Latest news with #Eephus
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New movies streaming this week: 'Captain America: Brave New World' and 'The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie' now available
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck are back. In The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, the duo (and a few other familiar friends) return to the big screen thanks to Ketchup Entertainment after Warner Bros., the longtime steward of the iconic characters, chose to sell off the film rather than distribute it themselves. The new Looney Tunes movie is just one of several newly available to stream this week, including Marvel's Captain America: Brave New World, starring Anthony Mackie as the titular hero and Harrison Ford as the president of the United States. Eephus, a quietly profound indie gem about baseball that is ultimately about life itself, is now available at home, as is the English-language debut of acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, which heads to Netflix on Saturday. The Order, an underrated based-on-true-events thriller with an A-list cast including the likes of Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, makes its way to Hulu. Here's what to know about the movies newly available to stream as of this week, and where you can find them. Click on the links below to jump straight to a specific movie:Marvel's latest Captain America movie was the highest-grossing movie of 2025, until A Minecraft Movie dethroned it faster than you can say 'chicken jockey'! In the film, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie, sporting the superhero's suit and shield) finds himself in the middle of an international incident after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red. Harrison Ford turning into Red Hulk was the centerpiece of the film's marketing campaign, which is a real shame considering the movie treats it as a late reveal, and most of the audience is likely already aware that's what's happening. That means that for most of the movie, it's just Ford taking pills to stop from Hulking out, which isn't very exciting to watch. It's also a bizarre artifact in terms of how it fits into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe — not only is it a stealth sequel to 2008's The Incredible Hulk, but it also requires you to have watched the Disney+ series The Falcon & Winter Soldier to fully grasp who some of the key characters are. The final product is poorly assembled and visually muddled, but fans of the MCU who missed it in theaters and want to stay up-to-date ahead of Thunderbolts* now have their chance. How to watch: Captain America: Brave New World is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video and other video-on-demand platforms. Rent or buy The Day the Earth Blew Up is the first-ever feature-length movie in the 96-year history of Looney Tunes that is 100% animated. Every other Looney Tunes movie has a live-action element; think Space Jam or Brendan Fraser in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, the classic animated odd couple, star in the film and turn into unlikely heroes when their antics at the local bubble gum factory uncover a secret alien mind control plot. Against all odds, the two are determined to save their town, and the world, if they don't drive each other crazy first. Both kids and adults are likely to find it funny throughout, and the stunningly beautiful hand-drawn animation will make you wish more kids fare looked more like this. How to watch:The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video and other video-on-demand platforms. Rent or buy The Order might be the best movie you haven't heard of 2024, and it's finally easily available to watch. Based on the chilling true story, the movie follows veteran FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) as a string of violent robberies in the Pacific Northwest lead him to discover a white supremacist plot to overthrow the federal government. It's gripping from the start and never lets up, features terrific performances from some of its leads as well as all the recognizable actors in supporting roles. It deftly mines a ripped-from-the-headlines story from a different era for the elements that make it relevant today. It's as bleak as it is thrilling, so be forewarned. But if you're into police procedurals or movies about manhunts, this is a great one to put on your list! The Order is now streaming on Hulu. Stream on Hulu An 'eephus" is one of the rarest pitches thrown in baseball, known for its exceptionally low speed and ability to catch a hitter off guard. Typically, an eephus is thrown high in the air, resembling the trajectory of a slow-pitch softball toss. As a character in the movie describes it, it's a pitch that feels like it goes on forever yet somehow is still gone too fast. Sound familiar? Eephus is movie about baseball that functions as just a pure love letter to the sport but also as a metaphor for life and the bitter end of the things that we love. As an imminent construction project looms over a beloved small-town baseball field, a pair of New England rec-league teams face off for the last time. Tensions flare and laughs are shared as an era of camaraderie and escapism fades into an uncertain future. It's a movie that's both celebrating and mourning the end of an era, as these men are set to lose what binds them together. It's a hangout movie not concerned with plot, quietly profound and powerful, and if you weren't romantic about baseball beforehand, you might just be afterward. Eephus is now available to rent or purchase on Prime Video and other video-on-demand platforms. Rent or buy Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton star in The Room Next Door, Pedro Almodóvar's first English-language film It follows Ingrid and Martha, who were close friends in their youth when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of being out of touch, they meet again in an extreme but strangely sweet situation: When Martha faces the prospect of her life ending due to terminal illness, she turns to Ingrid to ask for a not so simple favor. It's a movie about accepting death featuring two characters with different views on the subject, and the uniquely human quality of having the ability to make choices in life. It's a beautifully crafted knockout that will sneak up on you if you let it, though some may bristle at the odd intonation and pacing of the dialogue. There's a poetry to the language, though, and there are some undeniably moving sections and the usual Almodóvarian bright, colorful imagery. Fans of his won't want to miss it, even if it never reaches the highs of some of his previous works. The Room Next Door starts streaming April 19 on Netflix. Stream on Netflix Bonus: Wolf Man is now available on Peacock, and Companion, which I recommended a few weeks ago, is now on Max.
Axios
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Easter Bunny photos, Jurassic Quest, Deftones and other weekend events
🐰 Hop over to Polaris or Tuttle and snap a classic mall photo with the Easter Bunny. Time slots are available through April 19. $40-60 photo packages. Easton's bunny arrives on April 11. 🦖 See life-size dinosaurs at Jurassic Quest inside the Ohio Expo Center's Bricker Building. Noon-6pm Friday, 9am-6pm Saturday and 9am-5pm Sunday, 717 E. 17th Ave. $24-40. Kids under 2 free! 🌍 Savor the flavors of Africa during the African American Heritage Festival on OSU's campus. 5-7pm Friday, Curl Hall second floor, 80 W. Woodruff Ave. Free! Full schedule of events through April 5. 🏒 Watch the Blue Jackets (hopefully) keep their playoff dreams alive during a Kids Takeover Night game against Vancouver. ⚾ Meet the director of the indie baseball film "Eephus" during a screening and Q&A led by local sportswriter Craig Calcaterra at the Wexner Center for the Arts. 7pm Friday, 1871 N. High St. $5-10. 🎟️ Grab a last-minute ticket to these sold-out shows Saturday night.
Los Angeles Times
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘Eephus,' a day of baseball comes to life in all its loose-limbed, adult-league glory
Weekend warriors on their beloved Massachusetts field of battle, fighting a setting sun, form the warmly gruff, jersey-clad roster of 'Eephus,' Carson Lund's appealing beer toast of a baseball picture about a final small-town showdown on a soon-to-be-razed ballpark. The title, pulled from the pastime's rich glossary, refers to an arced throw of such deliberately underwhelming velocity that it confounds the batter. What's been pitched here, however, has enough wonderfully lived-in bend, air and tempo to keep from straying off course. Baseball movies are so often engineered for big-game glory moments, they've forgotten the part that's like an afternoon game of catch. (Something 'Bull Durham' filmmaker Ron Shelton got, admittedly.) Lund, making his feature directing debut after establishing himself as a noteworthy indie cinematographer (most recently on 'Christmas Eve at Miller's Point'), is fan enough of the recreation-league vibe to favor that atmosphere of sun, swigs and swats (the literal and the trash-talking kind) over some predictable competition narrative. His breezy, bittersweet hang of a movie is all the better for it. Not that the visiting River Dogs, led by calm founder Graham (Stephen Radochia), don't want to crush home team Adler's Paint — and vice versa — on this last chance face-off before a school is erected on their cherished diamond. As a bright October day unfolds, the contest mingles with an unavoidable sense of inevitability, but not enough for these once-a-week chums to unnecessarily sentimentalize the situation. Especially when a proper taunt might give you an edge, or at least a good laugh. It's a true ensemble: Altmanesque with a bit of Richard Linklater's eccentricity. The standouts include Keith William Richards, David Pridemore and Theodore Bouloukos in varying shades of appealing grizzledness, with a hilarious appearance by former Red Sox pitcher Bill 'Spaceman' Lee as an interloper who's like the guest turn in an old-school variety show. Lund directs Greg Tango's cinematography toward widescreen compositions and genteel tracking shots of autumnal poetry, allowing every weary soul a ruminative closeup to go with their sharply detailed micro-dramas about the finer points of game play, someone's annoying traits or life's general indignities. 'Eephus,' which Lund wrote with Michael Basta and Nate Fisher (also playing the reliever who explains the film's title, a lazy, hanging pitch) is set in the 1990s, but the only real clues are the cars and a boombox. The constant radio chatter — which includes the unlikely announcing voice of legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman — doesn't give the era away, nor do the younger characters' hairstyles, since mullets and dreads endure. And that well-thumbed score pad, in which league habitue Franny (a memorable Cliff Blake) pencils in balls, strikes and runs from his fold-up table, could just be an old-timer's personal choice. Elsewhere, the accouterments of middle age — paunches, unkempt beards, intransigence, teasing, a resigned air — are as timeless for human comedy as the melancholic notion that all things run out: daylight, a hired ump's hours, a 12-pack's buzz, an irritable player's patience. The rules of baseball, of course, defy time, and 'Eephus' embraces shagginess as a virtue, almost to a fault. Go grab a hot dog or drink mid-movie. Lund's no-rush, anti-narrative pacing encourages it. That's baseball too. As is the risk, however, that you'll miss that homer or, in this case, that exquisitely framed shot or wonderfully exasperated glance. Maybe the most rewarding quality 'Eephus' displays as a first-ballot hall of fame sports movie is the dedication of Lund and company to just being what they are: no-nonsense celebrants of something ephemeral yet enduring. They just want to get a good long look at everything before it fades completely.
Atlantic
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Is an Ode to the Beauty of Baseball
An eephus pitch is one of baseball's many pieces of niche ephemera. It's a weird trick throw that's barely ever glimpsed in the professional game—an arcing lob of the ball, traveling at half the speed or less than a normal pitch; it exists only to catch batters off guard. In the director Carson Lund's beguiling debut film, also called Eephus, a player named Merritt Nettles (played by Nate Fisher) specializes in tossing the pitch and rhapsodizes about its time-stopping sorcery: 'It's kinda like baseball. I'm looking around for something to happen—poof, the game's over.' If the previous paragraph made your eyes glaze over, you may not be the movie's intended audience. But to me, these details are pure poetry, and so is Eephus. The plot-free hangout flick quietly has a ton to say about baseball's eternal appeal, even as the sport weathers the passage of time. Set during the 1990s in Massachusetts, it follows the last recreational-league matchup between two groups of shambling, beer-guzzling baseball enthusiasts; they're clashing once more before a planned development will pave over the site. Eephus is an elegy, but with just the barest hint of sentimentality—a shrugging send-off that simultaneously cares deeply about America's pastime. The film begins with the league's sole enthusiast, Franny (Cliff Blake), settling onto the grass with his portable card table, his pocket binoculars, and his scorecard; slowly, the players begin to dribble onto the field. In red are the members of a team called Adler's Paint, and in blue are the Riverdogs. The history between the two squads is irrelevant, and there's barely any information to glean from their overheard dialogue. Instead, Lund (who also co-wrote the film's script with Fisher and Michael Basta) revels in the minor details, such as the players' many forms of inventive facial hair and their cute little practice rituals. The drama that does arise feels minor, too, such as a brief moment of panic when the Riverdogs realize that their ninth player hasn't shown up yet, which would force them to forfeit. Otherwise, Eephus 's story never goes anywhere. Even though it's clear that at least some of the actors know how to play the game, there isn't much intense activity to take in. Over and over, the viewer sees shots of players briefly crouching in anticipation of something happening (namely, the delivery of a pitch to a batter), then relaxing when it doesn't. That's the magic of baseball: blissful anticipation, with the occasional chance for real action. In lieu of narrative progression, Lund is singularly intent on generating an atmosphere that makes the viewer feel like they're perched in the bleachers. The perfectly calibrated sound design contributes to this heavily; it is expansive and plangent, with the clack of the bat and popping of the ball heard more distinctly than the yelled instructions or friendly banter from base runners. The director's attentive scene-setting helps transform Eephus into a dispatch from another era—a memory bouncing through the decades to somehow reach theaters today. The throwback vibe is further cultivated by the cast, which comes across like a cheerfully old-school collection of performers. Among them is the Boston Red Sox alum Bill 'Spaceman' Lee, one of Major League Baseball's best-known practitioners of the eephus pitch back in the 1970s, who appears in a cameo role. The rest of the actors, most of them unfamiliar names, look like they could have walked onto the set through a time tunnel; their stringy beards, craggy faces, and protruding guts recall those of the players from Lee's era. The renowned 95-year-old documentarian (and fellow Bostonian) Frederick Wiseman also joins to dispense pearls of wisdom in voice-over, dropping well-known quotations from the ball-playing greats between innings. Looking backwards feels inherent to baseball, and I mean this in the warmest manner possible. The game is like the Academy Awards or burger making: an American tradition that, in my opinion, needs little in the way of reinvention. Still, although Lund isn't going for any major tear-jerking moments, his movie invokes the melancholy sense of something important passing into the mists. None of the characters is able to use a smartphone or check social media, given the period setting, but the couple of kids sitting in the stands observe the amateur teams' particular brand of fun as if it's from the Stone Age. Lund cited the Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang's 2003 masterpiece, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, as an inspiration for Eephus. The comparison is apt on a surface level; Goodbye, Dragon Inn is a famous example of 'slow cinema' set in a soon-to-be-closed Taipei theater—an antiquated edifice not unlike an aging ballpark. The film discursively follows some of the picture house's regulars as they attend its last showtime. Beyond their similar presentations, it's also Eephus 's kindred spirit thematically: Each one is a quirky ode to a particular hobby that is still extant in our life, albeit becoming something of a relic. Eephus succeeds as a beautiful portrait of a specific pastime. It's also, delightfully, a low-stakes hang with some dudes swigging Narragansetts—much like baseball itself.
Boston Globe
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Eephus' is a good-natured hangout movie about one final ball game at a beloved field
When I saw 'Eephus' at the New York Film Festival last year, I was on the fence about it. Readers know I'm a huge baseball fan, but I was worn out by the end of the movie. I had a better time watching the same actors play a real live baseball game a few days later, Advertisement Players from Adler's Paint in "Eephus." From left: Jeff Saint Dic, David Torres Jr., Theodore Bouloukos, Ethan Ward, John R. Smith Jr., and Brendan "Crash" Burt. Music Box Films With their diet of multiple movies per day, film festivals can be exhausting. While I trust my reactions to films I either love or hate, it's the movies that lurk on the thin line between a positive and negative review that I always want to revisit when they finally get a general release date. Such is the case with 'Eephus,' because I honestly couldn't remember anything I actively disliked about the film other than the fact that it felt a bit too dragged out by the end. So, I went to see it again before filing this review. I didn't expect my opinion to change, to be honest; I thought this was going to remain a ★★½ review. But somehow, the movie didn't overstay its welcome this time, and I enjoyed it more. Lund has crafted a good-natured hangout movie that tells the story of one final game at Soldiers Field, a New Hampshire-set diamond slated for demolition the following day. (The film was shot in Douglas, Mass.) The game lasts into the night, on a field with no lights. We can hardly see what's going on by then, which is kind of funny. But it shows the commitment of the film's characters, a motley crew of men of varying ages playing on two sponsored teams, Adler's Paint and the Riverdogs. They've convened on Oct. 16 — a Sunday — to play the final game of the final season of an adult competitive league that's been around for quite some time. Advertisement Little mini-dramas lazily unfold. One team only has eight players, because one of the guys has something else to do. And it's clear that Father Time has been encroaching on the bodies of the older men. 'The worst part of this sport is the running,' we're told, and though everyone does their best to hustle, it's obvious that their best days are mere memories now. The film has a raggedy pace not unlike the runners who succeed or fail to score. Still, these guys are here to play, and they take it seriously. They have returned to Soldiers Field every year like the swallows return to Capistrano; it's more by instinct and routine than conscious thought. The film quietly contemplates the minor tragedy of losing such a familiar and comforting location. There are so many characters here it's hard to keep them straight. I don't think the film expects you too, either. You'll recognize everyone, and there are some standouts like grumpy Adler's Paint coach Ed (Keith William Richards), rival Riverdogs coach Graham (Stephen Radochia), a sincere player named Cooper (Conner Marx), and beer-loving Riverdog Troy (David Pridemore). Your beloved Red Sox even get a shoutout, represented by Bill 'Spaceman' Lee, a purveyor of the weird, slow pitch that gives the film its title. 'Uncut Gems''s Wayne Diamond also has a cameo. Cliff Blake in "Eephus." Music Box Films Additionally, the voice of documentarian Frederick Wiseman is heard every so often on the soundtrack, and the game itself is scored by actor Cliff Blake, who sits behind what looks like a TV tray of sorts, armed with his book of stats. When I attended the baseball game in Manhattan, I went to Blake to check the score. It was as if I'd walked into the movie. Advertisement That's probably the best way to describe 'Eephus' — watching it feels as if you are in the bleachers of Soldiers Field. ★★★ EEPHUS Written and directed by Carson Lund. Starring Cliff Blake, Conner Marx, Keith William Richards, David Pridemore, Stephen Radochia, Bill 'Spaceman' Lee, Wayne Diamond, Frederick Wiseman. At the Coolidge, Somerville Theatre, Dedham Community Theater. 98 min. Unrated (salty language, as per a baseball game) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
