Moneyball Movie Roundup: Box Office Results and Critical Responses to Moneyball, Directed by Former Mamaroneck High School Alum Bennett Miller

There are a lot reasons to check out Moneyball. It had Brad Pitt at his most Robert Redfordy. Jonah Hill does the hangdog-apprentice thing pretty well. And, of course, if you’re interested in baseball—or the even more exciting game of baseball statistics—there’s no other movie out right now with more baseball (statistics) in it.

And, though the team on the field in the film may be of the Left Coast, the movie comes from the home team. It was directed by Bennett Miller, an alum from Mamaroneck High School. You may remember Miller from such films as Capote, which he also directed. Featured, too, is Philip Seymour Hoffman, who also starred in Capote. According to the legend that was made famous after Capote was nominated for a bunch of awards, Miller and Hoffman met as youngsters attending a camp for theater geeks in Saratoga Springs. (Dan Futterman, another Mamaroneck alum and the third leg of the Saratoga-arts-camp Capote triumvirate, is missing from the Moneyball roster. He’s been off writing episodes of In Treatment.)

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But those weren’t the only local names involved in Moneyball. Aaron Sorkin, a Scarsdale alum who won the Oscar for writing The Social Network, did a polish on the script. The screenplay is also credited to Steven Zaillian, who started on it when Steven Soderbergh was attached to direct—and they both worked off the book by Michael Lewis.

So, how’d our local boys do?

Unfortunately, Moneyball didn’t take the No. 1 spot at the box office—that went to the second weekend of Disney’s re-release of The Lion King in 3D. (To me, this is remarkable. Disney has been No. 1 for two weeks with a movie that’s 17 years old in a format I thought people were tired of.) But Moneyball was No. 2, and it made about $20.6 million dollars.

Even better: Critics seem to like it. It has a score of 87/100 on Metacritic.com and 94/100 on RottenTomatoes.com. Here’s what some of the critics have to say:

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“For me, the only thing duller than watching baseball is listening to fantasy-baseball freaks drone on about stats…my bad. Moneyball is one of the best and most viscerally exciting films of the year. Yes, director Bennett Miller dials down the on-field action and goes stats to the max. But he laces his investigative fervor with emotional punch. Moneyball is a baseball movie like The Social Network is a Facebook movie, meaning it isn’t. Both are about how we play the game of our lives, and the excuses we make in the name of winning.” —Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“It’s a story that holds up beautifully in the re-telling, but the best thing about Moneyball is the human element. Billy Beane is not soft-pedaled into a deity, and Brad Pitt takes impeccable precautions not to underplay his abrasive personality.” —Rex Reed, The New York Observer

“Baseball fans know this story, but Miller puts it all in fascinating context. This is a thinking person’s baseball movie, a more complex version of the inspirational sports story.” —Claudia Puig, USA Today

Did you see it—or did you opt for The Lion King? What did you think? Let me know in the comments.