CINEMA CYCLE
(Cardio Workout And Reviewing Movies At The Same Time)
DATE REVIEWED: 05/03/2015
TITLE: Ken Burn’s “Baseball”, Volume #1
FORMAT: VHS
TIME RIDDEN / FILM LENGTH: 1 hour 55 minutes
DISTANCE RIDDEN WHILE VIEWING: 26.9
TOTAL CINEMA MILES LOGGED: 1653.5 miles
SYNOPSIS: The first in a series of 9 video tapes (9 innings, get it?) chronicling the story of baseball in the United States.
CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: History, very rich history that most of us have little clue about, but history that is immensely fascinating.
PROS AND CONS: Loved it. But then again, I am a Ken Burns fanatic and I have yet to see a documentary that this man cannot do well. This series is no exception.
What makes this series so engrossing is the acting done by the voice artists (many recognizable screen actors) that read and narrate the series. Burn’s ability to find snippets of correspondence and newspaper articles that make up most of the documentary is astounding.
This first installment covers the origins of the game and the politics and failures that made up the sport prior to 1900. It was interesting to find out that Baseball was originally an integrated game in its early years, but the prevailing mode of the ruling elite segregated it in the 1890s, which lasted for another 60 years.
I still find it amusing that the first organized baseball club in the country was the New York Knickerbockers, whose home field was called the Elysian Fields in New Jersey. I am looking forward to the next 8 innings of this series.
This film is a part of my LaserDisc Collection.
Clicking on the title will take you to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry for this film.
This film was viewed while exercising on my recumbent cycle. A summary of my time spent working out on my journey through movie-land can be found on Strava.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment