The Natural

I was just flipping channels and came across the end of "The Natural", the Robert Redford baseball movie from a while back. I love that movie. I think Redford really never looked better and never played a part so beautifully. I am a huge fan of his...I adored him in "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and especially "All the President's Men". I love the end of "The Natural". I start to cry when Roy Hobbs breaks his bat and meets Bobby the bat boy on the first base line and tells him to go pick him a winner. And I don't stop crying until the movie ends, which thankfully isn't too much longer. The music is perfect, the cinematography is gorgeous, it's a happy ending after some really bad stuff has happened to Roy over the years. And a great, great supporting cast. I love it. I know that some serious critics were not fans (my beloved Roger Ebert among them), as it took some serious liberties with Bernard Malamud's novel upon which it was based, but I am in disagreement. Having never read the novel, I see it as near perfection in movie-making.