Oh, those spunky kids, Take 1: "The Bad News Bears"

Not sure how many times I've seen this. Two, maybe? No more than three, I'm sure. Didn't stop me from another viewing, though, especially since (a) it had been a few years and (b) I wanted to see young Jackie Earle Haley after watching him get crazy in "Watchmen."

You know the story, you love the story. Because of some rule that I'm still not clear on, a Southern California youth baseball league is stuck with a team of misfits coached by a former pitcher-turned-pool cleaner and drunk. Walter Matthau is the coach, beer in hand in nearly every scene. Vic Morrow is coach of the league studs. (The Yankees, of course.) Tatum O'Neal is a girl with a mean curveball. Haley is a local punk and hell of an athlete who joins the team late. Everyone else? Just a bunch of cute, foul-mouthed kids.

It's actually kind of funny to watch this 1976 movie -- haven't seen the remake, and not sure I will -- in this era of raunch. Really, it's positively conservative. Sure, there's all the swearing, a ball-to-the-nuts scene and Tanner's famous racist line. Some sexism, too. But that's all tame now. What ... no puke scenes? No boobies? No pie f*cking?

That said, "Bears" is still a very easy movie to watch. A little too subdued now and then -- again, times have changed -- but Matthau isn't bad, Haley has a few funny lines, and the kids are great. And really, if you can't appreciate Chico's Bail Bonds as a little league sponsor, then just go back to Russia ...