Moneyball vs Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Last year at this time, everyone was calling The Social Network “the Facebook movie” and debating whether or not its details—algorithms, nerds at computers—could sustain an interesting movie. Of course they could, exceptionally. I won’t waste any of your time doing the same kind of theorizing or rationalizing about Moneyball. It takes something that bores some people (baseball) and something else that bores everyone (economics, math, probably more algorithms), and uses it to propel one of the more involving, exciting movies so far this year.

Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) was a professional baseball player who somehow saw his own strengths and limitations, and decided he’d rather work for the team in an office. His strategy, I think, revolved around focusing in on his own frustrations as a player—losing, not having his skills recognized or developed—and solving those problems for other teams and players. He works for the Oakland A’s, and managed them all the way to the World Series in 2001. The problem: they lost, which is almost as bad as not making it at all. Beane loses three big players, and is under the gun to get three guys of equal celebrity, ability and profit. The Oakland A’s, in 2002, did not have the budget for that. Beane’s scouts, crusty old pros that know the game inside and out, want to continue as they have before: paying too much for star players, hoping to grab attention from the press, and maybe up their crowd-pleasing homerun stats. In an attempt to shake up the status quo, Beane decides to look at recruiting from a numbers angle, and brings in Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) from another team. Peter is an economist, essentially, and significantly lower-maintenance than Billy, who is constantly talking, moving, gesturing, eating, and throwing and/or punching things. Peter is quieter, younger, perhaps the least athletic person at any given time during the movie, and most importantly, a genius. Peter looks at baseball the way he looks at everything: by the numbers. He shows Billy that the most important aspect of a baseball player’s performance isn’t homeruns or bases stolen, but rather getting on base. Just get on base, let the pitcher walk you, no one cares. Once you’re on base, someone else gets on base, and you advance one. The more players getting on base, the more runs batted in. And that means more games are being won. It seems obvious, but Billy’s peers in Major League Baseball want expensive rockstars in every position. Billy and Peter recruit based solely on on-base percentage, and wind up with a group of players that are older, injured, not trained for their position, not cool, and otherwise kind of Bad News Bearsy. As a group though, these new recruits have the numbers Billy wants. These guys are rough, but they get on base. No one thinks it will work, least of all Billy’s team manager, Art (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), but sure enough, the Oakland A’s start winning again.

Moneyball features little in the way of actual baseball scenes (Chris Pratt does a nice job as one of the underdog players), finding drama instead in the back-office dealings of Billy and Peter. They have a moment, on separate phones, trying to make a player trade that is a near-silent mix of desperation and joy. At the end of the scene, Jonah Hill says everything Tom Cruise says during his entire stomping, screaming, punching, “Help me help you” scene in Jerry Maguire, just by slowly closing his fist. Moneyball and Jerry Maguire, despite their differences in volume, share a few common themes. The most blatant, of course, is the greed-driven side of professional sports, and how much ego translates to money, and vice-versa. Billy Beane is a definite Jerry Maguire type, too, although his learning curve is shorter. By the time we meet Billy Beane, he’s already been taken down a few pegs. He’s seen his career as a ballplayer end, his marriage disintegrate, and he’s coming off a World Series loss. Billy is accustomed to disappointing himself and others; it’s probably why he’s so eager to hire down-on-their-luck players. If they can still get on base, then so can he. Moneyball has a few quiet scenes between Billy and his family; there doesn’t seem to be any animosity between Billy and his wife (played practically and gracefully by the always-welcome Robin Wright), and Billy is a good father to his sweet, guitar-strumming daughter. You get the idea that Billy was a husband like he was a ballplayer: so close to being great, but he probably shouldn’t have skipped college for it.

Moneyball was directed by Bennett Miller, who hasn’t made a movie since Capote. Since he’s two-for-two now, maybe he could reduce his downtime? Maybe make another movie in a couple years? Get on base, buddy. Moneyball is filmed in a matter-of-fact fashion that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to praising the director. This means, of course, that the director might really be onto something. Miller handles the baseball action scenes and smaller, conversational moments equally, and inserts flashbacks and actual game footage discreetly enough to remind us this is a true story, without relying too heavily on documentary tricks. The script, as if The Social Network similarities aren’t obvious enough, is by Aaron Sorkin (with Steven Zaillian). As in The Social Network, Sorkin isn’t quite sure what to do with women (Wright’s part is tiny), but again, he finds a way to turn stats and formulas into a surprisingly witty, human drama.

Moneyball can’t teach Lorne Michaels anything he doesn’t already know. He practically invented the idea. Every five years or so, SNL changes. Long-time pros like Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz are dropped, and replaced by Bobby Moynahan or the guy who plays Pee-Wee. Full time fan favorites gone, new, cheaper guys who do kind of the same thing brought in. It’s an easy way to get twelve years out of Horatio Sanz, without keeping the same guy on until he gets stale. Michaels sees strengths in someone like Tina Fey, while other producers would have just kept her in the background, writing for other performers. His most famous Moneyball-type experiment was, of course Conan O’Brien. Conan had near-zero experience on camera, was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy, writing jokes for SNL and The Simpsons. Michaels saw the late night wars being fought all around him, and instead of going with a big-name replacement for David Letterman, went instead with what was ultimately the most important: the guy who gets laughs.

And like the 2002 Oakland A’s, Conan O’Brien started winning, and kept winning, until everybody forgot they hadn’t been on his side from the start. And then he got to the big game, just like the A’s, and Conan O’Brien lost.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop documents his attempts to Billy Beane himself back to glory. Conan was legally forbidden to do TV for months, but he was antsy to entertain people, so he pulled a Moneyball, and did it a different way. He did a TV show, off TV. He put together a live variety show, full of music and jokes and ego catharsis over his predicament, and hit the road.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop reveals Conan as deeply connected to his work, still quite vulnerable about being fired from The Tonight Show, and out to prove his worth. He makes an okay musician, for a comedian, although some of the songs are way too driven by Conan’s hurt feelings. Once you’ve bought the ticket to Conan’s show, you’ve cast a vote for wishing the guy had gotten better treatment. So now let’s enjoy ourselves, right? I suppose a case could be made for Conan being bold enough to address the elephant in the room, but a little of it goes a long way. Even so, Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is a fun, fascinating look at the mind (brilliant), neuroses (not nearly as much as you’d expect) and drive (enormous) of a guy that, like Billy Beane and Peter Brand before him, did the math first.

Moneyball: A

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop: B+

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