Sunday, October 6, 2013

2009 New York Yankees: The Official World Series Film



The Perfect "Gift" for a Yankee Fan
MLB Productions has done their usual great job of producing this perspective of the 2009 World Series and especially, why this championship is so special to the Yankee franchise. It is themed with the concept of "27" which represents how many titles the Yankees have won to date. It also, plays out how this championship is the first for "new" Yankee Stadium and it is the fifth championship for four of the Yankee mainstays from the 1996 teams. It is obviously a "must-have" for any Yankee fan's video library.

The main downside to this DVD is much less time is devoted to the losing team (in this case the Phillies) then was the case in most of the WS DVDs of the last 10 years. Usually, % coverage is about 60-40 for the winning side but in this case it seemed like it was more 80-20.

There is the usual coverage of the ups and downs of the two teams during the seasons. There seemed to be a lot less coverage of the divisional and league series than in prior seasons...

MUST-HAVE FOR YANKEE FANS!
I watched the entire bluray last night and I have to say that if you are a true diehard Yankee fan, this bluray is a must-have. This is basically a 1-hour 25-minute film documenting the New York Yankees' 2009 World Series win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Here's how the film breaks down...

The first 20 minutes or so documents the Yankees' regular season as they attempt to capture their 27th World Championship. They also have a brief section showing the Philadelphia Phillies and their attempt to defend their World Series crown. But this bluray is really all about the World Series battle between these two great teams.

The rest of the film documents every World Series game along with the key moments from each game. Cliff Lee's game 1 gem and Chase Utley's domination over CC Sabathia... Pedro Martinez's return to Yankee Stadium and AJ Burnett's dominance in game 2... The Yankees fighting back from a 3-0 deficit to win game 3... Johnny Damon's at-bat and...

Love the story, but hate the style
I preface this by saying that I am a Yankee fan, and so I was predisposed to want to love the video. And the storytelling aspect of it is excellent. Despite that, I find this video almost unwatchable. My critique is of the filmmaking. MLB productions seems to think that there's a law against showing an entire baseball hit in a single shot, from ball hitting the bat to its landing. So a typical home run will look like this: 1) ball hits bat; 2) quick cut to pitcher; 3) quick cut to dugout reaction; 4) quick cut to crowd screaming; 5) quick cut to hitter watching it; 6) quick cut to ball just as it hits the seats. It seems like every single play in the entire video is cut this way -- even on strikeouts the path of the ball from pitchers hand to home plate on a is typically cut to into several smaller shots, so it's impossible to follow the path of the ball to the plate. By game 2 of the series, I found myself mentally screaming at the director to hold the shot, so I could actually see...

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