Apr. 12, 2003 - 11:36 pm
i was checking out the new dvds that the public library had gotten in recently and saw this title. i thought "hey, i haven't ever seen that one before and i've heard the title and seen the cover tons before." so i had it sent out to my branch along with a few other things. it stars Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins.
it's about a baseball team called the Durham Bulls (why they called this Bull Durham i have no idea. well, maybe it sounded more interesting or something). the team is doing terribly, but they have a couple of new recruits playing this season. Tim Robbins' character has a great arm, but he throws some really wild pitches. he walks as many people as he strikes out. so they also bring in the more experienced Kevin Costner catcher character. his job is to teach the kid the ropes and try to smarten him up some because he's just a moron in about every aspect. Susan Sarandon plays a baseball groupie who's smarter than she seems at first.
parts of this were funny and/or cute, but a lot of it was just too goofy for me. the writing, some of the dialogue, and even major plot elements. i think a major flaw in this is the huge change that takes place in the Tim Robbins character. he's a complete idiot at the beginning of the film, but he's much more intelligent and understanding at the end. i'm sorry, but even after some more experienced people talk some sense into you, you're still going to be a moron. you don't completely change brains by having conversations with people. there's a difference between inexperience and stupidity. he's stupid at the beginning of this film, and they later try to pass it off by saying that he was merely inexperienced. i just thought it was a terrible way of accomplishing the end goal. it was a cop out.
as far as Kevin Costner, yeah he was decent in this, but it was nothing that exceptional to what he usually accomplishes in a film. he's a great actor, but he doesn't amaze me. i think it would help if i liked him as a person more as well. i think i've become completely tired of Susan Sarandon too. the characters that she can play almost always suck in some way or another and they're not usually found in stories that i like either. the one time i think i enjoyed it was in Anywhere But Here (1998). but then she was playing opposite Natalie Portman who i've always thought was amazing in every possible way.
weird. as i was writing that sentence, Sting's "Shape of My Heart" started playing on my MP3 player. that's the song at the end of Leon (1994), in which Natalie also starred.
so i guess this must have been the movie where Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon met. i had always heard that they have tons of kids together, but i never knew there was a movie that had prompted all of that.