Review(s): DVD Field of Dreams (Full Screen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)
Great Baseball Movies
Baseball movies not only make great sports movies, they also make just Great Movies, period. If you have any questions about this or think otherwise, then just watch this movie. It will answer all your questions and doubts. Costner, Liotta, and Jones are superb in this drama. A great movie for anyone who likes great movies.
For sports fans open to nostalgia
Parodies of the "If you build it, they will come" line are far more prevalent than the movie itself. The basic idea is that Costner is moved to build a baseball diamond in his field; when he's done with the seemingly crazy scheme, it's populated by the ghosts of former baseball greats. I suppose this is a Costner highlight, but for a non-sports fan like me, the memory of the movie seems to fade.
Great movie and extras but missing earlier extras
Field of Dreams is an incredible movie. It is about the importance and timeliness of belief and hope and family and even baseball. It has a fine cast with Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster and Amy Madigan who all work so well together. This is also one of a handful of movies that is even better then the book.
I also agree with and want to thank a prior reviewer who suggested keeping your old Field of Dreams DVD (mine is the Collectors Edition) and buying the new two DVD version (rather than trading the older version for the newer one). The extras on both are great. I especially loved the deleted scenes included in the new version as well as a piece on how people still visit the field where the movie was made. Still, The Making of Field of Dreams on the earlier DVD, which is not included in the new version, taught me much about the movie and movie making and added to my appreciation of the movie. If you can--keep both copies in your DVD library.
Related DVD's Field of Dreams (Full Screen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)
From the sun-dappled heartland, a young man (Robert Redford, in soft lighting) emerges as maybe the best baseball player anybody's ever seen. On his way to the majors, he is cut down by an enigmatic black widow (Barbara Hershey) and vanishes for many years. When he reemerges, a silent mystery, he lands a spot with the New York team and begins tearing up the league--he's still the natural. Fans of the Bernard Malamud novel will be dismayed at the pure mythical hokum of this film, but baseball fanatics have been known to watch and rewatch this one; after all, it's constructed as a kind of shrine to the national pastime. Barry Levinson (Rain Man) directs the movie with an unabashed devotion to the game, although the film could use more of the realities of chewing tobacco and pine tar.... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Barry Levinson DVD Release Date: Released the 03 April 2001 Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks
List Price: $14.94 Your Price: $10.99YOU SAVE $3.95!
Buy it
Bull Durham is about minor league baseball. It's also about romance, sex, poetry, metaphysics, and talent--though not necessarily in that order. Susan Sarandon plays a loopy lady who just loves America's national pastime--and the men who play it. At the opening of every season, she attaches herself to a promising rookie and guides him through the season. Unfortunately, the player she bestows her favors upon does not really deserve it. She knows it, and veteran Kevin Costner knows it. Her choice, a dim bulb played for laughs by Tim Robbins, is the only one who doesn't know it. The film, directed by its writer, Ron Shelton, a former minor league player, is rich in subtle detail. There are Edith Piaf records playing in the background, fast-talking managers, and minor characters as... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kevin Costner - Susan Sarandon - Tim Robbins Director(s): Ron Shelton DVD Release Date: Released the 02 April 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.94 Your Price: $11.95YOU SAVE $2.99!
Buy it
Billy Chapel (Kevin Costner) is having a bad day. His girlfriend Jane (Kelly Preston, stunning as ever) says she's leaving, and his boss (Brian Cox) says he's selling the business and ace employee Billy may be out of job. Sounds like business as usual for an old-fashioned veteran. However, the business is baseball and for Billy Chapel, the 40-year old former all-star for the Detroit Tigers, it means his career--and his life--is at a crossroads.
Although it is no Bull Durham, For Love of the Game finds a solid and very believable role for Costner. The film is based on Michael Shaara's (The Killer Angels) stream-of-consciousness novel (the rough manuscript was found after his death 1988). The entire film takes place on Billy's day on the mound against the Yankees, a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Kevin Costner - Kelly Preston Director(s): Sam Raimi DVD Release Date: Released the 15 August 2000 Usually ships in 6 to 8 days
List Price: $12.98 Your Price: $9.99YOU SAVE $2.99!
Buy it
Eliot Asinof's detailed book Eight Men Out illustrates how the system of American sports collapsed in 1919, the year the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. Filmmaker John Sayles worked on his script years before the 1988 film (or before he had the rights to make the film) as a labor of love. Sayles's adaptation proves one can make a historically accurate film in the day and age of artistic license. And what a story. Although many know about the "Black Sox," made famous--again--in the 1989 hit film Field of Dreams, the details of the saga are far less known. The center of Dreams, Shoeless Joe Jackson (portrayed correctly by D.B. Sweeney as illiterate and left-handed in Eight), is not the core of this film; it's ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte (Sayles... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Cusack Director(s): John Sayles DVD Release Date: Released the 08 May 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.94 Your Price: $11.95YOU SAVE $2.99!
Buy it
Penny Marshall's popular 1992 comedy sheds light on a little-known chapter of American sports history with its story of a struggling team in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The league was formed when the recruiting of soldiers during World War II resulted in a shortage of men's baseball teams. The AAGPBL continued after the war (until 1954), and Marshall's movie depicts the league in full swing, beginning when a savvy baseball scout (Jon Lovitz) finds a pair of promising new players in small-town Oregonian sisters (Geena Davis, Lori Petty). The sisters are signed to play for the Rockford Peaches near Chicago, whose new manager (Tom Hanks) is a former home-run king who wrecked his career with alcoholism. They're all a bunch of underdogs, and Marshall (with a witty... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tom Hanks - Geena Davis - Lori Petty Director(s): Penny Marshall DVD Release Date: Released the 09 September 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.94 Your Price: $11.95YOU SAVE $2.99!
Buy it
