re: Spinoff: I watched Bull Durham for the 1st time last night.

^^^This


You have to remember Bull Durham came out 3 yrs after The Natural, a big sweeping romantic baseball movie. Bull Durham was the North Dallas Forty of Baseball movies, no one had ever done a raunchy, true to life baseball movie like this.

Also remember this is 2 yrs BEFORE Major League. So the outside world did was not in on all the quirky, crude baseball humor and superstitions...especially from the viewpoint of Minor League baseball, a very Un-romantic version of the sport.

Ron Shelton who directed and I believe also wrote Bull Durham played minor league baseball and exposed everyone to how road trips, women, and humor actually exist in baseball, which out of all the sports is the most juvenile and soaked in weird, yet funny traditions and practices. Anyone who has ever really been around or played baseball at a high level (college or above) know all the crazy terms and sense of humor most of these guys have. I mean, how many of the outside world know how to get out of a slump???

Also, The movie is as much or more about relationships and chasing dreams as it is about baseball. I'm not a fan of Sarandon, but she's perfectly cast in this. She's not some 20 yr old smokeshow with no wisdom or personality, she was a complex fully formed character and a perfect love interest of Crash Davis. Roughly the same age, and both are chasing dreams and fantasies of much younger people.

I remember watching Bull Durham when I was a teenager or early 20s and had kind of the same feeling as the original poster, but as I got older and watched the movie a couple more times you realize just how damn good a movie it actually is. There is just no comparison of it vs The Sandlot or Rookie of the Year or even Field of Dreams. Those are either kids movies or a somewhat fantastical Father and Son story.

Just because baseball is in all these movies does not make them the same. I'd put Bull Durham in the same category as something like the first Magic Mike, a relationship or life movie thinly guised as some type of wacky genre movie.

Bull Durham is an all timer in my book...it is a very, very well done picture.

You pretty much nailed it. Bull Durham feels like baseball. I watch it every year just before the season starts.

Fair point, but Tim Robbins' character was an idiot. I think if you had a super athletic actor with a better looking delivery, it wouldn't have been as convincing. The fact that Robbins' was all over the place, for me kind of rammed home that his character was an idiot.

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In all of Hollywood, there wasn't some 20-something actor that looked somewhat athletic?

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Sure, but they wouldn't have nailed the character as well as Robbins did. He was great.

The entire movie is combination of baseball inside jokes, slice of life, romance and parody. If you view it purely as a straight sports movie . . . you're doing it wrong.

anything that flies that far should have a stewardess on it

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This is most likely an unpopular opinion, but I wasnt impressed.

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I'm with you.

But I also think Costner is about as bad as they get. Keanu Reeves looks like Marlon Brando next to him.

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Anyone who has ever really been around or played baseball at a high level (college or above) know all the crazy terms and sense of humor most of these guys have. I mean, how many of the outside world know how to get out of a slump???

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I give credit to about .50-.75 numbers on my batting average to some slump busters

"If you believe you're playing well because you're getting laid, or because you're not getting laid, or because you wear women's underwear, then you *are*! And you should know that!"



and just for the heck of it, one of my favorite quotes of the movie...

"Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob."

Without this movie, I would have never known that women may get wooly because of all the stress.

Bull Durham is unique because it really isnt a baseball movie. It is a movie about getting older, unfulfilled dreams, and shifting priorities. Its about Crash and Annie both accepting who they are and understanding how they need to be better.

The cool part is although it isnt about baseball, it does baseball better than just about any other movie.

I love Major League, but Bull Durham is a better and more important movie.

The bunt play at the end of Major League infuriates me