"I got a fever. And the only prescription is more....baseball?"

Fever Pitch was better than I expected. I'd watched the 1997 Colin Firth version that is also based on the book by Nick Hornby, an author I adore. I expected less from this one in part because I am not a fan of Jimmy Fallon and had a hard time imagining him as a sympathetic character in a romantic comedy. I don't mind Drew Barrymore and I guess she did a good job because I can't even remember who played the female lead in the film version set in Britain. Drew was quite cute and likeable and seemed willing to make this relationship work. I was going to watch the older movie again in an effort to make a quality comparison but I haven't really had the time and now I am more interested in seeing other newer films.... The Farrelly brothers did a decent job and frankly landed on a really cool opportunity. In the book by Hornby a man is obsessed with Arsenal, a football (soccer) team in Britain that is the losingest of the losers but it's a lifetime commitment and one that dictates the protagonist's life to the point of interfering with other commitments like the sort between a man and a woman.

In the 2005 film, Fever Pitch is set in Boston and the obsession is with the Red Sox. There are other slight differences but the Americanization of the film didn't bother me as much as I expected it would. The grand thing, the truly amazing part, is that opportunity I mentioned above. They were in the midst of filming a movie about the Red Sox winning the World Series and the Red Sox actually were in the World Series... AND WON! And for the first time in about a hundred years... okay I exaggerate... but baseball fans know something about the "Curse of the Bambino" and the last time the Red Sox won a World Series.... It was fun to watch and I found myself thinking for a second or two that I could maybe even handle that kind of lifestyle... and then I snapped out of it. Let's not get crazy.