Fever Pitch

How much you enjoy this romantic comedy with a baseball backdrop really depends on how much you care about the national pastime. It also depends on how receptive you are of Jimmy Fallon's boyish charm. As to why many hate Fallon is a bit of a mystery, as he pretty much nails the role of a Red Sox-obsessed school teacher named Ben who happens to have great on-screen chemistry with Drew Barrymore, playing the role of Lindsey. The directors of past gross-out comedies also do a nice job at making a more grown-up film that has a lot of charm and genuinely touching moments, as Lindsey tries to overlook Ben's Bosox infatuation. Fever Pitch is a very good film that really soaks up the sounds and sights of baseball, following a team that was heartbreakingly cursed but still had the most rabid and dedicated fans. The only problem is the Red Sox making one of the greatest comebacks in sports history is something that seemed preposterous even on paper, but it happened and the Farrellys sort of dropped the ball in working it into their film. Sure, being die-hard Sox fans made things tricky for the directing brothers as we find out in one of the DVD featurettes — they didn't want to curse the team by admitting they could very well win the championship. Still, they could have developed the ending of the story a lot better to accommodate the Red Sox's miracle rather than using sports casting footage to breeze through Boston's first World Series victory in almost 90 years. The DVD sports a ton of deleted scenes, most of which are forgettable and only 20 seconds long, though we do get to see Ben and Lindsey make the trip to Toronto to heckle the Jays at the Skydome. There's also a pretty humorous gag reel that does show how charming and genuinely funny Drew Barrymore is, even though she seems to have a habit of wrecking takes with a mighty belch. "Break the Curse" and "Love Triangle" are nothing more than three-minute commercials disguised as featurettes, but "Making the Scene" goes into detail of how the film tackled Boston's sudden comeback and how they managed to get Fallon and Barrymore onto the field as the Red Sox made history. A good film but an average DVD offering, which is a shame seeing how the Farrellys are such huge Sox fans — they could have made a better tribute to the team they love than Sports Illustrated. Plus: commentary with Peter and Bobby Farrelly. (Fox)