Cobb (film)
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| Cobb | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Ron Shelton |
| Produced by | David V. Lester |
| Written by | Al Stump (Book and Article) Ron Shelton (Screenplay) |
| Starring | Tommy Lee Jones Robert Wuhl Lolita Davidovich |
| Music by | Elliot Goldenthal |
| Cinematography | Russell Boyd |
| Editing by | Kimberly Ray Paul Seydor |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | December 2, 1994 |
| Running time | 128 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Gross revenue | $1,007,600 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Cobb is a 1994 baseball film starring Tommy Lee Jones as the legendary baseball player Ty Cobb. It was written and directed by Ron Shelton. The original music score was composed by Elliot Goldenthal. The film's tagline is: "Everyone hated this baseball legend. And he loved it."
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[edit] Plot
Based on a true story, Robert Wuhl plays sportswriter Al Stump who is hired to write an authorized "autobiography" of Cobb. Stump arrives at the Tahoe home of the dying Cobb to write the official life story of the first baseball player inducted in to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He finds a drunken, misanthropic, bitter racist who abuses his biographer as well as everyone else. After spending time with Cobb, Stump is torn between writing the book that Cobb wants and writing the truth.
[edit] Cast
- Tommy Lee Jones as Ty Cobb
- Robert Wuhl as Al Stump
- Lolita Davidovich as Ramona
- Rhoda Griffis as Amanda Chitwood Cobb
[edit] Trivia
Baseball scenes in the movie were filmed at Birmingham's Rickwood Field, which stood in for Philadelphia's Shibe Park and Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. The movie was also filmed in Cobb's real hometown of Royston, Georgia. Major League pitcher Roger Clemens has a brief cameo as an opposing pitcher, on whom Cobb doubles off of, steals third and then home.
Singer/Songwriter Jimmy Buffett makes a cameo as a one armed heckler in the stands. Lawrence "Crash" Davis, the namesake for the main character in Shelton's earlier movie Bull Durham, also has a bit part in the film.
Tommy Lee Jones was shooting this film when he won the Academy Award for The Fugitive. Since his head was shaved for his role as Ty Cobb, Jones made light of the situation in his acceptance speech by saying "All a man can say at a time like this is 'I am not really bald.'"
[edit] Criticism
The film was met with radically diverse reviews. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone hailed it as "one of the year's best" and Charles Taylor of Salon included it on his list of the best films of the decade. Others took a harsher view of the picture. Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'D', claiming the movie to be a "noisy, cantankerous buddy picture." He explained: "By refusing to place before our eyes Ty Cobb's haunted ferocity as a baseball player, it succeeds in making him look even worse than he was."
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Cobb at the Internet Movie Database
- Cobb at Allmovie
- Cobb: A Review
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