Cinema News: Baseball and Americana in ‘The Natural’

January 30, 2026 | View in browser

A handsome man in a fedora stands on a ballfield.

By Mark Olsen

Staff Writer

Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

I am catching up on sleep and returning to normal eating habits, having returned from Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival was held for the final time before moving to Boulder, Colo., next year.

This year's festival was marked by an air of uncertainty, as people were not sure how to feel about the impending move even as they were overtaken by nostalgia for the festival's past.

The news from Minneapolis of the death of Alex Pretti in the festival's opening days shook many people in Park City and certainly shifted the tone of the interviews coming through our video studio. Figures such as Olivia Wilde, Edward Norton, Ethan Hawke, Ta-Nehisi Coates and others were surprisingly direct and candid in talking about their own feelings and what they feel should be done.

Christina House took photos of most of the top stars coming through the festival, including Charli XCX, Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, Chris Pine, Danielle Brooks, Seth Rogen, Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Riz Ahmed, Brittney Griner and many more.

Robert Redford as 'The Natural'

Robert Redford's legacy hung heavy over Sundance this year, and intentionally or not, tonight the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre will show 1984's "The Natural," starring Redford in what would become one of his most iconic roles, with a Q&A to follow including filmmaker Barry Levinson, actor Kim Basinger, producer Mark Johnson and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel. The film would be nominated for four Academy Awards, including one for its score by Randy Newman.

In the movie, Redford plays Roy Hobbs, who struggles his entire life to get a shot at playing professional baseball — a transformation of Arthurian legend into mythic Americana. As Sheila Benson put it in her (surprisingly negative) May 1984 review, "It is so seductive a dream, this vision of the 1930s American heartland and Big City, such a return to fineness and innocence, the good so good and the bad so bad, that you wish desperately you could fall in step with it, with Kate Smith singing 'The Star[-Spangled] Banner' and with Casey at the bat. At times you can."

Points of interest

'The Towering Inferno' in 35mm

On Sunday the Academy Museum will screen John Guillermin's "The Towering Inferno" in 35mm in the David Geffen Theater. With a cast that includes Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Fred Astaire, O.J. Simpson and many others, the film is one of producer Irwin Allen's string of mega-successful disaster movies from the '70s.

Newman plays the architect of a new skyscraper in San Francisco, while McQueen is the fire chief attempting to put a blaze that has trapped many people on the upper floors during an opening dedication ceremony.

In his original review of the film, Charles Champlin noted that "nothing succeeds like excess," adding, "'The Towering Inferno' is $14 million worth of Holy Cow! Spend more — efficiently — and you get more. More stars, more effects, more scale, more suspense, more crises, more impact, more of that feeling in the foyer that you got your ticket's worth and then some. … [Allen's latest] is the most successful of the raucous run of multiple-jeopardy movies — so seemingly untoppable, to coin a phrase, that it becomes impossible to imagine what would serve as an encore except bubonic plague or some other natural calamity in which the horror would overbalance any conceivable entertainment value."

'The Lady Eve'

On Sunday afternoon, Vidiots will show Preston Sturges' 1941 "The Lady Eve," starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. In many ways a template for modern romantic comedies, the film has Stanwyck playing a sharp con artist looking to hustle Fonda's naïve, wealthy herpetologist while on an ocean liner.

In March 1941, Richard Griffith wrote, "In short, Preston Sturges has done it again and is by way of becoming a box-office attraction in himself. Even before the enthusiastic reviews came out, moviegoers somehow knew they were going to like his new picture. … But in the eyes of Reviews [the name of our film section at the time], none of [the] technical qualities quite sum up to make the picture the treat that it is. They believe in something less tangible and probably are right in suggesting that making a film under Sturges is such a lot of fun for cast and staff that their enthusiasm and spontaneity reach through to the audience."

'Bronson' and 'Only God Forgives'

Keep up with California

Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.

Subscribe Now

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the New Beverly will show a 35mm double bill of Nicolas Winding Refn's 2008 "Bronson" and his 2013 "Only God Forgives." With Refn's new film, "Her Private Hell," expected later this year (it will be his first in 10 years), it's a good time for a refresher of his earlier work.

"Bronson," starring Tom Hardy in a breakout role, is the real story of career English criminal Michael Peterson, who renamed himself Charles Bronson. The film has a phantasmagorical style, making it much more than a typical crime picture.

In 2009 I spoke to Refn about how "Bronson" was, in his words, a "resurrection" following a dark period of collapsed financing and debt that nearly ruined his life. When he became attached to the "Bronson" project, it was a a conventional British lad's picture. Working with Hardy, though, Refn made it into so much more.

"I didn't want to make a biopic of Michael Peterson or a film about Charlie Bronson — I wanted to make a film about the transformation from Michael Peterson to Charlie Bronson," Refn said at the time.

"Only God Forgives" was Refn's follow-up to the hit "Drive" and drove many audiences away. Ryan Gosling plays an American expat in Bangkok who gets in over his head with some local gangsters. Also starring Kristin Scott Thomas as a tough crime boss, the film was a flop when first released, but its spaced-out style is punctuated by moments of genuine beauty.

In other news

Free screening of 'The President's Cake'

On Wednesday, we're throwing a free screening of Hasan Hadi's "The President's Cake" at the Culver Theater with the filmmaker in attendance for a Q&A. The story follows a young girl (Banin Ahmad Nayef) who is chosen to bake a special cake to celebrate the birthday of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, setting her on a tragicomic journey to see through the task. The film won two prizes when it premiered in Cannes' parallel program Directors Fortnight. RSVP here.