Looks like Demetri Martin is wasting no time maneuvering his leading role status — in Ang Lee’s upcoming “Taking Woodstock,” which just got added to Cannes — into something more.
His latest? He’s just been cast alongside Brad Pitt in Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, the baseball flick, “Moneyball,” announced in February.
Based on the book, “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” the story details the Oakland A’s approach to building a winning ballclub. Their approach, considered novel by some, was to use advanced statistics and an understanding of basic economic theory (we wrote a whole post about the book that some of us are very familiar with).
According to Variety, Martin will play a “Harvard grad who turned down Wall Street jobs to use his statistical skills to change baseball scouting tactics. His system, known as “Earned Run Value,” allowed Beane [Brad Pitt’s character] to evaluate valuable players he could hired at low cost.”
Sounds like a choice role for Martin. How lucky is he? His first feature, he stars in a movie directed by Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain,” “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”). His second? For Soderbergh with Brad Pitt as his co-star. Yeah, you hate his kid already. “Taking Woodstock” looks goofy as all get out. Does Cannes, Lee and Soderbergh know something we don’t?
Then again, the French have strange relationships with foreign films. Last year they included, “What Just Happened?,” as one of the few American selections at the Croisette and that film was terrible.
