BBD Comments:
Nubs Comments:
It has been acknowledged in many recent reviews that a selection may not be a great film, but a good Movienight pick. ‘Bull Durham’ is a fine movie. It may not, however, score you a lot of Movienight street cred. I don’t think it’s a chick flick. It’s the equivalent of putting Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” on your poker playlist; great song I just don’t want to rock your gypsy soul while hangin out with my buds.
Once the projector gets working, and you realize you’re locked in, there’s a lot to appreciate that makes ‘Bull Durham’ a classic. It’s very well written. The acting by the trio, Costner, Sarandon, and Robbins could be studied in Ivana Chubbuck’s acting class.
They know their characters so well, that they relax, listen, and play their intentions with dire importance. In fact, you can appreciate every character in every scene is wearing their intention on their sleeve. I can also appreciate that Susan Sarandon wears intention instead of a bra in every scene. In fact, I probably have seen this movie too much as a teenage boy to gauge it properly.
The movie’s flaws are mostly in that, unlike baseball, it is not timeless. Obviously, the Kenny G-like sax solos carry too much of the score and the third act. The sexism also wouldn’t fly past the mid-eighties. The two women in the film are oversexed, kooky, cute, and as obliging as a big-busted orthodox Jew in old west Frisco. Crash Davis brings back the anti-hero and drinks a lot. I did appreciate with this viewing how dark the movie gets when the baseball and sex aren’t there. ‘Bull Durham’ wants you to go out to the ballpark, have a hotdog, tie one on, pick a fight, and go have sex with your old romp buddy that you could never really make work into a healthy relationship. It’s as American as apple pie back in the good ol eighties.
‘Bull Durham’ is the essence of the mid-eighties movie genre and is the essence of Movienight. I have to admit, if it weren’t for the first two rules of Movienight, I wouldn’t have come out to sit through this overplayed film again. Coolbaugh announced that this movie was topical in that it’s baseball season (when is it not?) and that it was one of his all time favorites. Coolbaugh opened his heart and put it on the wall for all of us to judge and criticize forever. Welcome to Movienight.
Wiener Comments:
Was that really a Movie Night pick? Or an excuse to serve peanuts and hot dogs? I appreciate the timeliness of a baseball movie now that baseball season has officially started. But what's with the parade of haircuts, sunglasses, pleated pants, and pretentious dialogue passing itself off as a baseball film? If you want to show a movie about redemption through baseball, show ‘The Natural.’ If you want to demonstrate that getting old sucks in the context of baseball, show ‘Bang the Drum Slowly.’ If you insist on showing me a Kevin Costner baseball movie (and please don't do it again), I'd rather sit through ‘Field of Dreams.’
‘Bull Durham’ is the opposite of Nuke LaLoosh in garters. Nuke is a ballplayer wearing women's underpants. ‘Bull Durham’ is a syrupy, formulaic chick flick dressed up as a baseball movie. If it were a real baseball movie, maybe we would have gotten to see some baseball. Instead, we get bus rides, locker room antics, fans in the stands, chats on the mound, and just about everything except a sense of the game of baseball. For a film that purports to worship the religion of baseball, we get little of its liturgy. There is no sense of the game's pace, poetry, or difficulty. Pitching wisdom is reduced to "don't think." Manager's don't seem to do anything. There are no bottom-of-the-ninth dramas. No duels between pitcher and batter. We know the Bulls win sometimes. We know they lose sometimes. But we have no investment in them or their performance. Baseball is incidental to, not essential to ‘Bull Durham.’ It's the excuse for playing out a middle aged woman's fantasy about the competing affections of a young stud and a handsome and wise older man.
Susan Sarandon's Annie is the central character to the film and the only one that Ron Shelton attempts to make interesting. Other than equipping Crash Davis with an early, famous monologue that could get Kevin Costner laid (but probably not Ron Shelton), the Nuke-Crash relationship is pure cliché. From the cliché bar fight to the, well, cliché pool hall fight. We get no sense of character, of drama, or of any conflict. We're teased with the ambiguity of being the Minor League home run record holder. But we never explore it. The two male leads advance the plot predictably. Tim Robbins mugs likeably. Kevin Costner broods handsomely. And the movie moves along.
It's with Annie that Ron Shelton seems to make the investment of his time. He gives her control of the film through her voice over. He gives her scene stealing wardrobe and framing. And he's clearly infatuated with her sexy, worldly, spiritual and independent streak. It seems that Annie's just a fraud. As Crash points out, she's full of shit. When you get past the fact that Susan Sarandon is really hot, what emerges from her mouth is a pastiche of self-help book crap. I kept looking for signs that the movie wanted to reveal Annie for the pathetic woman she is. But it's not there. Like ‘Pretty Woman,’ ‘Bull Durham’ gives us a dumb slut and convinces us we're seeing a wise princess. Now, like the character she plays in ‘Thelma & Louise,’ it's easy to see how Sarandon comes off sassy and inspirational to uncritical viewers in ill fitting stretch pants taking in the pic at their local multiplex.
Not only is the fantasy of being fought over by Robbins and Costner purely one for the ladies, the sex in ‘Bull Durham’ is clearly directed for a female audience. That's chick fantasy sex on display. If this were a guy movie, there'd be more groupies and fewer candles. You combine that with lines like "Every woman deserves to wear white," and what we've got is clearly the fodder for thousands of personal ads written by lonely women since 1988. "Do you believe in long, slow kisses..." Or "Annie Seeking Crash." I'd like to remind everyone that Rule 6B of the By-Laws specifically bans chick flicks. If this isn't a clear violation, it's dangerously close.
I enjoy my role as the Movie Night crank, and I may be excessively contrary today because I woke up too early. Please take the above with a grain of salt. Is ‘Bull Durham’ a personal favorite for me? Clearly not. Do I understand its staying power in the popular canon? No. I will concede that while there's no doubt about ‘Bull Durham”s quality as a movie, I can still question its selection as a Movie Night pick. It's a movie we've all seen a million times. Enjoyable, yes. But was there a sense of discovery? No. Ultimately, if I wanted to see ‘Bull Durham,’ I could have stayed home and watched TBS.
It seems Movie Night has been struggling of late. As we try to navigate the Bermuda Triangle of films neither too popular, classic, nor obscure, we're losing our way a little bit. It's been a long time since I left movie night excited about what I had just seen, my own most recent pick included. Is Movie Night about showing great movies? It should be. And there are lots of definitions of what makes a great movie. But when this reviewer sits and reflects on the prior night's showing, the only one that matters is mine. The hot dogs, however, were excellent.
I think our three week hiatus is well timed.
SELECTOR Comments:
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