Category Archives: Sandler Saturday

Mr. Deeds (2002)

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I was not sure what I wanted to watch as the final film in the Sandler Saturday, because the last couple had snake-bit me so hard. So I decided on Mr. Deeds.

This one finished up the day with a film that was not as bad as I expected.

According to IMDB, “When small-town pizzeria owner and poet Longfellow Deeds inherits $40 billion from his deceased uncle, he quickly begins rolling in a different kind of dough. Moving to the big city, he is besieged by opportunists all gunning for their piece of the pie. Babe, a television tabloid reporter, poses as an innocent small-town girl to do an exposé on Deeds, but his sincere naiveté has Babe falling in love with him instead. Ultimately, Deeds comes to find that money truly has the power to change things, but it doesn’t necessarily need to change him.”

The big difference between this movie and some of the others that I have watched today is that Adam Sandler’s character Longfellow Deeds was a sweet, kind hearted guy. He was not the obnoxious crude a-hole of some of the other characters in Sandler’s oeuvre. That was a nice little switch. He was still just playing himself, but without the misbehavior. Deeds went around helping everyone and he was a beloved individual in the small town where he lived. He was not a foul mouthed a-hole who had to learn a lesson.

This was a remake of the Frank Capra classic “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” which is a movie that I have not seen before so I did not feel the difference. I am afraid that if I see the Capra version, I would see the excessive problems of this film.

I did not recognize Winona Ryder as Babe Bennett, the reporter who pretends to be a school nurse to get close to Deeds. What is up with John McEnroe in these Adam Sandler movies? Were they friends of some sort?

I was happier with this non-offensive film finishing up the Sandler Saturday. At least I did not hate myself for watching it.

Billy Madison (1995)

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What am I doing to myself?

The early films today had some good stuff, but the deeper I got into these films, the more I realized that my initial thoughts were pretty accurate.

Billy Madison followed Jack and Jill on the Sandler Saturday and, again, ten minutes into the film and I was ready for it to be over.

According to IMDB, “Billy Madison is a 27 year-old man whose father Brian is the head of a major hotel chain. Even though he is groomed to replace his father who is about to retire, Billy is extremely immature and unmotivated in life. When Brian considers making Eric Gordon (whom Billy despises) his new replacement, Billy decides to prove to his father that he is capable of taking over. He must repeat grade school all over again (2 weeks for each grade) in order to take over the hotel empire. The further Billy progresses, the more Eric tries to derail Billy.”

Billy Madison is one of the least likable characters I have seen today. To be fair, he does improve over the course of the movie as he is working with the other kids in the different grade levels.

At one point in this movie, someone says, “Everyone in this room is dumber for listening to that.” I knew exactly how that that felt.

There is so much insanity in this film. So many things that just did not make sense. The conclusion of the film with the big competition was so ridiculous.

Steve Buscemi is definitely the standout for the minute and a half he is on screen.

Jack and Jill (2011)

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I was dreading this one. But any kind of Sandler Saturday would not be complete without the infamous Jack and Jill. I had heard that this was a bad movie.

I had no idea.

Jack and jill is one of the worst movies ever made.

Adam Sandler played twins. Jack and Jill. This is one of the most obnoxious films I have ever seen.

Sophomoric. Diarrhea jokes, which are always my favorites. It is borderline racist, among others.

Somehow Al Pacino decided this was a good career move. There were other well known celebrities in the film and I can not figure out why.

This goes on my worst movie list of all time with Movie 43, Batman and Robin, Holmes and Watson, Transformers: The First Knight etc.

I don’t know if YUCK is strong enough for this monstrosity. I’ll pull out the original…

Murder Mystery (2019)

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After the bad taste The Waterboy left in my mouth, I tried to find something for the Sandler Saturday that might not be as awful as that one. I pulled up Netflix and put Murder Mystery on next.

According to IMDB, “When an NYC cop (Adam Sandler) finally takes his wife (Jennifer Aniston) on a long promised European trip, a chance meeting on the flight gets them invited to an intimate family gathering on the Super Yacht of elderly billionaire Malcolm Quince. When Quince is murdered, they become the prime suspects in a modern day whodunit.”

So, this movie had the benefit of matching up Sandler with Jennifer Aniston, who is very charismatic in this movie. Sandler was also at a more restrained level with his performances. This film did not have him so over the top as he is in many other films. He is playing a character here instead of just being Adam Sandler and that seems to always be a key.

Unfortunately, the story of the murder case is desperately messy and filled with clichés. The concept was fun, if not realistic, but there was just too much going on with the other characters and the answer to the mystery was not the powerhouse reveal that it should have been. The film ended in a silly car chase.

I would say that Murder Mystery is a watchable movie on Netflix that is not offensive. I would say it is a mediocre film that has a couple of appealing leads.

The Waterboy (1998)

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Well, it was nice while it lasted.

After two enjoyable movies in the Sandler Saturday, the streak is over as I watched The Waterboy and I was ready for it to be over ten minutes into the film.

Adam Sandler played Bobby Boucher, a waterboy who was constantly being abused and picked on by the coach (Jerry Reed) and other players. When the coach fired him, Bobby went looking for another waterboy position. When he joined the South-Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs, coached by Coach Klein (Henry Winkler), he discovered that the years of being abused allowed him to direct his anger into tackling people. This led Klein to offer Bobby a place as a linebacker on the team.

There is a solid cast in the film including Oscar winner Kathy Bates, Henry Winkler, Fairuza Balk, Jerry Reed, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Paul Wight, Blake Clark, and Rob Schneider. There are a bunch of cameos too including Bill Cowher, Jimmy Johnson, Brent Musburger, Dan Patrick, Lynn Swann, Lawrence Taylor, Lee Corso, Chris Fowler and Dan Fouts.

This was so stupid. I was so ready for this to be done. I did not like the character of Bobby and I thought everyone around him was so mean and rotten that it made things hard to watch. None of it was funny. It was also sadly predictable.

The football game at the end had some giggles to it, but it was way too late to save this.

I have put this one out of the way. It is a crapfest.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

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We’re off to a great start, this Sandler Saturday.

I would definitely say that Punch-Drunk Love is not an Adam Sandler movie. He stars in the film, but it is an Adam Sandler movie the same way Uncut Gems is an Adam Sandler movie. Uncut Gems was a Safdie Brothers and Punch-Drunk Love was a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

According to IMDB, “Barry Egan hates himself and hates his life. The only male among eight siblings, Barry is treated poorly by his overbearing sisters. Despite owning his own business, he has gotten nowhere in life largely because of his insecurities. He leads a solitary life, which allows him to hide his violent outbursts that occur when he’s frustrated. His solitude however allows him to think, he stumbling upon a scheme to travel the world on a pittance, travel which he has never done. Concurrently, he meets two people who pull him in two different directions. The first is Lena Leonard, a friend of his sister Elizabeth. Barry is slow to realize that Lena is attracted to him, he making her make all the first moves. Lena is eventually able to get Barry out of his shell, she who sticks around despite his obvious problems. His burgeoning relationship and thus new life with Lena is threatened by the second, “Georgia”, who he contacted in an effort to alleviate his loneliness. Georgia and her “band of brothers” do whatever they can get get out of Barry what they want, no matter the price to Barry.“

Adam Sandler is really good in this movie. Again, he is playing a character and it is a character considerably deeper than most characters he plays. Barry is a socially awkward, lonely man who has a horrible self-image. He is extremely compelling during the film even when he is doing some of the strange things that he does. You can see how much talent Adam Sandler actually has as an actor.

The film is very much a PTA film, weird, strange and fairly chaotic. There are many surreal elements to the movie that work well within the context of the film.

I loved the relationship between Barry and Lena (Emily Watson). It was sweet and original. I liked how it did not go the way I expected.

We are 2 for 2 so far.

Happy Gilmore (1996)

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I kicked off the Sandler Saturday special event her at EYG with Happy Gilmore. This idea came about because I noticed that, though I have said that I hated Adam Sandler movies, that I really haven’t seen very many of them. So I planned a day to binge as many Adam Sandler movies that I could stomach.

Happy Gilmore was the first of the films and I have to say, I kind of liked it.

I know… I’m surprised too.

Of course, I had seen the infamous scene with the Bob Barker fight. It is easily the most famous fake celebrity fight in movie history.

All of the things that I have hated about Adam Sandler movies in the past were in Happy Gilmore, but it felt to me as if they were kept in check. The traits that I have hated in Grown Ups 2 or Pixels were not as annoying as they were there. Perhaps cause it felt like Happy Gilmore was a real character and not just the same Adam Sandler-type that I have seen him play over and over. Maybe if I had seen this at the end of today it would stand out more. But as the first film in the Sandler Saturday, Happy Gilmore was better than I thought.

That does not mean that there aren’t stupid things that would never happen. The whole ending bit with the tower or the Volkswagen hitting him on the golf course are ridiculous, but, for whatever reason, they worked here. I can suspend disbelief for certain things.

So we are off to an unexpectedly good start for the Sandler Saturday.