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Baseball has been very, very good to Kevin Costner. In Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, two movies about those diamonds that are a boy's best friend, he gave two of his sprightliest, sexiest performances. Heading out of the dugout once more in For Love of the Game, a romantic drama about a major leaguer who's trying to decide if it's time to leave the game and move on with his life, Costner returns to peak form.
Which is not to say that Game is a great movie. It's not. But it is a darned enjoyable one in a sappy, sentimental way, and it will make grown men cry, something which probably hasn't happened since, well, Field of Dreams. Prophylactic blinking could begin for some softies even before Game's opening credits—showing Costner's character as a child playing catch with his dad—are through.
In Game, Costner portrays a star Detroit Tigers pitcher, Billy Chapel, who has been throwing heat for nearly two decades. Just before a late-season game against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, his off-and-on girlfriend (Preston) dumps him, and the Tigers' owner informs Costner he has sold the team and that maybe Costner should quit now or he'll be traded. During the course of what could possibly be his final game, Costner strikes out batter after batter, blessedly finding himself in what athletes call the Zone. The Flashback Zone is more like it, as he remembers the big moments of his career and his bumpy relationship with Preston.
As Costner heads toward a possible perfect game, and a tearful Preston (who actually makes her lip tremble) heads for the plane that will take her to a new job in London, there's little doubt about how this will end. Helping erase even that uncertainty is Vin Scully, the real-life voice of the L.A. Dodgers, chiming in with the verbal equivalent of a laser pointer ("He's pitching against time now"). But with Costner suited up and in shape, would you want to be anywhere but at the ballpark with him? (PG-13)
Bottom Line: Costner has good stuff
Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson
How much one likes this slapdash, witless action comedy will depend entirely upon how amusing one finds Martin Lawrence. He is front and center here, grimacing broadly, doing physical schtick and otherwise acting like a man with a permanent whoopee cushion down his pants.
Blue Streak's truly convoluted premise starts off with Lawrence as a thief who hides a $17 million diamond in the air shaft of a building under construction. When he gets out of jail two years later, he is horrified to discover that the building containing his hot rock is now a Los Angeles police station. What to do? He gets a fake ID and, masquerading as a detective, saunters into the precinct house. Before he can go crawling up the air shafts, however, he is paired with a stumblebum partner (Wilson), and the two are sent hither and yon on burglaries and drug busts. Lawrence, to his own surprise, turns out to be a splendid officer of the law.
All of this plays as pro forma as the plot recapitulation sounds. Martin works double time trying to goose scenes into life, but real laughs are few and far between.(PG-13)
Bottom Line: For Lawrence loyalists only
Documentary
If you watched the latest Emmy telecast, you caught the work of Hollywood quipmeister Bruce Vilanch. He wrote many of the jokes the show's hosts and guest presenters so clumsily spouted before opening envelopes. Vilanch, the subject of this amusing, showbiz-savvy documentary, has also written for the Oscar, Grammy and Tony telecasts, as well as for scads of star-stocked charitable events. When Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal or Robin Williams, all of whom appear here, need custom-tailored funny stuff, they dial Vilanch. ("You don't write for Robin, you write at Robin," says Vilanch. "Mostly, you just throw the material in his cage.") Vilanch comes across in this reverential documentary as a droll sprite. He sports a matted haystack of blond hair and over his pudgy stomach wears T-shirts that say things like "Will work for liposuction" or "My other body is in the shop." While Get Bruce! happily acknowledges Vilanch's homosexuality, we learn little about his private life and even less about how much money he gets paid for putting funny stuff into the mouths of stars. "The bigger the show, the smaller the salary," says Vilanch. One wonders if he's joking. (R)
Bottom Line: Snappy portrait of Hollywood's favorite in-house jester
Rosanna Arquette, Ally Sheedy, John Taylor, Michael Des Barres, Beverly D'Angelo, Jade Gordon, Larry Klein
Rock and roll may never die, but its players can't escape the effects of time and the fickle nature of fame. Witness the humiliation visited here on an aging rocker (Des Barres, himself once a member of the '80s rock band Power Station) when at a bar he eagerly makes eyes at a luscious young gumdrop (Bijou Phillips, the daughter of Mamas and Papas founder John Phillips). She recognizes him, hurries over and requests an autograph. Then she zings him, explaining, "It's actually for my mother. She used to love you."
Sugar Town is a sassy ensemble comedy cowritten and codirected by Allison Anders (Grace of My Heart) and Kurt Voss. Just as director Robert Altman did with country singers in the far superior Nashville (1975), Anders and Voss strive to capture the rhythms and texture of life among aging rockers, their spouses and business associates in today's L.A. There are tart performances from D'Angelo, Arquette and Gordon and knowing ones by several real-life ex-rockers, including Des Barres, Taylor (of Duran Duran) and John Doe (of X, a seminal L.A. punk band). (R)
Bottom Line: Amusing, but played in a minor key
THE SIXTH SENSE Don't leave early trying to beat the crowds or you'll miss the humdinger of an ending that makes this carefully crafted psychological thriller seem like a better movie than it is. Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment star. (PG-13)
THE SOURCE This informative documentary about Beat Generation writers includes rare footage of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, as well as interviews with several of the group's lesser-known members. (No rating)
BOWFINGER In this sweetly silly comedy about Hollywood, Steve Martin's down-and-out producer figures out an ingenious way to get the town's leading action hero (Eddie Murphy) to appear in his movie without even knowing it. (PG-13)
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
