Fever Pitch

So I'm digging through a bargain bin of DVD's at my local HMV when I spot the spine of one lying at the bottom of the bin. It caught my eye because the title of the movie was Fever Pitch which was familiar to me. "That's funny," I think to myself, "Nick Hornby has a novel by the same name." Of course it hit me about a full minute later that, considering the guy's had two major motion pictures released in North America based on his novels (High Fidelity and About a Boy) that the two were probably one and the same. I quickly pulled it out to take a closer look and satisfy my curiosity.

Now, in case you haven't checked my Blogger profile (and really, why would you?) you probably don't know that Hornby is one of my favourite writers. Just before Christmas I finally got around to picking up and reading High Fidelity which I had been wanting to get into immediately after seeing the film for the first time way back when.

Anyway, back to Fever Pitch.



Turns out it was based on the Hornby book, and ol' Nick even wrote the screenplay to boot. The whole thing was a Channel Four Production in the UK and was only shown on a handful of theatres in the US. As far as I know, it never hit the big screen in Canada.

Typical.

I've only previewed the movie but it looks like it's going to be fun. I'll probably sit down tonight and give it the once over. The only drawback is that the damn thing is a fullscreen transfer and not the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio as I would prefer, but it cost $6.99 (CAN) and I can always buy it again if I find it in a better format.

As a sidebar, I've also heard that the Farrelly Brothers have made (or are making) their version of it starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. All I can say about that is...*sigh*!

'Til next time...

mike