Kevin Costner Cinema Collection; Volume One: 1982-2000; High Rollers, Heroes & Home Runs

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Kevin Costner became one of the great movie stars of the late 20th century. He won hearts with "Field of Dreams," box office gold with "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "The Bodyguard," and Academy Awards with "Dances With Wolves."

His years of success were followed by years of struggles at the box office and with film critics.

But the headlines - good and bad - don't provide the whole story of Costner's films during the 1980's and 1990's.

This book, the first of two, analyzes 24 Costner films - from "Stacy's Knights," his first starring role in 1982, to "Thirteen Days," the award-winning 2000 film about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Each film features a review, a listing of principal cast and crew members and DVD details. There's also a close look at Costner's motivations in making particular films.

Whether you're a long-time fan or just discovering his movies, "Kevin Costner Cinema Collection" will be a handy guide!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sylvia Gurinsky
• Release date: Aug 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370495962

Sylvia Gurinsky

Born in Miami, Florida, Sylvia Gurinsky is a history consultant, tour guide and freelance writer. She works with Context Travel, Florida International University and Nova Southeastern University’s lifelong learning programs and the Girls Empowerment and Mentoring program at the Women’s Park in Miami. She co-hosts the television series “Roadside Florida” for the Lynn & Louis Wolfson Florida Moving Image Archives and is planning a series of books about top historical locations in South Florida. She has been an educator and tour guide at HistoryMiami Museum and was a journalist at WPLG-Channel 10 and the Jewish Journal, among others, for 17 years. She won two Florida Associated Press Awards for Editorial Writing and was a 2008 Fellow for the Peter Jennings Project For Journalists and the Constitution at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. She has just finished "Kevin Costner Cinema Collection, Volume One: 1982-2000; High Rollers, Heroes & Home Runs," which she has just published here at Smashwords.

Book preview

Kevin Costner Cinema Collection, Volume 1

High Rollers, Heroes & Home Runs: 1982-2000

By

Sylvia Gurinsky

Published by Sylvia Gurinsky at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Sylvia Gurinsky

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Note: The theater marquee image on the cover is from publicdomainpictures.net.

Dedicated to Kevin Costner’s fellow fans-

the Costner Posse.

And to those who love going to the movies.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Costner Perspective

Film Criteria

Film Chronology

Stacy’s Knights

Testament

Fandango

Silverado

American Flyers

Amazing Stories: The Mission

The Untouchables

No Way Out

Bull Durham

Field of Dreams

Revenge

Dances with Wolves

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

JFK

The Bodyguard

A Perfect World

Wyatt Earp

The War

Waterworld

Tin Cup

The Postman

Message in a Bottle

For Love of the Game

Thirteen Days

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction

I was born 30 years too late for the kind of cinema I’d like to do, Kevin Costner said in an interview for Time magazine’s June 26, 1989 issue.

It’s entirely possible that Costner would have been more comfortable working in Hollywood’s Golden Age. While it is true that studios controlled stars with an iron fist, there were many types of movies - comedies, dramas and westerns, among others - made by those studios and available to all filmgoers at that time. It’s possible that Costner could have gotten the recognition and respect given to stars such as James Stewart and Gregory Peck.

Movie critics may wonder whether their favorite, more biting, Costner movies, such as Bull Durham and The Upside of Anger, would have been made in that studio system. But The Untouchables, Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, Thirteen Days and Open Range almost certainly would have been made. The latter two likely would have gotten the awards recognition that eluded them when they were released in 2000 and 2003.It’s also possible that Waterworld and The Postman would not have been made in that old studio system. Perhaps that would have saved Costner a great deal of the critical and emotional grief that resulted when those films were released in 1995 and 1997.

Of course, the old studio system might also have said no to Tin Cup, a very funny 1996 film that is, perhaps, the one that reveals what Kevin Costner is all about – the proud, sometimes stubborn man who has his own beliefs and will express them.

For more than 30 years, Kevin Costner has expressed many of those beliefs on film - and they involve much more than the hanging curveball and the outlawing of the designated hitter, two beliefs well-traveled ballplayer Crash Davis expressed in 1988’s Bull Durham. In many interviews, Costner has said he believes in great scripts with unforgettable moments, whether they are movies about baseball, politics, the Old West, families or other themes.

This book chronicles the first half of that film history, from his first genuine starring role, Stacy’s Knights, to Thirteen Days, the Cuban Missile Crisis drama released in 2000. There are reviews and details about the making of those films.

Ultimately, a Costner film, at its best, moves and inspires. So turn off the lights, grab the DVD and popcorn, and join the journey. As Mr. Costner likes to say, See You At the Movies!

The Costner Perspective

What is it about Kevin Costner and his films that has triggered such a strong reaction – frequently negative – in film critics? Why did Pauline Kael, regarded as a legend in the critical community, slam him for what many regard as his masterpiece, his Dances with Wolves? Why did so many in the media jump on a bandwagon to throw darts when he made Waterworld?

One answer might rest in the general attitude of critics, who cut their teeth on the anti-establishment films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They seem to value films that mark a rebellion from society. They embrace actors and actresses whose filmography is heavy on anti-establishment films.

That may be why they so admire Costner’s Bull Durham, which was written and directed by Ron Shelton and is anti-establishment in the sense that it alternately takes shots at and reveres the game of baseball. Likewise, they warmly welcome Costner’s turns as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1991’s JFK, another anti-establishment film, and ne’er-do-well radio host Denny Davies in 2005’s The Upside of Anger. Otherwise, they seem to sense that Costner’s films are of the establishment, and turn away.

Critics also tend to be fans of irony, even in idealistic themes. Wink at something while you seem to embrace it, which speaks to critics’ larger love for things anti-establishment. Costner is not an ironic filmmaker. He is an idealist.

Yet, critics seem to ignore that idealism is a necessary fabric of Kevin Costner’s moviemaking. No other actor could have convinced filmgoers of Ray Kinsella’s willingness to take his unusual journey in 1989’s Field of Dreams. No other actor could have undergone John Dunbar’s metamorphosis in Dances with Wolves.

Costner’s idealism tempers cowboy Charley Waite’s toughness in Open Range. It is also present in the character of Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup. Roy’s been beaten up by life – with a lot of the beating up self-inflicted. But he still stubbornly clings to his belief in the perfect golf shot, literally to the end of the film. Roy could not be a successful movie character by being a cynic.

A number of themes run through Costner’s films. Preservation of the planet and fear of a worldwide holocaust resonate in Testament- an early film in which Costner played a small role - and continue through Waterworld, "The