Justin Timberlake – The Movie Gourmet

There isn’t a surprising moment in Trouble with the Curve, but as predictable as it is, the fine performances and the setting in an often obscure part of the baseball world combine to make it an enjoyable time at the movies.

It’s a story about a dad-daughter relationship. The dad (Clint Eastwood) is a crusty geezer whose failing eyesight threatens his job as a Major League Baseball scout. The daughter (Amy Adams) is an overachieving, workaholic lawyer who is unsatisfied with a relationship that her dad keeps as superficial as possible. They are improbably forced together on a road trip.

Now you know that she is going to run the pool table at the hick roadhouse. You know that the unlikely kid will turn out to be the real MLB prospect. You know that the geezer’s insight will be proven right in the end. And you know that the daughter will find closeness with the dad and a new boyfriend along the way. As I said, there are no surprises.

Nevertheless, Eastwood and Adams are just perfect in their roles. Eastwood’s graveside monologue and song are particularly moving. Justin Timberlake and John Goodman are excellent, too. Matthew Lillard is dead on perfect as a frat boy turned know it all baseball exec.

And then there’s the baseball setting. The movie had me with the gaggle of elderly scouts traipsing through South Carolina from one high school baseball field to another, breaking each others’ balls at dive bars every night. The Wife, who does not lapse into baseball reverie, didn’t enjoy it as much.

The best and most entertaining movie of the Fall tells the birth story of Facebook, and may win Oscars for director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War). It’s a riveting tale of college sophomores that are brilliant, ambitious, immature, self-absorbed and disloyal – and about to become zillionaires.

Let’s reflect on Sorkin’s challenge here; he is writing a screenplay about nerdy guys writing computer code and making it fast-paced, understandable, funny and even gripping. To compound his challenge, all of the main characters but one are extremely obnoxious, yet he makes us care about what happens to them.

Yet the most compelling aspect of the film is Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. Eisenberg’s Zuckerman has few social skills, less social aptitude and exactly one friend, yet creates a framework for other people to share scores and even hundreds of “friends”. Eisenberg carries the film with an especially intense performance of an emotionally remote character. Eisenberg has been underrated despite strong performances in Adventureland, Zombieland and Solitary Man. Here, it is impossible to think of another actor who could so vividly create this Zuckerman.

This is a uniformly well-acted movie. Justin Timberlake is terrific as Napster infant terrible Sean Parker. Armie Hammer is outstanding as both of the Winklevoss twins, the entitled, preppie wunderkinden. Rooney Mara nails her scenes as Zuckerberg’s soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. Douglas Urbanski (usually a producer) does a viciously hilarious impersonation of former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers.

One more thing: Fincher and Sorkin know how to end a movie.