The Bad News Bears (1976)

It seemed like most of the kids I met in school or out on the playground were like the Bears, or various shades of gray. A lot of kids with Anglo genes mouthing off to whoever wherever they pleased, smoking, drinking beer, drawing pornographic graffiti wherever they pleased, and swearing up a storm. That's the Bad News Bears, and that was how most of the American youth in the 1970s and 1980s behaved. How I avoided it I'll never know.It's fine film for what it is. It's a bit on the low budget side with lots of hand held shots, but it has a good story and a certain integrity to it. This is how kids behave when their parents aren't around, and when this film was released it was a smash hit among kids because this showed my peers to adult America how they were "in the raw", so to speak. The geeky uncoordinated kid, the feisty short blonde kid, the gentle or effete kid (colloquially referred to as "the wussy" in pre-teen speak), the athletically talented black kid, the proverbial fat kid, and the "bad boy" along with a host of others. If you lived in California anywhere south of Shasta, then this film and the scenes it portrays are all too familiar.It's a rags to riches and almost bag to rags story with a lot of scrappy attitude. We see these kids behave as a lot of boys behaved when things didn't go right. Whether it was fate, bad luck, or lack of preparation, when all those factors met, or just one reared its ugly head, mayhem ensued, and we usually threw our gear on the ground and cursed the world and fell into a minor kid like depression.I remember the hype more than the actual film. I remember everyone talking about this movie. I remember everyone saying how great it was. I remember how both kids and parents (and even some teachers) alike would mention the name of the movie, and then the kids who had seen it would say what a great film it was.Well, as a middle aged man seeing this for the first time in over forty years, I think I can rightfully say that it's a decent film, but that I had the same misgivings about it then as I do now, and that is it's essentially a window on un-parented boy behavior.There's a parable here about talent and good parenting verse being an abusive coach, but I'm not sure the message hits home with the not-so-ironic poetic ending. There's also a message about how girls can play boys' sports, but this film was made in an era of supposed psychological discovery, and how boys and girls are the same (well, we weren't then, and still aren't now) and do all the things that boys can. Eh, sure, if so inclined, and that's the ultra important point that the arrogant social psychologist of a screenwriter missed. But never mind.All in all The Bad News Bears is an okay film. It was worth seeing once for a nostalgia blast, but man do I remember those days, and seeing this film reminds of just how much I wanted to forget them. Kids with attitude problems may make for an interesting film, and it certainly is a reminder of an era past, but, like I say, I'd just assume forget it.If you grew up in California, then see again one time. If you're looking for a good film about little league, well, I'm thinking there's a better film out there somewhere.

"The Bad News Bears", a modestly budgeted comedy, turned out to be the fourth highest grossing movie of 1976. Watching it today, it doesn't take long to discover why audiences of the time found it appealing. After decades of movies showing kids to be pretty sweet and innocent, the viewpoint of kids in this movie is more realistic, not just with their use of dirty language. The movie also shows the adults who push kids such as these into sports to have a pretty dark edge to them - it's obvious they are living off their kids' winning or losing. Despite the movie's prominent serious edge, the movie for the most part still manages to be an amusing experience, and manages to get the audience to sympathize with the Bears and root for them to win in the end. Better than that is the movie's biggest message: that sports, at least when it comes to kids, should be more of a FUN experience than a competition.

The Sandlot and Bad News Bears are by far the two best movies involving kids playing baseball. You have Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker the beer drinking coach of the team. Tatum O'Neal plays his stepdaughter who becomes his star pitcher. Jackie Earl Haley as the bad boy Kelly Leak the motorcycle riding kid.Buttermaker makes this team of misfits into a winning team when the league didn't even want to let these kids play.The movie is most definitely primarily a comedy but there's a lot more depth to it then just that. It's about a team of kids who aren't very coordinated and a lot of them who are quite frankly afraid of the ball. At first Buttermaker doesn't put that much effort into his coaching but eventually starts to care about the kids and gets them to play better and they turn things around.

Michael Ritchie's "The Bad News Bears" is a classic American comedy film starring Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker, a former minor league ball player is recruited to coach a gang of misfit kids into winning the local sandlot baseball tournament. To start off, I had actually seen like the last 10 minutes of the 2000-whatever remake of the film on "TBS" or something. I wasn't really impressed. However, after sitting through all 100-some minutes of the original I can say that it is entertaining and at least worth checking out some time. Walter Matthau is. . .well, he's Walter Matthau. He's great in this and he's a great actor altogether. A young Jackie Earle Haley was in this and it was pretty interesting to see the movie where he first planted his feet into Hollywood. The script is alright from what I've seen - it had quite a few hilarious one-liners in it. The movie in general was fairly funny, but It also featured a lot of really touching moments between its characters that I honestly did not expect to see. Overall I felt the movie was pretty good and worth checking out if you have nothing else to watch on TV.