ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Cricket enjoyer Barry Thompson was left disappointed yesterday after discovering that the highly anticipated new Australian film, “Good Boy Bubby,” is not a cricket-themed adaptation of the baseball classic “Field of Dreams” as he had hoped.
Thompson, a lifelong fan of both cricket and baseball, had eagerly anticipated the film’s release, spurred by rumours and online speculation suggesting that it would blend Australia’s beloved sport with the timeless, nostalgic charm of the 1989 Kevin Costner movie.
“I was convinced it was going to be our version of ‘Field of Dreams,’ but with cricket,” Thompson lamented outside the Hoyts Megaplex in Betoota Heights.
“I had visions of legendary cricketers stepping out of a field of cane and onto a perfectly manicured pitch, just like Shoeless Joe Jackson did in the cornfield. But instead, it’s just a remake of a Bad Boy Bubby.”
The 1993 original film follows the journey of a mentally handicapped man who, after being kept a prisoner in his own home for 35 years, accidentally kills his parents and escapes into the real world.
The new film, ‘Good Boy Bubby’, follows the story that the original was ‘all just a dream’ and he then grows up to be former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. The film follows Mr Morrison’s meteoric rise from public servant middling to the top job in Australia.
While welcome, Mr Thompson says he was ultimately disappointed with the news.
“I dunno, I just think it’s time. Australians love remaking movies, why not ‘Field of Dreams’? You know, make Kevin Costner a sugarcane farmer. He makes a cricket oval in his best cane field after getting a visit from Don Bradman or Keith Miller. You’d have all the legends come out. From the first Aboriginal team that toured England in 1868, you’d have Twopenny. Fast round-arm bowler. You’d have the Lady Don, Betty Wilson. You’d have the Don Don, Don Bradman. Keith Miller, Max Walsh, Warnie. Fuck. You could have Richie Benaud and Tony Greig up there. Get young Tony in bowling to David Hookes,”
“It’d be that good. Call it ‘Field of Cane’ or something. Who knows? I’m just a bloody pencil pusher. But you, food for thought.”
More to come.