Fever Pitch (PG-13, 2005)

In FEVER PITCH, Ben (Jimmy Fallon) is a high school teacher who happily explains his priorities on ESPN: The Red Sox, sex, and breathing. When Lindsay (Drew Barrymore) meets Ben, it's wintertime, and he's a sweetheart of a beau who takes tender care of her when she has food poisoning and reminds her that there's more to life than her job. By the time he has to explain why he can't go to her parents' party because he has to be at spring training, she already likes him enough to ask herself whether she can live with "summer guy" for half the year.

The only thing surprising about this completely conventional big studio date movie is that it comes from the joyfully outrageous Farrelly brothers and the literary but widely-read Nick Hornby. The Hollywood studio de-flavorizing machine has toned them down and flattened them out and the result is perfectly enjoyable but perfectly forgettable. This is not a HA-HA movie. It is a chuckle/awww/chuckle/awwwwwww movie. Fallon and Barrymore are adorable and seem to get a genuine kick out of each other.

We know where this will all end up. The only surprise in the movie is the one everyone already found out about when the Sox won the World Series. On the way there are some distractions -- some are pretty funny, like the brief scene where Ben decides which of his friends get to use his sensational seats in Fenway Park, but most are a complete waste of time, like the scenes with Lindsay's friends and family. This gives it a dragged-out feeling, like the movie has gone into extra innings.