Episode 57 - Field of Dreams

If you build it (a baseball field for ghosts who were banned from the major leagues for cheating) and you kidnap a civil rights activist, he (the ghost of your estranged dad) will come. As a fringe benefit, a bunch of sightseers will also show up so you can turn your home into a profitable tourist trap. The elaborate 1989 séance/time travel film, "Field of Dreams," was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, and is said to make grown men cry. It certainly made us cry, but for different reasons.  Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella, a schizophrenic farmer with major daddy issues who bankrupts his family by following the instructions he receives from the voices in his head. Ray Liotta plays the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, a sympathetic specter of the disgraced baseball legend. The film's version of Shoeless Joe ignores the fact that he was a left-handed batter, and it also ignores his characteristic dull-wittedness in favor of some sort of sage-like omniscience mixed in with weird maniacal hatred of Ty Cobb. James Earl Jones plays Terence Mann, a '60s civil rights activist and author who has given up on the world and become a curmudgeonly recluse. After being kidnapped, Jones gets Stockholm syndrome and also somehow catches Kevin Costner's schizophrenia because he too starts hearing voices. He also ends up becoming a ghost or something. Join us as we wonder why there would be ghost umpires at this baseball field, if the old doctor was cheating on his wife, and why this movie's hashtag should be "#MAGA." Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at [email protected]. This episode is sponsored by Slutty Icons. Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.