Tag Archives: Jackie Earle Haley

The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

Posted on February 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shyster manages baseball team.

Drowning in debt small-time promoter Marvin Lazar (Tony Curtis) decides to take over the Bear’s baseball time by escorting them to Japan and managing them in a game against the Japanese champions run by coach Shimizu (Tomisaburo Wakayama). Problems arise though when Lazar runs out of money and is forced to partake in shady ploys to keep the team afloat.

The script was written by Bill Lancaster, who had penned the first one, and produced by Michael Ritchie who had been the director on the original, but the immense charm from the first installment is completely lost here. The wide-open poorly structured story lacks originality and filled with strained humor that will barely crack a smile.

The kids lack pizazz and play-off of tired caricatures that are no longer cute or funny. The biggest drawback is that the feisty Tanner who had been so prominent in the first two films is missing. It also looks weird and unrealistic that there is such a vast age difference amongst the kids in the line-up. Aren’t Little Leagues usually designed to be age specific? For instance there is usually a Pee-Wee division and then a 10 to 12 age division and so forth, so then why do we have kids here who look to be in the second grade matched with others who seem ready to enter the Junior High? Such a wide range in skill levels would make it virtually impossible to field a functional team from the get-go.

The playing ability of the team seems to have strangely regressed as well. In the first film they came close to winning the championship and in the second installment they did, but here they play like complete bumbling novices with no baseball experience at all.

Curtis is amusing, which helps save the film from being a complete disaster, but it hurts it as well because the script becomes geared completely around his character while the kids are overshadowed and forgotten. The story goes on long misguided tangents that have nothing to do with baseball at all including a segment dealing with Curtis challenging a Sumi wrestler to a match and the Japanese players getting involved in a singing contest, which begs the question if this is a movie about the Bears team then why is more screen time given to the Japanese one?

The side-story dealing with Jackie Earle Haley’s romantic foray is dumb too. He spots a young Japanese lady (Hatsune Ishihara) walking out of a nondescript store on a busy Tokyo street and for some reason becomes completely mesmerized by her and begins chasing her all around city and aggressively coming onto her like he’s a stalker, which would’ve scared any normal woman, but here this crazy behavior gets her to ‘fall-in-love’ with him despite the fact that she speaks no English.

The production values are surprisingly slick and the on-location shooting done in Japan is nice, but the script and humor is empty-headed and forgettable. It’s also interesting to note that George Wyner who appeared in the first film as the manager of the White Sox team appears here in a completely different part as a network executive.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 30, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 32Minutes

Rated PG

Director: John Berry

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Baseball Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Sequels, Sports Movies

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The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977)

Posted on January 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Playing in the Astrodome.

Having won the league championship game a year after losing the first one the Bears now look to play the Houston Toros at the Astrodome between games of a Major League double-header. The problem is that they no longer have a manager, so Kelly (Jackie Earle Haley) recruits his estranged father (William Devane) to act as one for the team’s benefit. Kelly and his father do not get along, which causes friction with the rest of players, as they prepare to play the Toros who are much bigger physically and have far more talent.

If there was ever a reason as to why making a sequel from a successful first film is usually a bad idea this movie could be held up as the best example. The originality and fresh humor from the first gets completely lost here. While the first one conveyed a strong message this one has none at all and barely even a story instead just a thin plot wrapped around episodic comedy that barely elicits even a chuckle.

It does at least allow for some screen time showing the parents of the kids, which was woefully lacking in the first one. It also gives the kids more speaking lines and their presence is more central to the storyline while in the first film it was almost completely spun around Matthau. Unfortunately with the exception of Haley and Jimmy Baio, who plays Carmen the team’s new pitcher, none of the child actors have enough talent to carry the movie, which makes the scenes with them in it quite lethargic and lifeless.

Devane is extremely weak in the lead and his character poorly defined. The way he gets asked to volunteer as the team’s coach is quite awkward and the fact that he literally takes over the team in a matter of just 2 short days like he’s a seasoned manager that’s been doing this for years seemed unrealistic. It was also hard-to-believe that this guy, who worked at a pipe fitting plant, would be so adept at baseball strategy and able to convey these skills to the players as effectively as he does without having any prior experience.

The Astrodome is captured as being this impressive monolithic structure when in reality, if you see it in person, it is quite underwhelming. I realize when it was first built in 1964 it was considered the ‘8th wonder of the world’, but time has not been kind to it. If you go to see it now, which I did just this past summer, it gets dwarfed considerably by the far bigger and more majestic looking Reliant stadium, which sits right next to it. There are so many other buildings that have been built around it that the Astrodome now gets easily overlooked and almost forgotten making Kelly’s fascination with the structure seem quite dated.

In the first film the climactic game was full of high drama, but the one here is a bore. Watching the security guards try to tackle Tanner (Chris Barnes) and carry him off the field is genuinely funny and probably the film’s one and only highlight in this otherwise pointless excursion that would’ve been best left unmade.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: July 8, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Michael Pressman

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Baseball Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in Texas, Road Movies, Sequels, Sports Movies

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The Outside Man (1973)

Posted on March 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

outside man 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hit man is marked.

Lucien (Jean-Louise Trintignant) is a French hit man hired by an American family to assassinate a mob boss (Ted de Corsia) who’s living in Los Angeles. He’s able to pull off the job relatively easily, but then after it’s over he finds that he’s been targeted by another hit man (Roy Scheider) who is relentless and chases Lucien all over the city. Nancy (Ann-Margret) is the stripper who comes to Lucien’s aid by getting her boyfriend to create a passport for him so he can return to France, but just as he is about to board the plane he decides instead to stay in the states and turn-the-tables on the man who’s chasing him while finding who is behind the double-cross.

The film, which was done by a French production company, but filmed on-location in the states, is a lot of fun. The many offbeat touches and various stabs at dry humor keep it interesting and original while still remaining suspenseful and exciting. Some of the best moments include a hitchhiker (Edward Greenberg) who tries to convert Lucien to ‘Jesus’ as well the funeral, which eventually turns into a wild shootout amongst the various mob factions and has a corpse embalmed in a sitting position with a cigar in hand.

I also liked the way director Jacques Deray captures Los Angeles. Usually when a film is done in the City of Angels we always get shown shots of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, movie star homes, the beachfront and of course the great Hollywood sign, but here we see none of that. Instead the film captures the city’s less glamorous side including the rundown neighborhoods and even a shootout that takes place in abandoned buildings from an amusement park, which all helps to give the movie a unique vision as well as allowing the viewer to appreciate a side to the city that they may have not known even existed.

Trintignant is terrific and his perpetual look of confusion as he gets faced with one unexpected surprise after another is memorable and helps carry the film. Ann-Margret is solid as the streetwise, but kindly stripper and Scheider is quite good as the steely killer. Georgia Engel, who later became famous for playing Georgette on the ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ is funny as a spacy housewife who comes into contact with Lucien as he is trying to run from his killer. I especially liked the way that when a gun is pointed in her face she doesn’t scream or panic, but instead responds with silence and a deer-in-headlights look. This is also a great chance to see a young Jackie Earle Haley in his film debut as her precocious 10-year-old son.

The film’s only real downfall is its ending, which is too downbeat and ambiguous. It’s almost like they spent so much time coming up with creative concepts for the rest of it that by the time they came to the end they just plain rang out of ideas, which is a disappointment, but as a whole it’s still a gem.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: January 18, 1973

Runtime: 1Hour 44Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jacques Deray

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD (MGM Limited Edition Collection), Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Dry Humor, Foreign Films, French Films, Gangster Movies, Movies with Nudity, Offbeat

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Losin’ It (1983)

Posted on August 5, 2015 | 4 comments

losin it

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Road trip to Tijuana

Four classmates (Tom Cruise, Jackie Earle Haley, John Stockwell, and John P. Navin Jr.) load up into a 1957 Red Chevrolet Bel Air to take a trip down to Tijuana where they to hope to lose their virginity to the local prostitutes. Unfortunately they end up getting more than they bargained for as they get harassed by one of the local cops (Henry Darrow) as well as taking on an added passenger by the name of Kathy (Shelley Long) who they meet at a convenience store in the midst of a fight that she is having with her husband and now wants to hitch a ride with them so she can get a quickie divorce.

Although the plot description may sound sleazy this is by far one of the better raunchy teen comedies to come out of the ‘80s. The film was directed by noted horror director Curtis Hanson and written by the prolific Bill L. Norton. The production values are high and although not actually filmed in the real Tijuana it still gives the viewer a realistic sense of the both the street and party scene that is down there. The characters are more multi-dimensional than in the typical teen comedy and the action remains realistic with humor that is amusing without getting overblown.

The film does shift uncomfortably in tone during the second half and features some unpleasant scenes including having one of the boys thrown into a dirty and dangerous Mexican prison while another gets hung up in midair by a crane while being threatened with a blow torch. Initially I didn’t like this shift, but the film still manages to keep things interesting and culminates in a funny car chase back to the border, which due to what the characters have gone through, is more thrilling than in most comedies simply because the viewer is genuinely wrapped up into their plight to get out of there.

Cruise gives an outstanding performance playing completely against type as he is nowhere near his usual cocky self here and instead comes off as shy and awkward and even has the embarrassment of being unable to ‘rise-to-the-occasion’ when alone with one of the women. Haley is quite energetic and funny and Navin as his baby faced kid brother, who’s more sensible than the rest of them despite being the youngest, is a real scene stealer. Darrow, best known for playing Zorro, gets one of his better latter career roles as the corrupt cop.

The film is supposed to take place in 1965 instead of the ‘80s and I wasn’t sure why as what the characters go through could have easily taken place in either decade. The title tune, which gets played both at the beginning and end of the flick, has a very strong ‘80’s sound, which seems jarring and out-of-place in a picture that supposedly has a ‘60’s setting.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 22, 1983

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated R

Director: Curtis Hanson

Studio: Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Comedy/Drama, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies, Sex

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