Film: Like the hummingbird that should not be able to fly, the movie Moneyball should not be as involving and widely accessible as it is. After all, it is the story of how baseball’s Oakland A’s leveled the playing field, so to speak, against much richer teams like the Yankees by employing obscure statistics to choose a winning team of players. That sounds like a formula for boredom, but screenwriters Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List) know how to wrap complex ideas around human drama, as they get us rooting for A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, at the top of his game) and Jonah Hill as an Ivy League stats geek. And keep an eye on the wily Philip Seymour Hoffman as the team manager, who resists Beane’s game-changing philosophy at all costs. This is not the usual baseball movie, and much better because it is not. Opening at area theaters today. – H. Erstein
Theater: Shakespeare took months to write his plays, but then he was using a pesky quill pen. These days, scripts are created much, much faster, in only 24 hours in some cases. Miami’s Naked Stage has been doing the one-day turnaround stunt for the past five years as a fund-raising event and now Boca Raton’s Lynn University Drama Program is getting in on the act. This weekend, students, faculty, staff and a few professional writer ringers will collaborate on a 24-Hour Theatre Project, to be unveiled this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the de Hoernle International Center on the Lynn campus. Twenty-four hours earlier, the writers were given a play title, a cast of actors and a director. By the next morning, the actors begin rehearsal and that evening the plays meet an audience. Sometimes magic happens, sometimes not, but then tickets are only $10. Call (561) 237-9000 for more information.
Music: One sure sign of the season is the appearance of small concerts at the area’s colleges. Lynn University’s conservatory opened its season last weekend with a strong performance from the Lynn Philharmonia, and this weekend, Palm Beach Atlantic University launches its Hispanic Heritage Festival with a performance by Duo Gastesi-Bezerra on Saturday night. The duo-piano team of Estibaliz Gastesi and her husband Marcio Bezzera, for whom fresh programming is a byword, will perform works by Albeniz, de Falla and Guastavino, as well as Carme Fernandez-Vidal, Dinah Menezes and Mariza Resende. On Sunday afternoon, it’s Duo Braziliana, the team of mezzo Melanie Ohm and pianist Rubio Santos. They’ll perform pieces by Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri, Ginastera and Guastavino, as well as Lina Pires de Campos, Ronaldo Miranda, Cláudio Santoro and Edmundo Villani-Côrtes. Both concerts –7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday — are free and take place in Persson Hall on PBAU’s campus in West Palm Beach.
Meanwhile, five of the faculty pianists at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton gather Saturday evening at the University Theatre for music by Beethoven, Fritz Kreisler, Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninov. Featured pianists at the 7 p.m. concert are Anne-Louise Turgeon, Heather Coltman, Irena Kofman, Krisztina Kover and Leonid Treer. Suggested donation for the concert is $10.