from within and without, they then go on to perform tremendously well after Beane bets it all by trading away his star “traditional players” (who were not picked by the statistical method) and all of a sudden the Oakland Athletics turn around and go on to win 20 straight games in a row. All through this, we follow Beane’s history (of a potentially promising career that never quite materialized) while also being given a front row seat to his interactions with his 12-year-old daughter who is living with her mother. Moneyball is an intimate portrait of real people in very real situations. The movie is undoubtedly a Brad Pitt vehicle and he hits a home run (I had to). His emotional arc is complex, subtle and powerfully implemented. By the bittersweet end, you feel like you’ve been best friends with him all your life. The writing is minimalistic, as opposed to the usual rapid-fire dialogue that we’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin, with extended periods of silence and some awkwardness but it is all so palpably real (a trait that is very Steven Zaillian, the other writer) and fits so well together that I forgot for a little bit that I was watching just a movie. The direction is fantastic. The still shots – unlike all the shaky camera work that has become the fashion nowadays –angles and lighting have been so masterfully implemented that the director ensures the viewer is an intimate part of Beane’s emotional rollercoaster journey. Don’t be surprised if this movie scoops up a healthy chunk of Oscar nominations come 2012. Watch it now, I recommend it in the highest possible terms. Contact Srikar Gullapalli at sgullapalli@colgate.edu.
KITCH 121: Stir Crazy By Emily Suskin Maroon-News Staff
A stir-fry is a great way to use up some of the ingredients you may have around your kitchen. It has four main parts: a protein, a starch, vegetables and a sauce. I used buckwheat soba noodles for my stir-fry. Of course, you could use regular spaghetti if that is what you have on hand, but if you are feeling a little bit more adventurous, the international and gluten-free aisles of the supermarket tend to have things like brown rice noodles and other options. Regardless, be sure to read the package and get an idea of how long it should take for the noodles to cook. I only had to cook mine for about three minutes. If you don’t like tofu, you can certainly use another protein such as chicken or beef. Just be sure that the protein is in the pan for long enough to cook through. Please be careful when it comes to cooking the protein, especially if you choose tofu, as the water in the tofu can cause the oil to splatter. So, be sure to keep the oil on a low temperature and stay at a safe distance from the pan – you can put a top over the pan if you are still nervous about it.
about 4 oz of noodles 1 tbsp vegetable or canola oil 1 package of extra firm tofu, cubed 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1 small white onion, sliced 2 crowns of broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces 1-2 carrots, diced 1 red pepper, diced 6 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce 2 tbsp creamy peanut butter 1 and 1/2 tsp. rice vinegar Crushed red pepper flakes, sriracha or other hot sauce (optional) 1. PREP. Mince, dice, slice and cut the vegetables so that the cooking process goes quickly. If you have a few extra
minutes during the day, you can do this step ahead of time, and then you will be able to throw dinner together when you are ready later on. 2. START COOKING. Boil the water for your noodles in a medium pot. Then sauté the oil and tofu in a medium sized pan on low heat; be sure to stir the tofu so that it cooks evenly. As the tofu continues to cook, it will turn a golden color. 3. SAUCE. Combine the soy sauce, peanut butter, rice vinegar and spicy ingredient (if you choose to use one) in a small bowl. 4. CONTINUE COOKING. Once the water reaches a boil, add the noodles to the water and the garlic and vegetables into the pan with the tofu. After just a couple of minutes (depending on what kind of noodles you use), the noodles will be done and ready to be drained. You do not want to cook them until they are mushy, because they will continue to cook when they are mixed in with the other ingredients. 5. MIX IT ALL TOGETHER. Add the noodles and sauce into the pan of vegetables and tofu. Let cook for a minute or two, then enjoy! Contact Emily Suskin at esuskin@colgate.edu.
PEANUT-SOY STIR-FRY NOODLES Serving size: 4 Emily Suskin
Arts & Features
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Entertainment Update Your Week in Preview By Hadley Rahrig Maroon-News Staff
GATE-TOWN CONNECTION This Friday, September 30, the first annual Gate-Town Connection barbecue will be held. Hosted by students from the Blue Diamond Society, Gamma Phi Beta, Colgate Fire Fighter Volunteers and the Office of Residential Life, the event aims to bring together the Colgate and Hamilton communities in an afternoon of fun. It will take place from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Whitnall Field. Free food will be provided alongside inflatables, a dunk tank and other activities.
THE SOUND OF COLGATE Presenting the classic of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Colgate’s very own orchestra is offering a free concert to the public Sunday, October 2 from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Memorial Chapel. This impassioned showcase of music will be supplemented with the work of Zhou Tian, a composer and new professor at Colgate. This performance promises a medley of overtures, including Corigliano Promenade Overture, the Dvorak Carnival Overture and Zhou’s composition titled “The Palace of Nine Perfections.”
FRIDAY FLICK The Friday Night Film Series continues this week with Douglas Sirk’s 1956 movie Written on the Wind. This powerful drama depicts the story of a family born into the wealth and glamor of a Texas oil empire and the scandalous behaviors that send their success into a spiral. The film is showing in Golden Auditorium from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. this Friday, September 30.
LIVE MUSIC: CAMPBELL BROTHERS Although the essential message of their art is connected to African American gospel music, the Campbell Brothers have created an interesting style based on a heavy dose of steel guitar and true rock vibrations. On Saturday, October 1 at the Earlville Opera House, the amalgamation of worship and rock presented by the Campbell Brothers is available for your enjoyment. Beginning at 8:00 p.m., the concert will feature “Sacred Steel,” a genre created by blending the methods of picking and sound distortion to create an otherworldly sound resembling gospel moaning. The Campbell Brothers promise to present a resonating concert of traditional gospel message and powerful sound. SOUTHWESTERN SPICE Colgate food enthusiasts, mark your calendars. This Monday, October 3, the Park United Church on Broad Street offers students the chance to investigate the realms of Southwestern Cuisine. Instructed by Leslie Yacovone, this interactive class explores the variety of spices, flavors, and techniques characteristic to Southwestern cooking. For non-members this opportunity will cost $30 to $35 and takes place at 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Be certain not to miss this prospect to experience Southwestern cooking first hand. Contact Hadley Rahrig at hrahrig@colgate.edu.