Anti-Climacus

Bull Durham: I hold onto this opinion, rendered two years ago. But note a few other meaningful details: the presence of a grizzled old (actually 32) Kevin Costner falling for a (nine years older) Susan Sarandon, who convincingly play as equals. Note that everyone gets a happy-ish ending, which is less about handing them everything they want than giving them some measure of dignity (Millie getting married, Nuke learning to behave like an adult and realize he doesn't know everything). Note also--very unusual for a comedy these days--the profusion of jokes and humorous moments, which go from runners to dialogue to wordplay to physical comedy. I like its vision of North Carolina, and of Durham, which plays less as "run-down old place nobody wants to be" and more as "the timelessness of these things in the midst of a very specific time functions as a metaphor for baseball itself"; it's definitely the 80s, but you'd never know it.