Bad News Bears

From the A.V. Club's interview with Richard Linklater:

AVC: Moving on to another suburban underclass film, do you feel up to talking about Bad News Bears?

RL: Sure.

AVC: What happened there?

RL: What do you mean?

AVC: Why didn't that movie… work?

RL: It didn't? [Pause.] It's my second-highest grossing film.

AVC: Really?

RL: I mean, it wasn't a big hit or anything. [Pause.] I don't think it's seen as a bomb. They clearly shouldn't have released it when they did, up against Charlie and the fuckin' Chocolate Factory. They should've brought it out in the fall. It would've been the only comedy out, and done much better. Little bit of regime change there at Paramount. That kind of thing happens. Again, I got no control over that.

I think it works. I like the film. It works on the level it was meant to. I think it's a good baseball movie, too, by the way.

This is kind of an example of why I don't regularly read the A.V. Club, because they're so quick to dismiss things that don't fit exactly into their narrow cultural view, or at least that's the sense I got back when I did read it a few years ago.

Anyway, I just watched Bad News Bears last night, and it's really a delightful little comedy, slightly too raunchy for the "family" label. All Movie Guide, which I'd read before seeing it, dismissed it as "slight," but I don't find that to be a failing. The shallowness of many of Linklater's characters, the quick pacing, and the goofball humor remind me of classic Hollywood-era comedies that didn't get bogged down in a lot of loathsome family drama or pathos or heroics. We hit the ground running, expected to know the basic set-up as this is a remake, and Linklater spends much more time on Billy Bob Thornton's memorably crude one-liners and the antics of the ballplayers. The writers don't delve too deeply because, hey, it's supposed to be fun.