If you tear it down, they will leave.
Greg Tango (director of photography) and Long Island local Brendan “Crash” Burt (actor) will participate in a Q&A on Saturday, March 15, following the 7 p.m. Huntington Cinema Arts Centre premiere of their men's league melee “Eephus,” which is currently touring—and sweeping—the nation.
AP. The New Yorker. The New York Times. Vulture. Everybody loves “Eephus.” But what is it?
Named for the deceptively off-speed time-freezer, the film sees “Spaceman” Bill Lee of Boston Red Sox fame chuck said pitch as part of his cameo within the feature directorial debut of Carson Lund.
The 34-year-old New England native served as the cinematographer for another 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiere, the Long Island-shot “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
Like fellow Emerson College alum and Omnes Filmmaker, ‘Miller’s Point’ director Tyler Taormina, of Smithtown, Lund draws inspiration from atmospheric cinema. He fills said social spaces he silver-screen sends off with eclectic ensembles in the vein of Robert Altman and Richard Linklater, and kinetic sound design per David Lynch’s school on mood-based scenery.
“Eephus” plays in a 1990s "rec" baseball, one-game wonderland where two teams — “Adler’s Paint” and the “Riverdogs” — are too stubborn to play anywhere other than the field they share, which is due to be transformed into a school within weeks.
Thus, their rival factions are soon to be no more.
In collaboration with co-writers Michael Basta and Nate Fisher, Lund tastefully siphons “last call” energy from labors of love such as Altman’s swan song, “A Prairie Home Companion,” Eagle Pennell’s “Last Night at the Alamo,” and Tsai Ming-liang’s “Goodbye Dragon Inn.”
Between the baselines, “Eephus” is about the ill-fated weekly inhabitants of Soldiers Field, a backwoods Douglas, Massachusetts revelation and true relic rich giving uncanny valley.
Beyond them, it’s the double-edged sword of classic Americana made anew—manchildren raised to dread the same fireworks they were pumped to ignite as they flail in still place, staring down the barrel of that ugly thing called aging.
In this high-on-camaraderie dramedy, time is the lone antagonist. Even if this were not already vastly reported, it’s utterly discernible given the melancholic chokehold this otherwise Naragansett-sponsored romp gets caught up in as daylight fades fast.
Between all the zingers and attempts at launching dingers, we see free spirits turn to stone; lost souls spewing denial out their pores, damn-near internally revolting at the prospect of bidding farewell.
And who could blame them?
A ragtag assemblage of big personalities with distinct faces, including “Uncut Gems” breakout Keith William Richards, round out the rambunctious cast that formed a brotherhood on-screen by bonding in shared quarters for the duration of filming, watching John Ford westerns and playing pranks on each other late into every shoot night.
An occasionally loose script flow wrangled into prompt order with chapter separation helps the film perfectly mirror the innings-based sport upon which it’s based. Much like your standard ballgame, you can’t script out life. That’s what makes both beautiful and heartbreaking.
Sometimes, real life gets in the way, and your ace can’t finish the game like you drew up in the shower that morning. So, you pivot and don’t look back—until you’re forced to, of course.
By film’s end, there is nothing left for the ballplayers to do but lament a life of combat; to reflect on where they’ve been and pray that whatever comes next heals more than it hurts.
“Moneyball” contends that at some point, you are told you can no longer play the children’s game.
“Eephus,” all the while, fights valiantly to rebut: to hell with that hogwash.
Play ball.