| | | Baseball Has Rules. Meet The Exceptions.
A fresh take on the irreverent 1976 comedy hit, The Bad News Bears follows a grizzled former minor league baseball player who is recruited to coach a woefully inept Little League team to a championship against their hated rivals, the Yankees. What is UMDTM?
UMD, Universal Media Disc, is a brand-new and groundbreaking optical storage medium, designed for the high speed and efficient delivery of digital entertainment content that can store up to 1.8 GB of digital data on a 60mm disc -- or an entire feature film on a single UMD video. All UMD DVDs are produced in Widescreen and encoded using advanced AVC compression. UMD for PSP will play on the new PlayStation Portable handheld entertainment system.
Specifications
Diameter: 60 mmMaximum Capacity: 1.8GB (Single-sided, dual layer)Laser wavelength: 660nm (Red laser)
"The new Bad News Bears has adopted a somewhat raunchier tone but delivers enough laughs to go the distance." Brian Lowry, Variety.com
"Two thumbs up!" Ebert & Roeper
"Billy Bob Thornton is the best weapon against cute that a kid baseball movie ever had." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Certain things in this world are automatically funny, and a booze-swilling Billy Bob Thornton cussing out kids is one of them." Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star
Editor's Note
Hollywood's tradition of remaking classic movies continues with this 21st-century updating of the 1976 romp, THE BAD NEWS BEARS. Acclaimed director Richard Linklater (THE SCHOOL OF ROCK, DAZED AND CONFUSED) pays respect to Michael Ritchie's original film by updating it rather than reinventing it. Stepping into the tough-to-fill shoes of Walter Matthau, Billy Bob Thornton plays the liquor-swilling, foulmouthed Morris Buttermaker, who has agreed to coach a Little League team for the paycheck. Unfortunately for him, his assembled team consists of the league's most inept outcasts. Gradually, however, Buttermaker's determination wins out, to the point where he recruits an ex-girlfriend's gifted daughter, Amanda Whurlitzer (Sammi Kane Kraft), to step onto the pitcher's mound. The team is complete when local bad boy Kelly Leak (Jeffrey Davies) lends his overflowing talent to the cause. Soon, the Bears are climbing their way to the top of the standings, resulting in a championship showdown with the Yankees, who are managed by the ridiculously pompous Coach Bullock (Greg Kinnear).As with 2003's THE SCHOOL OF ROCK, Linklater proves he has an uncanny ability to draw out compelling performances from child actors. But it is Thornton who steals the show. Incorporating elements from his characters in BAD SANTA and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, his variation on the Morris Buttermaker character is another finely crafted achievement, a reprehensible man who somehow remains likeable and compelling. The script from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa throws a few modern curveballs into the mix, yet they still remain faithful to Bill Lancaster's original vision, resulting in a crowd-pleasing film that is definitely not intended for young children.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | DVD Quality Picture | | Full Length Movie | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Paramount |
| Release Date: 12/13/2005 |
| Running Time: 113 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2005 | | Catalog ID: 037434 | | UPC: 00097360374346 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"[T]he tweaks are subtle and unobtrusive, as Linklater -- proven in SCHOOL OF ROCK to be a natural leader of yoots -- brings transgression up to code for the 21st century era of PG-13." 07/29/2005 p.48New York Times
"[An] enjoyable remake....Filled with small, cute kids and large, goofy laughs and buoyed by fine supporting work from Greg Kinnear and Marcia Gay Harden..." 07/22/2005 p.E13 Rolling Stone
"Thornton whacks the laughs out of the park without breaking a sweat. In this game, he's the undisputed MVP." 08/11/2005 p.81 Sight and Sound
"Thornton is again perfect: his drowsy, Southern growl complements his scalpel-sharp comic timing to blend a precise chemistry of honey, salt and bile." 09/01/2005 p.55 Uncut
"[A] punk-ass anti-sports film loaded with bile and invective, and as politically incorrect as you like." 10/01/2005 p.138 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 8 of 10
Bad News Bears may be the most entertaining remake of the year (thus far), but that's less a statement of praise than it is a condemnation of this class of movies. With a script co-credited to Bill Lancaster, who penned the original 1976 screenplay, Bad News Bears is true to its source, rarely diverging from the earlier film's storyline, and occasionally re-creating entire scenes. There is, however, a difference in tone. The '70s edition of the film was more family friendly than Richard Linklater's one. Gleefully profane and un-PC, Bad News Bears earns its PG-13 rating, and may cause more conservative parents to shy away from bringing younger children to screenings. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Billy Bob Thornton stages a head-on collision between two previous roles in The Bad News Bears, a movie in which he plays, and I quote, "a drunk who makes a living killing rats to live in a trailer." The movie is like a merger of his ugly drunk in Bad Santa and his football coach in Friday Night Lights, yet he doesn't recycle from either movie; he modulates the manic anger of the Santa and the intensity of the coach and produces a morose loser who we like better than he likes himself. - Roger Ebert
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