Frequency

Gregory Hoblit read the script about 18 months after his own father died and says the loss was still fresh. He calls it the story of a man who happens to be a fireman rather than a film about firefighting, and says he reined himself in on the fires: the point is not Frank fighting a blaze in a tunnel but getting out. Michael Cera made his theatrical debut here as the son of Noah Emmerich’s character. Most of the shoot was in Toronto, with some location work in New York. The price lands at once: the serial killer who took 4 victims in the first timeline takes 11 once the father survives, John’s mother among them. The proof of identity is equally concrete: Frank recounts Game 5 of the 1969 World Series play by play before it happens. At the 27th Saturn Awards the film was named best fantasy film, the science fiction prize going to X-Men. Garth Brooks’s closing song was nominated at the Golden Globes and lost to Wonder Boys. A good fit if you sit down knowing the time device is really carrying a conversation between father and son, and want the baseball used as evidence rather than decoration. Not for anyone after spectacle from the fires; Hoblit says he kept from building them up.