THE SHOWDOWN

Yesterday I got a note from a friend of mine who works in postproduction which directed me to information regarding a short film screening this weekend in Los Angeles to qualify for Academy Award eligibility. The film, entitled The Showdown, was directed by Antonio and Fulvio Sestito, and one look at the poster should make it clear why my friend thought it might be something in which I would be interested.

According to the “director’s statement” on the film’s Web site, “The Showdown brings together two aspects that are uniquely American-- baseball and the old West. It is a short action/drama film about the confrontation between a pitcher and batter in the bottom of the ninth inning of a one-run baseball game, juxtaposed against a deadly duel between two gunfighters in the Old West. This is a story about duels and duality, about loss and redemption, and how history can repeat itself...”

The movie screens at the Fine Arts Theater on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills on Friday, September 22 at 7:15 and 8:00 p.m., Saturday, September 23 at 5:30 and 6:15 p.m., and Sunday, September 24 at 4:45 and 5:30 p.m.

Click here to watch the trailer, or you can find out more at the movie’s My Space site.

The Sestitos are making themselves available at each of the six screenings, and I hope to make it over the hill to one of them and talk to the brothers in person. For anybody who has watched a duel between, say, Greg Maddux and Albert Pujols and heard Ennio Morricone’s haunting Man-With-No-Name themes in their head at the same time, The Showdown might be a match perfectly made for the dusty, tumbleweed-strewn streets and sprawling infields of the wide screen.