Craig,

You forgot the best part: his ulcer was so bad that he bled through his shirt (!) - now that’s a nasty ulcer.

I’ll give you the score. It’s very good, and was one of the Oscar nominated parts of that movie.

The Natural is not without its merits.  Like I said, it is a pretty movie, and I have always been a sucker for the inter-war period in particular.  Bump Bailey dying was actually kind of fun (there’s a dark humor to that bit that I wish the rest of the movie shared).

And I won’t sit here and rail at the Natural simply because it veers off from the book.  That is a valid point of criticism, but I usually tend to let books and movies stand on their own, for better or for worse.

I guess my biggest problem is one of tone.  There is So. Much. Weight. on Redford’s character, but the movie doesn’t earn that weight.  We’re supposed to take Hobbs’ secretiveness and laconic nature as evidence of some great mystery, but there just isn’t any there there.  What was with his past with the Glenn Close character? We need more details in order to assess the drama between those two.  And what of the woman in black?  Did Hobbs really do anything to deserve that gut shot as cosmic justice?  If not, the whole “some mistakes you never stop paying for” business is senseless.  If so, we should get to see it so that we can view Hobbs as something other than some Superman/Jesus figure.

OK, I gotta stop now.  That movie just grinds my gears.

Rather than finish the “Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Trial Continuance” that’s been moldering on my desktop, I took it upon myself to see why “The Natural” garnered four Oscar nods in 1984, and the answer is: Who knows?  1984 was actually a kind of awesome year for movies: http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.11640

I mean, you’ve got outstanding “prestige” flicks (Amadeus, The Killing Fields), brilliant indie movies (Repo Man, Stranger Than Paradise, Paris, Texas), and some of the great popcorn movies of all time (Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator, Ghostbusters, etc.).  Not to mention Molly Ringwald’s finest screen moment (Sixteen Candles) and one of the best concert movies ever (Stop Making Sense).  And, of course, “CHUD.”