3.  BULL DURHAM

bull-durham

Full disclosure: I am a passionate fan of baseball.  So, when an actor/actress I admire takes a role in a film where baseball plays a huge part of the story, my interest in automatically piqued.  It also helps when the movie is just really, really, good.

Sarandon found her sports film debut with Ron Shelton’s timeless classic, Bull Durham.  She plays Annie, a self-proclaimed baseball fanatic who chooses one minor league player to sleep with and “train” every season.  She instantly takes a liking to both Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), a 12-year veteran of the minor leagues, and Ebby “Nuke” LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), a rising star pitcher with a huge ego and control issues.  As Crash spurns her advances, and Nuke welcomes them openly, a bizarre and funny love triangle develops as Annie struggles to choose.

Where do I begin?  The incredible wit of Ron Shelton’s almost perfect screenplay?  The perfect partnership of Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner? The special, almost religious experience of baseball? Maybe all three, but I’d say that the central charm of this film is Sarandon’s Annie.

She’s sexy, funny, strong, and seductive, all while stealing the film away despite two equally great turns from Costner and Robbins.  This is the film that first proved she is a force on the screen, and we’re all treated to the pleasure of her infinite talent.