DRAFT DAY

Draft Day casts Kevin Costner as the Cleveland Browns' general manager on the titular day in which his professional and personal crises reach their boiling points. And 20 minutes before its climax, director Ivan Reitman's pro-football saga lands on what is simultaneously its most ironic and most perverse moment, which finds a roomful of executives and analysts bickering about a potential trade, and Costner's Sonny Weaver Jr. ending the squabble with the incensed directive "Just give me a moment of silence so I can think!" The moment is ironic because, to this point, the movie has already been flooded with silence. The moment is also perverse because, after 90 minutes of pause-heavy introspection and hushed build-up - with the audience all but slavering for a scene of biting, fast-paced bickering - now is when Sonny demands some quiet?

MONEYBALL

On paper, the casting of Brad Pitt as Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane in Moneyball must have seemed inspired. On screen, it's so, so much better than that. Pitt has, of course, given many wonderful performances over the past two decades (and just as many blandly acceptable or downright dreary ones). But to my mind, his Billy Beane - driven, hopeful, cocky, incensed, funny, tender, and smart as hell - is the actor's first chance to employ all of his gifts in the service of an emotionally expansive, fully shaped character, and Pitt's beautiful and generous work here is truly a sight to behold. Director Bennett Miller's last feature film was his 2005 debut Capote, which netted Philip Seymour Hoffman a Best Actor Oscar. With Moneyball, Miller might find himself batting 2-for-2 for his stars in that category.