BAD NEWS BEARS (1976), THE: A major surprise as one of 1976's top grossing films. THE BAD NEWS BEARS is a movie about children that is refreshing, utterly believable, and quite cleverly funny. Walter Matthau is at his absolute best as the grumbling beer-guzzling former minor-league pitcher who gets roped into coaching a band of half-pint misfits somewhat loosely called a team. With this bunch in uniform, it's impossible to get caught up in the suburban competitive spirit that drives other adults to extremes of parental discipline. So, instead, the Bears have a good time.

BAD NEWS BEARS (2005): 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.

BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN, THE: Caught in a clash of cultures and ready to wreak more havoc on Japan than Godzilla, the Bad News Bears are back for their third outing, following the enormously successful The Bad News Bears and The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training. This time the Bears have been spirited off to Tokyo by Tony Curtis as Marvin Lazar, a slick and sleazy con artist who sees in the team a perfect peg for a get-rich-quick scheme. The strikeout-prone Bears are pitted against a murderously skillful Japanese junior baseball team, and the resulting comic chaos is hilarious.

BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING, THE: The Bad News Bears In Breaking Training is the comic and poignant second-in-the-series of adventures with the pint-sized sandlot ballplayers initiated with the smash success, The Bad News Bears. The picture picks up the Bears' career a year after their infamous second-place finish in the North Valley League. Faced with a chance to play the Houston Toros for a shot at the Japanese champs, they devise a way to get Texas to play at the famed Astrodome. On their pilgrimage to Houston, the Bears gain a new coa (English)