Bull Durham (1988)
Directed by Ron Shelton
Veteran catcher Crash Davis is brought to the minor league Durham Bulls to help their up and coming pitching prospect, "Nuke" Laloosh. Their relationship gets off to a rocky start and is further complicated when baseball groupie Annie Savoy sets her sights on the two men.
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What critics compared Bull Durham to
“Bull Durham” might still be No. 1 in baseball movies, but “Moneyball” gives “Bull Durham” a run for its money!
As " Bull Durham " and "The Bad News Bears " and many other films have already demonstrated, baseball movies are just fine being about just baseball.
From Pride of the Yankees (1942) to Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) to Bull Durham (1988) to Sugar (2008), dramas about baseball have always been steeped in romance, whether they follow a winner on his way up or a loser on his way out.
Thanks to sterling work by the odd-couple team of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, and a razor-sharp script by Oscar winners Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) and Steve Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”) — as well as understated direction by Bennett Miller — this is probably the finest baseball movie since “Bull Durham” back in 1988.
From what may seem, on the surface, to be dry subject matter, director Bennett Miller delivers a wordy but well-paced and thrilling film, closer to co-writer Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network than previous baseball-themed big hitters Bull Durham or Field of Dreams.
Think "Bull Durham" with the vet helping out the cocky rookie while romancing the only woman on set…and you'll get the picture.
Still, the youths floating around the 33-year-old Kevin Costner in Bull Durham treated him with greater disdain than do those sniggering towards the (at time of shooting) 59-year-old star here.
But judging from Seyfried's performance in "Dear John," she has a ways to go before achieving the status of the "Bull Durham" star (who has been relegated to not just mom but grandma roles, as in "The Lovely Bones").
If the makers wanted it to be "thoughtful" then it shouldn't be a competitive romance but more like Ron Shelton's Kevin Costner sports movies, Bull Durham and Tin Cup, in which the hero competes mainly against himself.
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Emma Thompson provides some comic relief as a quack fortune telling professor who would be at home in most liberal arts college poetry departments, possibly discussing magic with Susan Sarandon from Bull Durham.
Leaving less than little to imagination -- in Bull Durham skivvies, Annie and Crash are infinitely more erotic -- and inducing no curiosity about the characters such as Bertolucci pulled off about Paul and his dead wife, Winterbottom serves up Swinburnes sexless orgies, passion without a trace of passion.
In the meantime, Hellboy smokes cigars, keeps his horn stubs ground down and imagines long, slow, deep, "Bull Durham" kisses with Liz while dispatching the occasional monster.
There have certainly been fascinating, complex films that have scrutinized masculinity over the last decade and a half Bull Durham, Fight Club, Ma Vie En Rose but Frequency cannot claim to be among them.
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A witty, sharply observed tale that blends sports, comedy, and romance, “Bull Durham” was a sleeper when it came out, and it put on the map Ron Shelton, its writer and director, who followed up with other joyous sports picture, such as “White Men Can’t Jump” in 1992.
The directorial debut of established screenwriter Shelton (Under Fire, The Best of Times) made him a fixture on the Hollywood map for the decade to follow, though he would remain best known for his sports-themed films, including White Men Can't Jump, Tin Cup (again with Costner), The Great White Hype, Play It to the Bone, and Cobb, about the dark side of one of baseball's most famous figures.
Shelton, whose first film as a director was the great baseball comedy “ Bull Durham ” (1988), knows all about sports that are played by adults for adult reasons; about how the appearance of boys at play can obscure the reality of men at work.
Ron Shelton wrote and directed "Bull Durham" and he really understands jock culture.
Shelton, who plunged into the religion of baseball in "Bull Durham," works on a less metaphysical level here, but the results are only slightly less pleasurable.
Shelton, an ex-athlete himself who wrote and directed the very successful "Bull Durham" about minor league baseball, is back (after a detour called "Blaze") with a film that once again understands athletes from the inside out and demonstrates that the fringes of sport are where the most entertaining action is to be found.
Ron Shelton, who shares screenplay credit with Jerry Stahl, has made two of the best sports movies ever (Bull Durham, Tin Cup) plus a couple of decent ones (White Guys Can't Jump and Cobb).