Woods Baseball
In the Summertime • 23-Jun-2015
It’s like baseball, except played in the woods — teams dodge trees in the middle of the field, fans sit on tree stumps. And today is the World Series of Woods Baseball, 1997 — three teams began the season but only two remain: the Hutton Sasquatches vs the Lexington Timberhawks. We begin with a Henry David Thoreau quote espousing the joy of the woods, a fake haughty opening over wide shots of a lush forest, which fades into a small clearing where a visionary man, now the coach of the Sasquatches, has created a new sport that he conceived of while unconscious. He finds the players through “deceptive newspaper ads,” and the teams are filled with all types of has-beens and low-lifes. The rules are a little different than real baseball, for instance fighting is allowed, and players can request a “bat match,” essentially a sword-fight with bats. Also, anything else goes, like umpire bribes (for a bag of painkillers) and National Anthems cut short if running too long. Bottom line: consistently funny, filled with goofy sight gags and real deal comic timing, plus a gratifying 90's aesthetic. “Play Ball!”
Directed by Ben Kujawski. Made by Famous Oldie.
Up Next in In the Summertime
-
Once More, With Feeling
A group of friends spend a lazy summer working odd jobs as field recordists. The new short from Tynan DeLong ("The Matrix", "Cornholios", "Beats") is his freakiest yet, a psychedelic comedy starring Steve Girard, Caroline Yost, and Jessy Morner-Ritt as audio tape bootleggers who get paid $30 a po...
-
Dom
Two old friends reunite on the hottest day of summer in NYC. “Dom,” directed by Meryl Jones Williams (co-directed and story by Jane Stiles), is a sensuous mood piece — minimal but rich in feeling — following Beth through a complicated day spending time with a close friend she hasn’t seen in awhil...
-
Whiffed Out
Director Jason Giampietro sets 'em up & knocks 'em down in this hilariously straightforward story of an anxious New Yorker's ruined summer. The neurotic man, perpetually wearing a ratty aqua short-sleeve, lets a friend store a bike in his hallway for what he promises is only a couple days. Th...
