As I write this, we’re 72 hours from Opening Day and I can practically taste the peanuts and Cracker Jack. OK, that’s because I had a bowl of peanuts and Cracker Jack for breakfast, but you don’t want to hear about that. You want to hear about the Beyond the Multiplex interview with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, directors of what Andrew O’Hehir calls the best baseball movie ever, Sugar. “One of the things that drew us to this story was this really staggering statistic,” says Fleck. “If you look at the '80s, the percentage of African-American players in baseball was around 22 percent. That has gone down to somewhere around 8 or 9 percent now, while the Dominican population in baseball has risen dramatically….Major League Baseball has taken money out of the inner cities, partly because baseball is an expensive sport to play. It's not like basketball, where all you need is a ball and a hoop. You need lots of equipment, and you've got fields you have to take care of. They've taken money out of the cities and flipped it into the Dominican Republic, where they can sign players much cheaper.”

At Scanners, Jim Emerson wonders whether Blu-ray has gone too far. “The announcement of a pristine, digitally enhanced Blu-ray release of Edgar G. Uhlmer's grimy 1945 noir Detour got me thinking in granular terms... It would be a mistake to 'clean up' the noise of some kinds of music, just as it would be counter to the spirit of, say, John Cassavettes (or Ed Wood) to create digitally pristine copies of their grittier work for Blu-ray release. A movie that was shot in 16 mm or on grainy stock for low-light conditions looks that way because... that's the way it was made. It's part of the work itself, integral to the experience the filmmakers created. Is it a good idea to ‘restore’ (‘remodel’ is more apt) a movie to look brighter, sharper, clearer than it ever was before?” Good questions, but as Emerson eventually points out, that “digitally pristine” edition of Detour was an April Fool’s Day joke.

Via GreenCine Daily, a look at a most unusual Craigslist posting. “Just this afternoon, I stumbled upon this hilariously pathetic, 'negotiable' pitch under the quite-clickable heading Attention Film Critics (Los Angeles): ‘Hi. We just finished a film and need to buy a one sentence quote from someone who calls himself a film critic. Thanks.’…I half-worry that an unscrupulous somebody might just take that person up on the offer. On the other hand, perhaps it's a positive sign for critics, that our opinions still hold a monetary value.” This is truly disgusting, repulsive and contrary to every ethical impulse in my body. And dammit, it looks like they’ve already found someone else to do it.

If you enjoyed Paul Clark’s entry in the White Elephant Blogathon, you can check out the rest of the entries here. I’m particularly thrilled that She Blogged by Night was forced to sit through the recent Unwatchable entry 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. “Speaking of rejuvenated manhood, at one point Medusa -- in her skin tight black leather S&M gear -- practically straddles Dave Dragon while telling him she'll make him her boytoy. Frankly, and I say this with all the maturity and dignity I can muster, I would have much rather seen the movie that would have led to.”

And if you didn’t get enough April Fool action on Wednesday, CinemaBlend has a roundup of some of the best film site pranks (although not our own, harrumph), including Seth Rogen In Talks for Galactica Film, Johnny Depp Is Freddy Krueger and Daniel Craig Quits Bond.