Before Geena Davis was cast as catcher and assistant manager Dorothy “Dottie” Hinson in A League of Their Own, Debra Winger had the role. In an 8.13 Telegraph interview, Winger says that she trained hard and took the part seriously, but decided to quit when director Penny Marshall cast Madonna as centerfielder Mae “All the Way” Mordabito.

Winger interpreted the Madonna casting as a sign that Marshall intended to make an insubstantial “Elvis film.”

If you ask me Winger was being a bit harsh in her assessment of the then-30-year-old pop singer and sometime actress. I had seen Madonna in the original B’way production of David Mamet‘s Speed-The-Plow in ’88, and while it was obvious that she wasn’t a gifted actress she wasn’t half bad. Another way of putting it is that Madonna held her own as well as she could. She certainly didn’t embarass herself of let down her costars, Joe Mantegna and Ron Silver.

Based on this performance alone, Madonna deserved at least a modicum of respect from Winger.

Winger’s final assessment of League: “As entertaining as [the final film] was, you don’t walk away going ‘Wow, those women did that.’ You kind of go ‘Is that true?’”

Three or four thoughts come to mind in the wake of Variety‘s Joe Otterson reporting that a series adaptation of Field of Dreams has been ordered straight-to-series at Peacock, with Michael Schur serving as writer and executive producer.

Question #1: What is the difference between shameless and shameful? Or do both equally apply in this instance?

Question #2: The notion of expanding a perfectly made film (i.e., one with a beginning, middle and an end within the span of 107 minutes) into a series is hideous, of course. By this I mean conceptually hideous. On a line-by-line, scene-by-scene, episode=by-episode basis, the hideousness of such a series could potentially be off the charts.

Question 3: Phil Alden Robinson‘s 1989 original (based on W.P. kinsella‘s “Shoeless Joe”) imagined the return of several great players from baseball’s early days — Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicotte, Buck Weaver, Chick Gandil (but not Ty Cobb!). As long as we’re digging in for a series, how about bringing back a more recent roster of legendary players — Willie Mays, Lou Gehrig, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Maury Wills, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Stan Musial, Roger Maris, Hoyt Wilhelm, Curt Flood, Warren Spahn, et. al.?

Question #4: And what about the creation of two cornfield ghost teams so they could play each other? Or four teams? Or a whole league’s worth? Wouldn’t every dead baseball player worth his salt want to get in on this?

Otterson reports that Schur’s Peaccock series will “reimagine the mixture of family, baseball, Iowa and magic that makes the movie so enduring and beloved.”

Now that you mention it, let’s digitally de-age and reconstitute Burt Lancaster‘s Moonlight Graham back to his late 20s or early 30s, move him to Dyersville, have him play on a regular basis.

This Al Jazeera video of Taliban cadres inside the now-abandoned Kabul presidential quarters reminds me of the 1.6 insurrectionists roaming around inside the U.S. Capitol building (or lounging around inside Nancy Pelosi‘s office) on 1.6.21. They sure do love their beards and turbans and automatic weapons, don’t they? Keep those fingers on the triggers, guys!

Bennett Miller‘s Capote cost $7 million to make, and earned just shy of $50 million worldwide. I’d forgotten that. It made $28,750,530 domestic, $21,173,549 overseas for an exact total of $49,924,079.

I was visiting Miller’s lower Manhattan loft apartment around the same time, maybe a few weeks hence, I forget exactly when. But I distinctly recall Bennett showing me some original Richard Avdeon contact sheet photos of Truman Capote, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, and for whatever reason Bennett happened to call Phillip Seymour Hoffman about something, and as he was saying goodbye he called him “Philly.”

I loved the idea of a distinguished hotshot actor being called Philly, and so I used it myself a few weeks later. I knew it was inappropriate to project an attitude of informal affection with a guy I didn’t know at all first-hand, but I couldn’t resist. I was immediately bitch-slapped, reprimanded, challenged, castigated, stomach-punched, dumped on, stabbed, karate-chopped, slashed and burned….”How dare you call him that? Who the hell do you think you are, some kind of insider?…soak yourself with gasoline and light yourself on fire!”

HE review, posted three or four weeks before the 9.30.05 opening: “I’m taken with Capote partly because it’s about a writer (Truman Capote) and the sometimes horrendously difficult process that goes into creating a first-rate piece of writing, and especially the various seductions and deceptions that all writers need to administer with skill and finesse to get a source to really cough up.

“And it’s about how this gamesmanship sometimes leads to emotional conflict and self-doubt and yet, when it pays off, a sense of tremendous satisfaction and even tranquility. I’ve been down this road, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

“I’m also convinced that Capote is exceptional on its own terms. It’s one of the two or three best films of the year so far — entertaining and also fascinating, quiet and low-key but never boring and frequently riveting, economical but fully stated, and wonderfully confident and relaxed in its own skin.

“And it delivers, in Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as Capote, one of the most affecting emotional rides I’ve taken in this or any other year…a ride that’s full of undercurrents and feelings that are almost always in conflict (and which reveal conflict within Capote-the-character), and is about hurting this way and also that way and how these different woundings combine in Truman Capote to form a kind of perfect emotional storm.

“It’s finally about a writer initially playing the game but eventually the game turning around and playing him.

“Hoffman is right at the top of my list right now — he’s the guy to beat in the Best Actor category. Anyone who’s seen Capote and says he’s not in this position is averse to calling a spade a spade.

Film Threat‘s Chris Gore at 5:35 mark: “We live in a time now in which pop culture is consumed so quickly, that a new Disney+ series will come out on a Wednesday, and we’ve dissected every part of it and found every Easter egg and discussed it to death within 24 hours of its airing.

“The same goes with a film. It opens on a Thursday night or Friday, and by Monday it’s all been discussed.”

HE interjection: Unless it’s really good or masterful or mind-blowing in some way, most films begin to see their buzziness dissipate by Saturday night. Thursday night is the best time; back in the old days the slowpokers saw new films on Friday and Saturday night, and if they were really out of it on Sunday.

Seeing The Empire Strikes Back at Loews” Astor Plaza (Broadway and 44th) was one of the greatest viewing experiences of my life, Because I saw it opening weekend (a midnight show on 5.21.80) — totally cold, no reviews, no chat rooms, not a word about Luke’s lineage, nothing.

How many times have I passed along the story about Spooner Oldham and the recording of Aretha Franklin‘s “I Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Love You)“? That song launched her career as a pop artist, and this magic moment happened during a single day’s session at Muscle Shoals’ FAME studios on 1.24.67.

I’ve told this story three or four times at least, but we’re now going to make it five because Respect fudges this little story — it destroys the purity of it. “I Never Loved a Man” was the major turning point in her young life. But in Respect Spooner (played by David Simpson) is no longer the quiet, unassuming session guy who saved the day. He’s now the co-hero because he and Aretha did it together.

I wasn’t in the studio that day so what do I know, right? But according to Muscle Shoals director Greg “Freddy” Camalier it was Spooner who came up with that bluesy Wurlitzer riff that was just right, and everyone knew it.

Bottom line: Muscle Shoals says Spooner did it. Respect says that Aretha and Spooner tag-teamed it.

It would seem that the Respect guys were uncomfortable with a young Alabama white guy being the hero of this particular scene, so they imagined their own version. The movie is called Respect, after all, and not Spooner, and so the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance legend has now been printed.

Apologies to Spooner but them’s the breaks.

Why does it seem as if the furies are constantly swarming down upon poor Haiti? Every time you turn around the country is taking it in the neck. Earthquakes, assassinations, hurricanes, Covid 19, criminal gangs, poverty. No sooner does the populace survive and start to weakly recover from one devastating tragedy when another one comes along. The only thing that hasn’t happened to Haiti is an attack by Kaiju monsters.

1297 Haitians are confirmed dead after a 7.2 earthquake rocked the Les Cayes district of Haiti (southwest peninsula) on Saturday morning…”officials in Les Cayes believe there are only about 30 doctors for about 1 million people“…c’mon, man.

N.Y. Times: “[This is a] devastating blow to a country that is still reeling from a presidential assassination last month and that never recovered from a disastrous quake more than 11 years ago. The recovery was being conducted as a tropical storm approaches and in the throes of a political crisis since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated on July 7.

“The unsolved assassination, a leadership vacuum, severe poverty and systemic gang violence in parts of Haiti, a Caribbean nation of 11 million people, have left the government dysfunctional and ill prepared for a natural calamity.

“The main supermarket and smaller food and supply markets in Les Cayes collapsed, leaving about half a million people with dwindling supplies and worries that eventually there would be looting and fighting over basics like drinking water. The quake snapped the underground pipes of Les Cayes, causing flooding, and triggering some landslides, blocking the main road into Jeremie and complicating relief efforts there.

“Many hospitals and clinics were heavily damaged, and officials in Les Cayes believe there are only about 30 doctors for about 1 million people.

“Herve Foucand, a former senator, was using his small propeller plane to ferry people to Haiti’s capital. ‘I have 30 people in serious condition waiting for me,’ he said. ‘But I only have seven seats.'”

“Small towns surrounding Les Cayes were cut off by landslides and are believed to be even harder hit.”

Surely there are a few HE regulars who’ve seen Sian Heder‘s CODA (Apple TV+) over the last couple of days, and are willing to be honest and modify the enthusiasm levels a bit. The critics have gone apeshit for this film, and yet as agreeable and nicely handled as it is, CODA is not my idea of a a 96% Rotten Tomato score. The Metacritic community has given it a more appropriate 75% score.

As far as it goes, CODA is a pleasing, well-made family drama. There’s nothing wrong with this kind of film. It’s just not triple-A level, and that’s not a putdown — it’s merely a qualification.

Peter Rainer: “As effective as it is — and it is an effective tearjerker — it does go down the checklist of things to push your buttons on. It’s almost like a really well-designed Broadway show.”

The Telegraph‘s Tim Robey: “Sian Heder’s film [reduces] far too many of the family dynamics to the level of a bickering sitcom. The film is also obsessed to a fatuous degree with how much hilariously loud and vigorous sex her parents have. The film is way too busy playing things cute.”

“CODA especially suffers because of its release four months after Darius Marder’s tremendous Sound of Metal, a genuinely adventurous, formally experimental take on deaf issues which was also directed, written by and principally starred hearing individuals.”