Fall Film Series puts spotlight on baseball

The Churchill Arts Council begins its 2019 Fall Film Series on Sept. 6 at Barkley Theatre, Oats Park Art Center. The box office, Art Bar and galleries open at 6 p.m. with the movie beginning at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7, members; $10 nonmembers. A movie special offers the three movies for $18 members and $27 for nonmembers. Tickets are available at the box office on the night of screening or call CAC at 775-423-1440.

“The Natural” begins the film series in two weeks. Based on Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel of the same name, 1984’s “The Natural” was directed by Barry Levinson and stars Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger and Robert Duvall.

On the way to a tryout with the Chicago Cubs, young baseball phenom Roy Hobbs (Redford) is shot by the unstable Harriet Bird (Barbara Hershey). After 16 years, Hobbs returns to pro baseball as a rookie for the last-place New York Knights. Despite early arguments with his manager, Pop Fisher (Wilford Brimley), Hobbs becomes one of the best players in the league, and the Knights start winning. But this upsets the Judge (Robert Prosky), their owner, who wants Hobbs to lose games, not win.

“Field of Dreams” will be shown Sept. 13. The 1989 movie is a fantasy-drama sports film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, adapting W. P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe, it stars Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta and Burt Lancaster in his final film role.

When Iowa farmer Ray (Costner) hears a mysterious voice one night in his cornfield saying “If you build it, he will come,” he feels the need to act. Despite taunts of lunacy, Ray builds a baseball diamond on his land, supported by his wife, Annie (Madigan). Afterward, the ghosts of great players start emerging from the crops to play ball, led by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. But, as Ray learns, this field of dreams is about much more than bringing former baseball greats out to play.

Wrapping up the Fall Film Series on Sept. 20 is “A League of Their Own.” This 1992 movie was directed by the late Penny Marshall and stars Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Garry Marshall, Rosie O’Donnell and Lori Petty.

As America’s stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey (Garry Marshall). Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson (Davis) and Kit Keller (Petty) spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan (Hanks) on their way to fame.