13 June 2013
TIM AT TFE: BULL DURHAM
My column this week: an appreciation of Bull Durham, greatest of all baseball pictures and top-notch romantic comedy, on the eve of its 25th anniversary. Which seems like an impossible number, but time waits for no Kevin Costner vehicle.
4 comments:
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Very nice take on the movie, and I agree with it, but:
ReplyDeleteneither of them transparently painted as the “bad” choice
Really? could even the dopiest viewer have any doubt about who she's supposed to end up with? I think her relationship with Robbins is depicted as the obvious wrong choice, like a pet project or a social experiment, her old ways that she must overcome to evolve. Even though I guess you could say the movie manages to make it look reasonable for a moment.
strong characters, each a little idiosyncratic without stumbling into the dread Quirky
Do you know anyone like Annie at all? This might be just my problem, but I certainly haven't, and I remember from the first time I saw the movie always thinking of her as an alien, or a movie-contrivance. But of course, the movie is so charming, in spite of its defects (in my eyes) that in the end it doesn't matter much.
Not that I think that we're in doubt who she ends up with, but that Nuke isn't a jerk or monster, like the "other guy" in most contemporary romantic comedies.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right, Annie is definitely an unreal creation, but she doesn't feel playfully kooky in the way that "quirk" implies to me; more like magical realism. It works for me, anyway.
I like this movie a lot, and it really captures the feel of life--or what I imagine the feel would be--for a minor league ballplayer. That said, every time I see it I just cringe at Costner's "stuff I believe in" speech. I find it just intolerably self-conscious and writerly.
ReplyDelete"greatest of all baseball pictures"
ReplyDeleteMay I just throw in a special mention for Eight Men Out? It came out the same year, and I've yet to see another baseball movie that's more like a political drama - a very good one, at that - than a feel-good inspiring sports movie. Also, Robert Richardson is the DP, so it at least looks better than just about any other sports movie I've seen.