SYNOPSICS
Bull Durham (1988) is a English movie. Ron Shelton has directed this movie. Kevin Costner,Susan Sarandon,Tim Robbins,Trey Wilson are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1988. Bull Durham (1988) is considered one of the best Comedy,Romance,Sport movie in India and around the world.
It's the start of the minor league baseball season, and Annie Savoy, for who baseball is *the* religion, is going through the annual process of choosing the one player on her home team of the Durham Bulls of the Carolina League, he who she will take under her wings, sexual and otherwise, solely for the season, and who has always gone on to have his best year as a player. She has narrowed her choice to two recent acquires: Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, the wild neophyte pitcher with a wicked fastball - the pitch on which he solely relies - but can't aim, the more he thinks about it, the more erratic the pitch gets, while he doesn't appreciate anyone criticizing him or it in believing he knows best in his lack of self-awareness; and catcher Crash Davis, the veteran who has been around the minor leagues for twelve years and who was brought in solely to harness and reign in Ebby's power. While Ebby would gladly accept Annie's offer in seeing sex as an inherent part of his being, Crash, who is as ...
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Bull Durham (1988) Reviews
Not Only a Great Sports Film, A Great Film Period
I remember the first time I saw this film. I had won tickets from a local radio station and I saw it at a private screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I remember as I was watching it that it was one of the greatest experiences I had in a movie in a long time. This film is not only a great sports film, but it is one of the great all around films I have ever seen. This film has it all from romance to comedy to witty dialogue. Susan Sarandon, Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins all brought Ron Shelton's script to life and the three of them displayed some of the greatest chemistry ever captured on film. This film is a timeless classic.
A Comedy with much more to offer
It is nice to see a movie that attracts more than one kind of audience. This is a comedy, then again a love story. This can be placed in the baseball genre as well as a coming of age drama. Most movies claim to be one or the other and sometimes fail to be. Then again, when a good movie hits a homerun it can not only become a money maker and a box office smash, it can also become timeless. Before they became giants of Hollywood, Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins stars in this great movie as some of the most interesting, yet simple characters. Costner plays an aging baseball player who meets with rookie, soon to be great major league pitcher Tim Robbins. Out of the rafters comes Susan Surandon who, in her own may, is a Muse of the religion of baseball. Together, the three introduce three different worlds upon the audience. Each are believable characters even though they are in a way, fantasy like. A great story with a perfect ending, Bull Durham is one of those hard to find movies that is a crowd pleaser with just about every audience out there.
The movie about the love of Baseball
Crash Davis loves baseball more than it loves him. He believes in the game. He deserves to be in the show, but he isn't and never will be. But still he plays on, dutifully and to a certain extent, joyfully. Better to play crappy A-ball than sell shoes. That for me is the central theme of this film. It is all summed up when Crash tells Nuke, the wild young star pitcher "You don't respect yourself. That's your problem. You don't respect the game. That's my problem." Take a player that passionate, and a youngster that annoying, add in a sexy yet maternal fan and you have great comedy. Bull Durham works scene after scene, because the film never forgets that baseball is what binds all the characters together. Tim Robbins is nothing short of brilliant and Nuke Laloosh, the rising star youngster who walks 18 batters and strikes out 18 batters in his first minor league appearance - both league records. But Nuke is caught up in his fat contract, his Porsche, and his endless parade of women. Baseball is a sideline. Eventually, Crash's mentoring begins to pay off until he finally realizes that winning is "like, you know, better than losing!" The love triangle between Annie (Susan Sarandon), Crash and Nuke is wonderful and funny, but it mainly provides us with set up for the baseball scenes, like when Sarandon convinces Nuke to wear women's underwear while he pitches. Or my favourite scene, when Annie and Crash take batting practise together, Annie dressed like she is ready for a wedding, but determined to correct Crash's swing. Crash is determined to take Annie home. They flirt and practice batting in one of the best prolonged foreplay scenes ever filmed. The ending is satisfying but the real depth of this film is harmony that the game brings to the characters. **** out of ****.
One of the best sports movies
One of the best sports movies I've ever seen. I have a friend who's a total baseball nut, and this is the movie he quotes all the time. If he endorses it that's good enough for me. The story takes place during one portion of a season with the Durham Bulls, a minor-league team in the Carolina League. It follows the players and hangers-on. Taking what I hope is a somewhat realistic look at how life really is in not only the minor leagues but on up through the majors. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) teaches "Meat" LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) the cliches he will use when dealing with the press. After watching that scene, reading the sports pages was never the same. I hope you get a laugh from this flick as well.
A diamond in the rough
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.) I thought I read the book, or at least I dreamed it, but this is NOT adapted from something by Larry McMurtry, although it sure seems like it oughta be. It is one hell of a funny, crafty, too real for life, kind of movie. The brilliant script, full of clever one-liners, was written by Ron Shelton (White Men Can't Jump (1992)), who actually played minor league ball in the Orioles farm system. Shelton also directed and did a bang-up job. This is a funny movie that is really funny. What I recalled (when I found out this wasn't from Larry McMurtry) was a baseball novel for juniors that I had read when I was a kid about a crafty, veteran minor league catcher who had once made it to the big leagues but got beaned and never got over it, always bailing out from an inside curve ball. (This was in the days before batting helmets.) He fell back to the minors and went from team to team and town to town, hitting a ton until somebody figured out that his knees would buckle if you brushed him back a bit, and then he'd have to move on. Kevin Costner's part reminds me of that guy (without the beaning phobia). Susan Sarandon plays Annie Savoy, a baseball groupie in her sexual prime who likes to read poetry and give the players hitting advice. She is just wonderful as she plays sexy mom to the boys, a new one every summer, just so she can avoid any kind of real relationship or commitment. And so along comes Crash Davis (Kevin Costner, one of the more underrated and less flashy stars of our time), playing an itinerant catcher who has managed to hit nearly 300 minor league home runs. He is tough and savvy and once made it to the Show for 21 days. Tim Robbins plays Ebby Calvin "Nuke" "Meat" LaLoosh, a not too bright, wild-armed phenom who needs more than a little guidance. He gets a lot from both Crash and Annie, who are intent on schooling him in their differing expertise. Nuke is just the hunk Annie needs to keep her from falling in love with Crash, but...well, this is a romantic comedy, so you can be sure that love will find a way. The baseball shtick and the interior dialogues of Robbins and Costner during the games ("Why's he want the heat? I wanna throw the deuce..." And, "Don't think, ... Get that...woman out of your head--Time out!") are really funny, and the bit where Robbins shakes him off and Costner, as an object lesson for his young pitcher, tells the batter what's coming next allowing the batter to hit it out of the park (or onto the Bull Durham sign to win a free steak dinner--is this genuine Americana or what?) are a crack up. But also great are the scenes with Sarandon as she philosophizes ("I believe in the Church of Baseball") and wise-cracks her way through the boys of summer, especially the scene where she ties Nuke up in bed and reads him some Walt Whitman. Now THAT really tires the boy out! Another great scene is on the bus when Crash lets the other players know that he once made it to the bigs where "...you hit white balls for batting practice and the ballparks are like cathedrals." Beautiful. Best dead-pan one-liner is when Crash catches Nuke in the locker room trying to adjust the panty hose girdle that Annie has talked him into wearing under his uniform: "The rose goes in the front, big guy." By the way, the great rock and roll soundtrack includes the galvanizing baseball song, "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" by John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival fame. (Or maybe the title's "In Center Field": "Put me in coach. I'm ready to play, today, in center field.") It's a shame that Shelton did not win the Oscar for this script, it's really that good. (Ronald Bass won for Rain Man.) The characters are just fascinating and full of life, and not just the three leads. The bit players are funny too, including the hard-talking, middle-brained manager, the mindless pattering coaches, the sweet young groupie girl who makes it with all the players as fast as she can. Even the team clown is good. The irreverent characterizations, the sweet story, the realistic atmosphere of baseball in small town America (only slightly burlesqued), and some fine acting all rolled together make this one highly diverting little film, actually one of the best baseball films ever made. See this with your best babe. She'll like it as much as you.