Bull Durham: Collector's Edition

The greatest baseball movie gets another swing of the bat just in time for the start of the new season.Bull Durham was the sleeper hit of 1988, starring then-unknown Tim Robbins as Nuke LaLoosh. Nuke is a gifted but dim pitcher for the minor league Durham Bulls, whose salty veteran catcher "Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner’s best performance) and sexy, older baseball muse Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon’s comeback) guide into the big leagues. Shelton’s script is a clever and hilarious love triangle that’s wrapped around the game of baseball. Winning isn’t so much important as personal growth. Twenty years later, the film’s realism rings true, while its wit and sexuality still hit home runs. This DVD is a modest improvement on an already hefty package. Shelton’s audio commentary and that of Costner with Robbins are recycled from the previous 2002 DVD. Also back are the "making of” featurette "Between The Lines” and two brief promos from the mid-’80s. The new additions to the line-up are two fine documentaries: "The Greatest Show on Dirt,” which is a critical appreciation of Bull Durham by film and baseball fans, and "Diamonds in the Dirt,” a sobering look at life in the minor leagues, gathering interviews with real triple-A Durham players. With the new features, this DVD is a formidable release and should satiate any fan of this movie. However, if you already own the 2002 version, you don’t absolutely need to grab this one. In either case, the two commentaries alone are worth the price of admission. If the previous DVD was a home run, then this update hits a grand slam.