2 Issues with Sugar as a "Neo Neo Realist" film

Here is an email response I sent into the amazing podcast Filmspotting, which was actually featured on the cast following their review of Sugar. It might be cheating, but the hell with it, I've got to get some content up here. Consider this a plug for their amazing podcast, the "neo neo realist movement" (a stupid, if perhaps descriptive, term for an awesome American film movement), and the film itself:

Massacre Theater was perhaps my favorite baseball movie, Major League (and the beginning of my crush on Renee Russo).

I say perhaps because, after seeing Sugar this last weekend, I might have a new favorite. While I am usually on Adam's side of your reviews, I completely agree with Matty on Sugar - this film hits all the right notes as far as baseball movies, but its the character story itself that I truly fell in love with. I think Matty is right - this is a coming of age story where Sugar realizes that baseball, as a profession, is not his dream, and is forced to come to terms with his own happiness in an alien world (that was beautifully shot - seriously those shots of the field in Iowa, and the Yankee Stadium reveal on the subway, are some of the best baseball shots I have seen in a long time). Yes, I would love to see a documentary about Dominican ballplayers as well, but I think it credits the film that we were so interested and invested in what was, in the end, a run of the mill ballplayer, and watching his story unfold, whether fictional or not, was simply a pleasure.

I'm not getting into the Neo-neo-realist debate, except to say that: (1) I loved this film, perhaps more than Chopshop or Man Push Cart, because of its honesty to the character without sacrificing what, I believe, is the filmmakers hopeful, humanist optimism towards their characters - a rare, welcomed feeling when leaving the theater after so many other recent, independent films either fall into bleak fatalism or over-the-top "cute and quirky" fantasy. I have no idea what will happen with Sugar after the film, but I believe that it will all work out, and even more I believe that both the filmmakers, and Sugar himself, do to. (2) What sort of self-respecting neo-realist would have a TV on the Radio montage (which I personally loved, both because I love the band and because you can't have a sports movie without a montage). Have we already progressed to Hawks and Sparrows where the neo-realists are purposefully revolting against the label? Speaking for someone who loves these new films, and doesn't care for the Neo-Realists, all I can say is I hope so.