Rating: 
Summary: Good news Bad News Bears are still around today!
Review: I first saw this movie when i was a kid, maybe thirteen years old, and i had a crush on Tatum O'neal real bad after seeing it.I still think she is pretty nice now,and John m. is a fool and a jerk,but anyway, this movie was very well made in it's day and it is extremly funny. Walter Matthau was great hear, but he was great in everything he did. It is a movie that everyone in the family can enjoy. I intend on buying a DvD of this gem very soon, so i can see Little cute Tatum again.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Buy This For Your Kids!
Review: I had always heard about this movie and thought it must be worthwhile. Now that I've seen it I'm completely mystified about the high ratings people give it - they must be written by all the kid actors who are making royalties off the suckers who buy it.
Except for the actor Vic Morrow, there's nothing redeeming in this movie. Here are the 'highlights':
- alcoholism: coach drinks a different brand of beer in every scene; passes out on the field; drinks in the dugout.
- abuse: verbal and physical, throughout the movie, beginning to end. All the relationships, if you could call them that, are based on disrespect and profanity.
Even the cinematography is pitiful - that washed out smog-yellowed look you see in photo albums of the 60s.
It's a 1-star movie only because they don't allow 0-stars.
After watching it I felt like I had just spent an hour rummaging around in my garbage can.
Rating: 
Summary: Cute!
Review: I have fond memories of my mother taking me to see The Bad News Bears when I was a kid and I thought it was a good movie and I liked the entire cast but especially Tatum O'Neal, Walter Matthau and Jackie Earle Haley and I recommend this movie. Okay so there was some strong language in this movie but it's no worse than what you hear in movies these days and I thought it was a cute movie.
Rating: 
Summary: No Longer a Classic
Review: I once thought this was a good movie, but that was in a different era. It had probably been about 15 years since I had last seen this movie, so when I watched it recently I was amazed at what a horrible person Matthau's character was -- verbally and physically abusive to children. I still recognize the elements that I had always considered funny, but in today's world I found this primarily to be a very dark movie -- not something I'd want my own child to watch.
Rating:
Summary: "You Can Take Your Apology and that Trophy and Shove it ..."
Review: I saw "The Bad News Bears"in the theatre, when it came out in 1976. At the tender age of thirteen, I thought this was a hilarious send up of little league and organized sports. Now over twenty five years later, I still laugh out loud at the DVD version of the film, which has both biting moments and a lot of heart.The plot has now been endlessly copied by dozens of other movies.Walter Matthau plays an aging alcoholic, who is payed by a local politician to coach a little league team made up of misfits and losers.They are hopelessly bad players, who are dumped on by both other kids and adults alike.Through Mathau's drunken coaching and the help of an eleven year old girl with a killer curve ball (wonderfully played by Tatum O'neal) the team rises to the top of the stats and the big championship game. The late director, Michael Ritchie used this fairly simple plot device to present us with a scewering of the world of children's organized sports and a satire of suburban society in general.I love the scene where at the league party a female official presents a pizza made up with toppings to look like a ball field.She goes on to explain how she couldn't use anchovies in the presentation "but hey, not many people like anchovies".The film has many funny moments such as this, but it also carries a dark underbelly when it presents how serious the parents take games that are suppose to be fun and put their kids under a tremendous amount of pressure.It's hard to even watch a scene, in which an opposing team's coach, in the heat of game, goes out to the pitcher's mound and slaps his own son in the face.I don't mean to paint too dark of a picture of this movie. It is a really funny film. But under all the slapstick comedic moments that the film provides, Ritchie has something to say about how we treat our kids, that rings as true today (in the age of soccer moms) as it did over twenty five years ago.Matthau and O'neal are both excellent. The film has great supporting performances from actors Vic Morrow and Joyce Van Patton.Some of the stand out juvenile actors include Alfred Lutter, Jackie Earle Haley and Brandon Cruz.The script is smart and funny and makes us care about the characters.The movie is also an anthropological treasure trove of suburban America circa 1976 showing us such '70s fads as air hockey, hip hugger french jeans and mini bikes.The film has a very retro look.I highly reccomend this movie to both adults and older kids alike.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: I saw this movie 5 times when I was a kid, largely because I was madly in love with Tatum O'Neal (as were all my friends) but also because it's a great film. Bill Lancaster wrote a brilliant script, the acting is all-around great, as is the direction. And today a movie studio would insist the ending be rewritten so it would be a bland happy one, so it's not a movie you'd see today. I love this movie and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A BITTERSWEET, REALISTIC COMEDY
Review: I was in 4th grade when my Dad took me to see this as a double feature with "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings." This is Walter Matthau's finest performance, and he should have been nominated as Best Actor here for his ability to balance comedy and drama so superbly. The expressions on Matthau's face throughout the movie actually communicate more than his spoken lines, it seems. One of the best and most tender scenes is when Matthau climbs a tree to encourage a very disheartened Ahmad Abdul-Raheem not to quit the team. While the film was promoted as a comedy - and it does have its funny moments - one senses the underlying sorrow in the hearts of all the characters. Tatum O'Neal does an excellent job portraying the tomboy with a tough facade, but in reality is an independent, but lonely 12 year old being raised by a single mom. Vic Morrow is perfect as the rival and arrogant Coach Roy Turner who is so much like the overzealous Little League coaches I remember as a kid. Director Michael Ritchie masterfully captures all of the atmosphere of the Southern California Seventies; and the film ends on a positive, yet not predictable, note.
Rating:
Summary: If you ever played Little League...
Review: If you ever played Little League ball (or even if you didn't), you can appreciate this movie. This film is quite amusing, but not far off base when it comes to representing the seriousness and pressure that parents place on their children in areas like Little League baseball. Matthau is great, as usual, and so are the all the kids. Dennis Christopher and Tatum O'Neil shine.
Rating:
Summary: If you were a kid in the 70s.
Review: If you were a kid in the 70s, you need to see this. This is pretty much how it really was, down to the "Wacky Packages" that grace one t-shirt.
Rating:
Summary: No bonus materials? No original artwork?
Review: Maybe it's still too early to tell, but so far the long-awaited DVD release of the Bears trilogy doesn't seem to be anything to get excited about. Not one box features the wonderfully wacky artwork of the original movie posters. The box for the first film is just a publicity shot of Matthau and O'Neal, with Tatum perched on an apple box as she stands eye-to-eye with Walter. Hello! An apple box is a piece of film equipment. Why is it revealed in this photo? And why was it chosen to grace the *front* of the box? The cover art for Breaking Training is another bogus publicity shot, but this one is an even bigger head-scratcher in that it includes a female character not even in the film! The "Go To Japan" box at least consists of a team photo, but sadly it also is sans poster art.As for bonus material, there doesn't appear to be any. You'd think there would be, given the price (...). If the only plus is that the films are letterboxed, I wish I would've bought the laserdisc of the first film a few years ago. No supplemental material there either, but a letterboxed picture and and a jacket draped in original art work--all for the same price as these bare-boned no-frills DVDs.
|
