By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Carson Lund
Starring: Bill Lee | Cliff Blake | Frederick Wiseman | Keith William Richards | Wayne Diamond
Year: 2025
Running time: 96
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28332337
Jeff says: “The local ballpark is slated for demolition to make room for a new school. Today will mark the last showdown, forever, between the team sponsored by Adler’s Paints and the Riverdogs. EEPHUS may be the best movie about baseball since BULL DURHAM, even though all it is is just a baseball game played by a bunch of regular guys on a chilly, radiant, late-October afternoon in central Massachusetts. There are no reckonings. There is no drama. Nobody brawls. There aren’t really even any stakes. A simple Sunday sermon from the church of baseball.
“I loved a ragtag Greek chorus, and the story’s one actual revelation, beautifully played towards the end, so brief and subtle you have to pay attention not to miss it.
“Features cameos by Massachusetts documentarian, Frederick Wiseman (TITICUT FOLLIES), as an unseen radio announcer, and legendary Red Sox pitcher, Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee, who plays his, literally, walk on role with brilliant slacker timing.
“Fear not, the title is explained. 4 cats.”
Diane says: “Alas, even armed with subtitles and an assistant, I could not make out what was happening in the long baseball game of EEPHUS. (It’s been on my watchlist since early this year because of long adulatory reviews in the New Yorker and the NYT.)
“I did understand that it was about a group of men whose town baseball field was about to be demolished, and this was their last game on it. EEPHUS is suffused with suburban ritual and nostalgia, but it wasn’t until the scenes of people off on their own in something of a reverie – – a boy lighting up a cigarette in secret, a man swearing as he searched for a lost ball in the woods–that I realized: this must be by Tyler Taormina (HAM ON RYE, CHRISTMAS EVE AT MILLER’S POINT). But it isn’t by Taormina, it’s by his cinematographer, Carson Lund. The film is enhanced by the brief appearance of a mystical character, muted colors, the single location. If you’re knowledgeable about baseball, you might give it 4 cats.”
Chris says: “Nearly NO EXIT transferred to a small town playing field or perhaps a middle-aged DAZED AND CONFUSED since the characters have to eventually leave this space but can never return. I can’t imagine this working for anyone not familiar with nor a fan of baseball, but Carson Lund, cinematographer on such recent American indies as HAM ON RYE aims for a Robert Altman-esque diorama of an ultra-specific milieu and mostly attains it. 4 cats“