wayno-6 I really honestly do NOT like any sport that uses a ball. I am the consummate anti-sports fan.But this story lacked any central plot - character development was lacking -- and starkly, no music, to enhance viewing. It was bare naked, and quite ugly, imho. There was NO chemistry between the characters at all.A lot of "time switching" present to past to? and it was a little hard to follow where I was at, at any moment in the movie....They seem to go through the motions, but it did NOT dispel my disbelief.Based on what I saw, I will NOT read the book. Besides not liking sports, this just didn't do anything for me. When I keep looking at the clock figuring out how much time is left, oh yeah, this isn't going to be good.Very disappointing, considering his other two novels/movies were very good: "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet when you get to Heaven" I usually do things bass ackwards -- I see the movie first, THEN I invest the time to read the book. Pass. This one really vacuumed!

edwagreen Depressing and utterly revolting film about an alcoholic former baseball player who is allowed to spend one more day with his mother. She has been dead for 9 years and he has put a gun to his head to end it all. The problem is the writing is very bad and someone should have put an end to that quickly.Ellen Burstyn is great particularly when she has a nasty, meaty role. Unfortunately, in this film, she is too matter by the fact, going by the book mom. It just doesn't work for her. Imperioli delivers a suitable performance and his appearance as an alcoholic best describes the mess in the film.People come and go in this film like water. One black woman appears as a ghost. Another will die that evening. To add insult to injury, Imperioli's father was thrown out years before by Burstyn when she discovered that he had committed bigamy! That's all that's missing in this clinker.This is a story of missed opportunities and incredibly bad luck. Oprah Winfrey should have her head examined for producing such a depressing, uneven story. Even the flashback techniques in film making doesn't work here. It's too much and even confusing at times.A major disappointment. I anticipated so much better.

charlytully Broken sports dreams have provided some of American movies' most poignant moments, from Field of Dreams to Resurrecting the Champ. This year's best sport flick, and one of 2007's Top Ten thus far (among the 295 films I've been able to see in theaters) is director Seth Gordon's documentary King of Kong, featuring real-life hero Steve Wiebe, a laid-off Boeing Aircraft engineer whose moment in the limelight for his high school nine's state championship try was ruined by an injury to his pitching arm, leaving his psyche nearly too fragile to take on the classic gaming establishment decades later in his successful quest to post the first legitimate million-plus Donkey Kong score in world history.Even though USA Today's TV critic panned One More Day (the official title "Oprah Winfrey presents Mitch Albom's One More Day" was automatically shortened to "Oprah Winfrey presents Mit" on my spreadsheet program; I thought she'd endorsed Obama?), I decided to make it my first made-for-TV film of 2007 because 1)I'd given 10 stars to Albom's previous TV project, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and 2)the premise echoed Steve Wiebe's story of recovering from a shattered baseball dream decades later.Unfortunately, as much as I like Mitch and baseball, I can only rate this effort 6 out of 10. Unlike Five People, you can see the twists and the supposedly Big Reveal at the end coming from nearly a mile a way here (from the center field warning track, in other words). Though Ellen Burstyn provides a little classier maternal advice to protagonist Chick (Michael Imperioli) than the 1926 Porter in the late sit-com My Mother the Car, seeing her prattling away to a former Soprano while moon-lighting as an ectoplasmic hairdresser to several of her expiring lady friends produces a kitchen klatch claustrophobia which may well have been relieved by more flashbacks to the nine years between the death of cup-of-coffee major leaguer Chick's mom and his exclusion from his only child's big day. Emily Wickersham, as Chick's grown daughter Maria, should have been given more to do; her character's typescript for her draft of "One More Day" got more air time than she did.Detroit Tigers fans will note that long-time Detroit Free Press sportswriter Albom snuck in the names of at least two long-gone bengals (Deivi Cruz and Ramon Santiago) in the background. My son still has the dollar bill Ramon signed for him at Tiger Fest years ago, but I doubt this flick will add much value to his currency.

vitaleralphlouis No doubt the author Mitch Albon wanted to say Something Important about Real People; unfortunately the author has never met any Real People and has no real life experiences at all to utilize in creating this muddle of cardboard characters and phony-baloney situations. The paramount fault with this movie is Bad Writing 101.Please don't get me wrong. I LIKE sentimental movies about real people, films that reflect solid American values. The problem is this film offers no such thing.The reason we watched was to see Michael Imperioli and his real life son in a movie post-Sopranos. Both deliver fine jobs considering the handicap inherent in the script.The story is about an alcoholic whose life is deteriorating at a rapid pace. The recommended solution (by the author) is to buy another 6 pack and drive fast & careless down the highway taking things out on the next truck driver -- an easy target -- ending up smashed into a ravine where your dead mother will come along and set you straight. Many flashbacks will take us through his utterly phony life, including his play in the World Series (gosh!), how he failed his phony father as well as his phony daughter.Excuse me, I can't go on; but I think you catch my drift.