This is not Dick Tracy 2! Sure Madonna delivers a nice song, but during the movie, she has not a big part: i don't remember to see her playing the ball actually because she is rather here to have fun, dance, seduce boys and talk with a big mouth (so it's not really acting from her). That's why she is as essential as Téa Léoni who appears in two plays for her team ... The movie is more about Geena Davis and Tom Hanks; Honestly i expected the movie to be enjoyable all the more that the 40s period is well done but however, it is not he case: the pace is terribly dull, Hanks is really not cool here and there is not much good scenes... Maybe the ending with the true players redeems a bit the quality but otherwise, it's too late and too little...

A League of Their Own (1992)It's funny, but I remember seeing this when it came out in a tiny theater with an oversized screen in upstate New York, and I really liked it. It seems big and fun, with some great characters, and I was just getting to know Tom Hanks. This time I still loved the fun parts, and with Madonna being silly and Rosie O'Donnell being a crack-up it was worth the look. But it's not an especially good movie. In fact, it's kind of a pastiche of ideas, even though there is a solid historical basis for the plot (the creation of a woman's professional baseball league to replace the men's league during WWII). At times it's trying to be a touching story of young women with real dreams of greatness. Other times it's making hay off the historical quirks, including the sexist madness of it all (without any actual comment on that sexism). Other aspects include a businessman's world mercenary intentions (with David Strathairn as the good guy in that mix). It's cobbled together without a lot of realism—in other words, it's all for entertainment.Which is fine. But then there is the Penny Marshall touch. This famous director/writer has a way of making things as simple and sugary as possible, as if we are all living in a Hallmark commercial. It undermines every single aspect listed above, including the touching part, which is her real goal. By the very end, with the inevitable look at the contemporary women (who are played by actresses, don't be fooled into thinking they are the real deal), it gets moving but in that pushy way that makes you kind of glad the film is finally ending.Too bad. There is more potential here than all that.There is a host of striving baseball movies that fall flat due to sentiment. I like baseball, but movies like "42" and "The Natural" (and even the recent Clint Eastwood "Trouble with the Curve") seem to acknowledge that the sport is something mired in a nostalgic past. Only in something like "Moneyball" does it morph into something bigger, and much better. So maybe it's me wanting baseball to be great but also realistic and vivid and intense. Not sticky with honey and amber glows.Yeah, an enjoyable movie on many little levels, including moments of nearly everyone's performances. But don't expect more.

Finally, after 20+ years, I recorded and watched what I thought was going to be a middling Tom Hanks comedy. Reason for that was the trailers I'd seen hundreds of times: "Crying. There's no crying in baseball!"What I saw was a movie that should have been allowed to give Unforgiven serious competition for Best Picture and Geena Davis an Oscar for Best Actress in a leading role. Apparently I wasn't the only one fooled by those trailers.Penny Marshall's movie is a brilliant, beautifully crafted homage to a little remembered period when, just as Rosie became a riveter, numbers of talented women filled in for their men as ball players. Proving, like Rosie, they were every bit as capable as the absent males.More than that, of course, is the broader theme of the individual refusing to buckle under to social conventions. A very common American theme with Marshall's contribution ranking with the best of its expositions. Pretty good as a Baseball pic, too.It is a long movie, over 2 hours, but, despite the simplicity of the story, it doesn't play like two hours. From the first scene you (or at least I) fall in love with the screen and time becomes meaningless.Two people, supported by a strong supporting cast, are responsible: Peggy Marshall and Geena Davis. Marshall and her editor crafted a truly remarkable piece of cinematography that may be perfect; not a clang or misstep anywhere.Such movies need glue to make it all hang together and that's where Davis comes in: though brilliantly supported, without Davis the whole house would have failed. League is very much Geena Davis' movie, she's the one who puts flesh to the bones of Penny Marshall's vision.As Americans we love and should love movies like this, these celebrations of the best of our values, of how hundreds of women kept a league of their own alive for ten years.That achievement was quickly forgotten, buried in the reactionary conservatism of the '50s, which should anger us, but that anger can easily be tempered by Marshall's rediscovery and loving treatment of their story.For all of that seriousness, League is a successful comedy and fun to watch while, also successfully, demonstrating both how far we've come and how far yet to go.A large part of that 'yet to go' are those trailers that made me think that League was a Tom Hanks movie. It isn't; Hanks is almost a tertiary figure. Davis and the supporting cast, all women, are the Stars. Hanks character, Jimmy Dugan, is important and, especially at the last, honored but, as the movie unfolds, more comic relief than mover. Very much a second fiddle; to his credit, Hanks plays that fiddle masterfully.However, the fact that the distributors felt the need to exaggerate his presence to the point of ridiculousness speaks volumes about how, even in 1992, we weren't ready to embrace a movie by women about women. The Oscar's Nominating Committee's failure to recognize League as the masterpiece it is stamps paid to that point.As a movie, judged by objective cinematic standards, League should rank with the best of the best.

Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) is a married milkmaid on the Oregon family farm. It's WWII and the men are all over seas fighting the war including Dottie's husband. Scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) comes to find new talents. He's interested in Dottie but not her sister Kit Keller (Lori Petty). He only takes Kit after Dottie agrees to come. It's a slow start and the girls have the drunken ex-player Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) as their manager. Then Dottie becomes a star and the league begins to be successful. As Dottie gets bigger, Kit gets more jealous and angry at Dottie's shadow holding her back.Director Penny Marshall has created a very satisfying drama. It has some great moments and a few memorable lines. It can be a little bit corny at times but the top rate actors keeps it from going over the edge. Even the duo of Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell can't derail this. Tom Hanks and Geena Davis are simply wonderful providing a solid foundation. The baseball action is mostly just montages of action scenes except the big climatic finale. That's perfectly fine especially since it keeps the action moving. It's a great fun watch time after time.