Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller, 2014)

6.5/10
I intentionally kept myself in the dark about the central story so I could go into the movie blind. It just took me longer than I expected to get around to watching the movie. At first I was very much impressed with the cinematography and direction, which are not usually meant to be eyecatching in a biopic like this. But as the movie started to sag in its second act, it felt more dull than artistic. The umpteenth time we're subjected to a misty shot of the estate with a plinky piano backing score, you start to wonder if these shots are standing in for the fact that the movie doesn't really have a whole lot to say in the end. It never attempts to delve into the psychology behind John du Pont or his motivations, and it generally keeps all of its characters at a frustrating remove. And by the end of the film I was left to wonder "is that all there is?" which I suppose is a natural byproduct of making a movie about a senseless event. Full marks to the three principal actors (even though I felt Steve Carrell's accent, as good as he was overall, was a little all over the place) and the film is certainly gorgeous to look at, I just wish there were more.

Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)

6.5/10
After watching Moneyball, it's really not a surprise to read that so many essential roles (principal actors, screenwriters, the director) were changed and replaced in production. It's a messy movie that lacks the thing it needs most - a singleminded, assured direction. It combines archive footage and recreated scenes awkwardly, a dramatic race to a achieving an MLB record is shoehorned in almost as an afterthought, and intertitles start appearing out of nowhere almost halfway through the movie ("Trade Deadline", etc). Not to mention that many of the scenes collide against eachother almost as skits played one after another, rather than a logical cinematic narrative. And I still didn't get to the inclusion of Billy Beane's daughter, nowhere to be found in the book: Hollywood's lame, cloying attempt at "humanizing" a character who doesn't need it.
All that said, the movie isn't a total loss - it's quite funny at times. Brad Pitt is great, and he has excellent chemistry with Jonah Hill, also very good himself. It's never a chore to watch, even if it does feel overlong at 2.5 hours. Overall though, I think the biggest problem was the movie missing the mark in conveying just how revolutionary Sabremetrics was at the time, and how much of an impact Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta really had on the sport. You couldn't fault someone for coming out of the movie thinking, "so all that and they never really won anything? Who cares?", which is unfortunate.