Here is a list of reasons to remake The Bad News Bears:

1.

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And here is a list of reasons not to:

1. It’s been done. And re-done. And re-re-done. The original 1976 movie sparked a perennial series of movies about scrappy little sports teams made up of losers and klutzes who somehow, in the space of one quick montage or two, develop skills, understand the importance of teamwork, find some respect for themselves and each other, and provide redepmption — and often romance — for their previous cynical and/or burned-out and self-centered coach. In the last few weeks alone, Kicking & Screaming and Rebound have tried to apply the formula to soccer and basketball.

2. Times have changed. When the original was released almost 30 years ago, less than a decade after the institution of the Motion Picture Association’s rating system, it was still a shock to hear crude, vulgar, and profane language spoken to and by children. In 1976, the idea was so outrageous it was impossible to take it seriously and there was some appeal in the frank unpretentiousness, even subversiveness it brought to a post Ball Four-world just getting used to the idea of athletes being less than idealized all-American heroes. Since then, we are used to, even exhausted by the no-illusions bad behavior by athletes. And, in part because of the success of the original movie, we are used to, even bored by the idea of kids using bad language.

3. The original wasn’t that great to begin with, and whatever appeal it had has diminished over time. Take away the gimmick of the bad language, and there’s not much left in the original version or the remake. The script’s idea of updating is to change the sponsorship of the kids’ team from “Chico’s Bail Bonds” to “Bo-Peep’s Gentlemen’s Club.” This provides an excuse for frequent reaction shots of the Bo-Peep girls cheering in the stands.

4. Most important of all — it may have been possible to make a worthwhile remake of The Bad News Bears, but this is not it.

This is a one-joke movie, and the joke is not a good one. The 2005 edition is, it must be said, Bad News.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Morris Buttermaker, a washed-up baseball player (his career in the major leagues lasted less than one inning) turned exterminator who is hired to coach a baseball team made up of 12-year-olds that is only in the league because of a lawsuit. Buttermaker is there for the paycheck.

The kids are obnoxious and hopeless. So is the coach. They get so badly creamed in the first part of their first game that they forfeit. But then, inspired in part by the arrogance of the championship team’s coach (Greg Kinnear), Buttermaker decides to do some actual coaching. The kids improve. And when Buttermaker seeks out the daughter he has not seen in three years to get her to join the team as a pitcher and gets her to entice onto the team a juvenile delinquent-type with an attitude problem who can throw and hit, the team starts to score, then win. And guess whose team they play in the season’s last big game?

There was a 10-year-old sitting in front of me who laughed uproariously every time someone in the movie used the s-word. He laughed a lot. Most of the movie is the same thing over and over — either Buttermaker or the kids saying something completely obnoxious and inappropriate. It doesn’t work any better the 99th time than it does the first.

Furthermore, for anyone who cares about these things, Buttermaker’s decision-making and redemption seem completely arbitrary. I’m not saying we need an “aha!” moment with a light bulb going on over his head, but there should be some sort of narrative basis for character development, even in a slob comedy.

Director Richard Linklater, who handled the same theme superbly in School of Rock, does not have the benefit of a terrific script this time. The characters are not involving or believable.

The movie’s one asset is the always-underappreciated Billy Bob Thornton, whose understated delivery and impeccable timing give the flimsiest of dialogue some snap and verve. He has the kids come with him on an exterminating job and when two of them start to spray each other with the lethal chemicals, he tells them to stop. You just have to hear how he then says, “That stuff’s expensive” to understand what it means to be a movie star. Someday someone will give him a part in a much better movie and that will be very, very good news indeed.

Parents should know that this is one of those movies that drives a truck through the loopholes of the MPAA rating system. Most will find it unsuitable for chldren. It features constant crude, vulgar, profane, insulting, racist, sexist, homophobic, and otherwise imappropriate language used by and to children, but because it does not include the limited “automatic-R” words, it gets a PG-13 rating. It has jokes about cancer, child abuse, casual sex (a t-shirt reads, “She looked good last night,” a visit with the children to Hooters), and disabilities. A coach insults his players and they insult eadch other (though it omits the most famous quote from the original movie, with a highly un-PC description of the team). Fathers speak abusively to their children. The coach is unrepentent (most of the time) and irresponsible. He drinks constantly (including drinking and driving). He smokes, lies (and tells a child to lie), and has what appears to be a one-night stand with the mother of one of his players. A strength of the movie is its portrayal diverse characters, including a disabled kid who is tough and resilient.

Families who see this movie should talk about Buttermaker’s comment that once you quit, it makes it easier to keep quitting. What is a “moral victory” and was this a good example?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original The Bad News Bears as well as some of the movies it inspired, including The Mighty Ducks and Sandlot.

A bawdy summer comedy for adults and mature teens, this movie features rapid-fire dialogue and sincere affection between best-friend leads and strong chemistry between the actors who portray them, thereby elevating what could have been a brainless ode to never growing up into a very funny, genuinely warm-hearted, but uneven and morally ambiguous movie.

John (Owen Wilson) is an optimistic womanizer with a romantic side as big and confused as his monologues about love, while Jeremy (Vince Vaughn) cloaks his insecurities in a brash, party-boy exterior. At work, the two are mediators for couples heading for divorce, but their real passion is crashing weddings. They tell themselves they do it to pick up vulnerable women who are drunk on the promise of true love and the longing for a wedding of their own. They never acknowledge to themselves or each other that a large part of appeal is the way weddings give them a sense of being part of something — of their own connection (they seem to be all the family each other has) and at least pretending to be a part of the families whose happiest moments they are sharing.

We first see John and Jeremey mediating a divorce settlement between snarling soon-to-be exes Dwight Yoakam and Rebecca De Mornay. The duo soothe a dispute over the division of the frequent flier miles by explaining that “the real enemy here is the institution of marriage.” Then we hear a rapid-fire monologue by Jeremy about the horrors of dating, and we speed right into the weddings. A brilliantly edited montage shows John and Jeremy as the ultimate guests, with a name and a backstory for every situation and ethnic group. They know wedding cliches better than a clergyman, placing bets with each other on whether the Bible reading will be Corinthians or Galatians and whether the bride will be a crier.

They take advantage of the fact that no one knows everyone at a big wedding. And they don’t hide out in corners; they are the life of the party. The crashers dance with flower-girls and grandmothers, they propose meaningful toasts about soul-mates and guide the new couple through the cake-cutting, they entertain children with magic tricks and balloon animals, and they make everyone around them feel good about themselves.

That these steps serve to get bridesmaids and other available women in bed with them at the end of the night is treated as a footnote to their antics, since the two are clearly as high on the nuptial endorphins as their female counterparts.

John and Jeremy meet their match, however, when they encounter the Cleary sisters at the “Kentucky Derby of weddings”, a high-society affair with well-connected and wealthy society doyens watching their impeccably groomed off-spring sipping champagne and chatting about sailing and summer homes as they stroll on impeccably groomed lawns.

Jeremy goes after Gloria Cleary (Isla Fisher), a perky bridesmaid turned “stage 5 clinger” who turns out to have a vibe somewhere on the brink between scary stalker and intriguingly kinky. This leaves Jeremy on the brink between terrified and mesmerized.

John is drawn to Claire Cleary (Rachel McAdams), who has a dazzling smile and an ambivalence similar to his own when it comes to weddings, love, and family. They connect, she reveals she has a fiancé (an arrogant preppy destined for a downfall). John chases her, he is revealed, he pines, he makes a last attempt to demonstrate his love.

Cleary parents (Christopher Walken and Jane Seymour) are caricatures, both humorous but with few surprises, except perhaps Treasury Secretary Cleary’s inexplicable switch from upper-class snob to loving father. Certainly Mrs. Cleary’s substance abuse and Mrs. Robinson-style come-on are neither surprising or amusing.

And the laughs seem harsher and the movie’s tone more sour in scenes featuring Cleary brother, Todd (Keir O’Donnell), who is a rejected artist desperate for his father’s approval and portrayed for laughs as a predatory homosexual. Mean-mouthed Grandma Mary (Ellen Albertini Dow) spouts invective including derogatory terms to the embarrassment of family. The attempts at mining comedy from homophobia and outrageous comments made by the elderly are the film’s weakest moments.

Immature “innovator” Chazz (Will Ferrell -– who else? -— in a spot-on cameo), Jeremy’s guru for the wedding-crasher ethos, serves as the terrifying ghost-of-the-future for John as he introduces him to “funeral crashing”, a morbid twist on using those events’ heightened emotions for his own interests.

It comes as no surprise that everyone turns out just fine although they all have scenes of humor and humiliation along the way. Vaughn is the movie’s comic center and his wild, improvisational, always off-center riffs are bracingly funny. The repartee between John and Jeremy is zingy and quick, and some scenes were completely inaudible due to audience laughter. McAdams is spirited and lovely and Fisher makes borderline stalkerism funny and appealing. And director David Dobkin (who also directed Wilson in Shanghai Knights and Vaughn in the under-appreciated Clay Pidgeons) has a sure sense of pacing and an expert sense of what is funny.

While the cast are clearly enjoying themselves and the banter is funny, this party is not for all audiences and many will find that the movie’s answers -– that the ends can justify the means, that no wingman can go too far, and that lying and manipulation can be fun for the whole family — are a regrettable hang-over.

Parents should know that this movie is very raunchy. While starring cast members and humor similar to Dodgeball, Old School, and Anchorman, the whole premise of this film puts it in another category. The primary goal of the two main characters is to have as much meaningless sex as possible and to achieve this through lies and manipulation. It is hardly redeemed by an ending that half-heartedly comes down on the side of love, telling the truth (sometimes), and (sort of) monogamous relationships. Scenes include a series of women flopping topless onto bed, women initiating American Pie styled attack sex, public sex-acts, and references to cheating, phone-sex, lap dances, and ménage-a-trois, and a non-sexual same-sex kiss. The language in this movie is very strong and explicit and includes harsh terms for gays, Italians and other groups. A character slips a rival a nausea-inducing drug (supposedly comic), a parent drinks heavily and refers to prescription medication, a character drinks to feel better, people drink to celebrate and to forget. A child makes a joke about marijuana. Fist fights are unfair and painful and a character is shot in the rump, which is played for laughs. Some of the humor borders on homophobia and the gay character is very creepy.

Parents might want to talk with teenagers who see this film about how sex is portrayed as a casual amusement, while love is still held out as the ultimate goal. As the sexiest scene in the movie is actually a fairly chaste kiss, families might want to talk about how the relationships portrayed are often deeper for not having sex involved. While they love and support one another, John and Jeremy fight when one becomes more seriously involved in a relationship. Why is this breaking the rules? Why is the other so emotionally hurt? Finally, the depiction of the Cleary family portrays a fractured but supportive group. How do they show love and support and how do they hurt one another?

Families that enjoy this movie might wish to see Dodgeball, American Pie 3: An American Wedding, Old School, or the previous generation of mature-content comedies such as Animal House or Caddyshack.

Thanks to guest critic AME.

Like a bowl of peanut butter-pretzel, chocolate ice-cream with a marshmallow swirl, this “Charlie” is a delicious confection that is gluttony for the senses and has novel twists placed in a familiar favorite. True to form, director Tim Burton has scooped a rich treat that is a feast for the eye but might be too much for some sensitive viewers.

Young Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore, who co-starred with Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland) is as poor as a church mouse and gentle as a lamb, a stark contrast to the other children in the movie who are beasts of very different natures. He lives with his parents (Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter, stretching credibility with her upper-crust accent) and four bed-ridden grandparents eating cabbage soup in a crooked little house, where he can watch the snow fall through a hole in the roof. He loves his annual birthday chocolate bar and hearing Grandpa Joe (David Kelly, the scene-stealing co-star of Waking Ned Devine) tell stories about working for reclusive chocolate maker, Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp), in by-gone days.

When a special lottery is announced and Willy Wonka proclaims that five lucky children will be allowed into his factory, Charlie longs to find one of the five golden tickets. What results is pure fairy tale and closer to Roald Dahl’s original book, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” then to the 1971 movie version, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, that starred Gene Wilder. The factory is everything a child -– and most adults — would wonder to see, with fabulous confections, curious people, and imaginative rooms behind every door. While Charlie and Grandpa Joe see delights of all kinds, they do not fall prey to their own weaknesses the way the four other children do with such memorable results. Johnny Depp plays Willy with a quirky, almost prissy tone, a lonely child in an adult’s body, who reveals in flash-back his own uneasy youth and his estrangement from his dentist father.

With Danny Elfman’s music, Roald Dahl’s text, and Tim Burton’s eye for scenery, this visual and musical feast will appeal to viewers who enjoy odd and, at times, biting humor. The movie’s stylish tone, relevant message, fabulous sets and imaginative story make it worth a bite.

Parents should know that, as in the original book, this movie has an atmosphere that might unnerve sensitive audiences, indeed a five-year-old child at this screening left crying after the candy boat ride down the chocolate rapids. There are some brief disturbing images, including burning, melting dolls, an attack by and nut-sorting squirrels, comic but sometimes grisly injuries, and a grotesque dental appliance. Depp’s portrayal teeters into creepiness. But the really creepy people in this movie are the children in who fall to their weaknesses (loosely speaking: gluttony, avarice, pride, and sloth) and are punished for not heeding warnings. The punishments appear dangerous, even fatal, but are not –- in all cases, the punishments are leveled as much at the parents who allow these characteristics as much as at the children. Characters are on a rough boat ride, on a magical elevator, play violent video games. They disobey parents, and name-call in a quirky but honest way. Characters who behave well are rewarded.

Families who see this movie might wish to discuss the differences between the five children who win the golden tickets and how the “lessons” -– sung by the Oompa Loompas (all played with panache by Deep Roy) —- have stayed relevant over the years since Roald Dahl first penned them in 1964. They might wish to discuss how the lessons highlight not just the child’s behavior but that of the parent. Which characters do you admire? What traits to you see you in yourself?

Families that like this movie should read some of Roald Dahl’s books, including “Mathilda”, “The Witches”, “James and the Giant Peach” and, of course, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.

All of the aforementioned have been made into enjoyable movies, including Tim Burton’s animated version of James and the Giant Peach. Parents might want to share the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) with their children.

Thanks to guest critic AME for this review.

No matter how many times they film it, the “something creepy is going on in my house” story has a lot of potential. We’ve all heard creaks and wondered, on dark and stormy nights, if anyone — or anything — was out there. And most of us have enjoyed watching people on screen wonder the same thing…especially if it turns out to be true.

Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) is Dahlia, a vulnerable young mother recently separated from her husband. We’re not sure whether to believe her or not. Her husband tells the mediators that she “lives in a world of her own.” He even says she is crazy. We know she is haunted by her memories of feeling abandoned by her mother. But she seems to have a very loving and healthy relationship with her daughter, Ceci. They look at an apartment in a run-down building on Roosevelt Island. At first Ceci says she does not want to live there, but after she disappears and Dahlia finds her on the roof holding a brand-new Hello Kitty backpack, she tells her mother she wants to stay. It’s near a good school and they don’t have much time, so she takes the apartment.

And of course immediately things start to go wrong. There is an oooky drippy leak in the corner of the ceiling, and the building manager and the off-the-books handyman give her the runaround about getting it fixed. Ceci’s nice new teacher (a sympathetic Camryn Manheim) tells Dahlia that Ceci is paying a lot of attention to an imaginary friend named Natasha that Dahlia doesn’t know anything about. Or is she real? Dahlia’s been taking pills and sleeping a lot. She discovered the apartment above hers was flooded with water the color of Coca-Cola. Or was it a drug-induced dream?

There are some good “boo” moments and director Walter Salles shows a flair for creepy images and an atmosphere of dread. Tim Roth and John C. Reilly add strong support as Dahlia’s lawyer and the building manager, two more people who are not entirely truthful. But like one of the images that flickers eerily in an elevator shaft, the scares are fleeting. It asks a lot of nicely disturbing questions but then tries to tie it up too quickly.

Parents should know that this is a creepy horror film with very intense scenes of peril and some violence. There are some graphic images, including a dead child. Characters drink and use pharmaceutical drugs. There is brief strong language. Some viewers may be disturbed by the tense secens between an estranged couple or by the supernatural themes.

Families who see this film should talk about times they have felt creeped out and how they responded. Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy The Others, Bunny Lake is Missing, and Panic Room. They may also want to compare this to the original 2002 Japanese version.

“Is it the terrorists?” a frightened child asks, because that is the scariest thing she knows. But what makes this thing scary is that it is something no one knows. It is beyond our knowledge, even beyond our imagination. Earth is under attack and no one knows by whom or what they want.

These are not the “let’s play musical notes together” aliens of Close Encounters of the Third Kind or the Reese’s Pieces-loving, bicycle-flying botanist alien from E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. There’s no “Take me to your leader,” or Klaatu Barada Niktu. These aliens don’t even want to keep humans on as slave labor as in Battlefield Earth. They don’t want us to understand or negotiate with them. It does not seem to be about power or plunder. They just want to destroy us. As one character says, “This is not a war any more than there’s a war between men and maggots. It’s an extermination.”

Steven Spielberg knows two things better than anyone else who ever made a movie, and both are in top form here. First is his extraordinarily evocative sense of family life, the way every detail of home and connection (even, maybe especially the most frayed of connections) tell the story and make us care about it. A ribbon, a mirror, a boot, a box of family photographs, a Beach Boys song –- the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the unthinkable sustains a “golly” factor that grabs our throats and our hearts at the same time.

The special effects in the movie are dazzling. Just when we thought that we were so accustomed to the limitless wonders of CGI that we could never be stunned in a theater again, Spielberg just plain knocks our socks off. My husband counted eight spontaneous “Oh my Gods” coming from me during the movie. It isn’t just that it all looks real, seamlessly integrating the effects. It’s that what looks so real is so “Oh my God.”

The images are fresh and imaginative and yet perfectly believable, mixing the normal with the inconceivable, from the vast alien machines to the buckling of the earth and the apocalyptic landscapes. The most vivid images are when we see the trappings of everyday life transformed. In one moment of complete insanity, the bells at a railroad crossing start to clang, and the striped barriers come down as though it is a perfectly ordinary day and the commuter train is about to arrive on schedule. Everyone stops and takes a breath and then the train comes in, filled with flames.

Spielberg’s other great trick is his mastery of scale, and again, that use of context brings the story literally home. At least half of the “Oh my Gods” were responses to wow-style reveals of new threats, new invasions.

And Spielberg makes invasion into a theme, from the very beginning, when with stunning economy he sets the stage for all that is to come.

Our hero-to-be, Ray (Tom Cruise) arrives home late. His ex-wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), pregnant by her new husband, is standing there with a hand on her hip. The new husband is handsome, a little sleek-looking in a black turtleneck, but clearly so nice you can’t even bring yourself to hate him, though Ray has clearly tried. Even though the ex-wife is late, she decides to carry their daughter’s suitcase into Ray’s house. Ray is very uncomfortable as she opens his all-but-empty refrigerator and peeks into his messy bedroom. He feels invaded. His children seem alien. And yet, in one of the most understated but meaningful moments in the movie, a shared joke between Ray and Mary Ann shows us a glimpse of Ray’s asperity and resolve.

But all of that is under the surface. When we meet him, Ray has long been used to disappointing people. It is not clear which is worse, the sullen animosity of his son Robbie (Ray wears a Yankees baseball cap; Robbie pulls out one with a Red Sox logo) or the patient lack of expectations from his daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning). But when it becomes clear that something very, very bad is happening, Ray will do anything to keep his family safe. This will be his story more than it is the story of the battles. The movie is at heart, well, heart.

And Cruise does heart well. He and Fanning anchor the film with outstanding performances of conviction and charisma. Rachel’s protection of her “space” and Ray’s efforts to care for her memory and spirit all echo the invasion theme. The story moves well from the large scale destruction of a city to a small-scale intrusion into a shattered basement retreat occupied by three people. Throughout, the focus is on Spielberg’s favorite subject, the family as fortress. The government barely exists, the army is dedicated and honorable but overmatched.

And, as Ray points out, the humans are almost as dangerous as the aliens. Ray is not the only one who will do anything to keep his family alive and the ochlochratic chaos means that nowhere is safe.

The story is affecting, the action scenes are thrilling, the issues are resonant. Yet it is not ultimately as satisfying as less skillful movies like Independence Day. It may be wiser and it may have more artistic validity, but summer explosion movies call out for a more complete resolution than the Wells book allows. A valid but subtle point is lost, not for lack of respectful presentation, but perhaps because ot it.

Spoilers alert: Parents should know that this is an extremely tense and intense movie, with constant peril and violence. Many characters are killed. Many are neatly vaporized, but there are scenes with dead bodies, a brutal off-camera murder, a death by impalement, guns, grenades, lasers, and other weapons, and some grisly images. Characters use brief strong language. There are tense confrontations between family members. Some viewers will find the behavior of the humans more disturbing than that of the aliens.

Someone once said that the aliens in movies tell us more about what we are thinking about than about any likely real-life extraterrestrials. The UFO movies of the cold war era were, under this analysis, a reflection of our fears about communism and the atomic bomb — with the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Day the Earth Stood Still as examples, contrasted with the more benign aliens of Spielberg’s other movies. What does this movie tell us about our current fears?

Families who see this movie should talk about how the story has changed since it was originally written by H.G. Wells more than 100 years ago. How was that era’s interest in the relatively recent scientific discoveries reflected in the book and how has the current version used modern concerns to connect to a contemporary audience? What do you think about the balance of the story between the action and the personal drama as Ray’s character has to become more responsible and
find a way to communicate with his children. How did both parts of the story help each other? In a situation like this, who do you help? Who do you accept help from?

Families who appreciate this film may enjoy listening to the legendary Orson Welles broadcast. This version of the book has the radio script as well. The text is also available online at Project Gutenberg. The new version has a small tribute to the George Pal movie. They will also enjoy Independence Day, one of the all-time best alien invasion movies, and they might get a kick out of Battlefield Earth, one of the worst, and Signs, one that has a bit of both.