BEFORE: OK, we all made it to the end of September, and I'm kind of right where I wanted to be. Well, almost. The horror chain starts tomorrow and, well, it's not perfect, but I think it's the best I could do. Same goes for the rest of the year - I KNOW I can make it to the end in the right number of steps, it's just not exactly the way I wanted to do it. I'll be honest, I was hoping for one more Riz Ahmed film that JUST got released digitally but I just don't know if it will be available for me to watch it in November without paying top price. If it's available, there's one November film I'd love to drop because I want to move it to February to help link movies there. I've tried adding one more horror film to replace it, in case that Riz Ahmed movie doesn't become available, but the problem there is that I need those films to help link horror movies NEXT year, so if I put them in THIS year's chain, I can't do that.
I'm in that terrible fix where I can't take a movie away unless I add one, like the new "Smurfs" movie was part of the chain, but I saved that for later because it could help me link Christmas movies next year but I replaced it with something else in December to make the numbers work out. OK, I think I know what I have to do, I can't drop this November film by adding another movie in October, so I'll just have to drop what I want to drop and add one more movie to the end of the chain in December, post-Christmas if I have to. Man, that's really waiting until the last minute to make sure I hit my 300 movies for the year - but maybe this year that's what it's going to take.
Chris Witaske carries over from "Omni Loop". I could have added another Chris Witaske film before this one, or added another Christopher McDonald film after today's film, but I think I'm going to risk it, I'm just going to be one film short until the very last film of the year, if necessary. Now here's the format breakdown for September:
16 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Mean Girls (2024), Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Boogie Woogie, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, 6 Days, Backtrack, Manhattan Night, The Brutalist, The Survivalist, Mile 22, The Boys in the Boat, Mountainhead, Varsity Blues, Bigger than the Sky, Get a Job, Balls Out
4 watched on Netflix: The Six Triple Eight, The Union, You Gotta Believe, Happy Gilmore 2
3 watched on Amazon Prime: Bullet Head, Of Mice and Men (1992), The Accountant 2
5 watched on Hulu: Nightbitch, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Present, Omni Loop
5 watched on Hulu: Nightbitch, Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, The Present, Omni Loop
1 watched on Peacock: Maggie Moore(s)
29 TOTAL
Tomorrow the horror movies start, and I'll post the actor linking for the month.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Happy Gilmore" (Movie #272)
THE PLOT: To provide for his family, a retired Happy Gilmore must pick up the golf clubs once more and reconnect with the sport he once dominated.
AFTER: Jesus, it's been almost 30 years since "Happy Gilmore" came out, even if I didn't watch it until 2009, it was released in 1996. The trend of releasing long-overdue sequels continues, I guess, there have been a lot of them lately, like "Gladiator II" and "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F". "Twisters" took a while to make, also, I don't know what the damn hold-up is sometimes, whether it's just a bunch of studio people who don't want to finance sequels or if the problem is stars like Adam Sandler who don't want to fall back on old characters and would rather make something totally new - which is how we get "Hubie Halloween", and trust me, it's just not worth it.
Of course, you should only make a sequel to a film that came out 29 years ago if the time is right, if the stars align and if you can get a good enough script that warrants going through all of this over again. Eh, this one's fine, I'd rather see this than a sequel to "The Waterboy" or "Mr. Deeds", and a big HELL NO to a sequel to "Jack and Jill".
Still, I think this film could have, should have been funnier. A lot of jokes were just repeats or callbacks to the original film, to the point of ridiculousness, really. If we wanted to watch "Happy Gilmore 1" again, we could just do that, any time we want. But for some reason the filmmakers felt the need to check in with every single character from the original film, even the very minor ones, and if the actor is now deceased, then they cast a younger look-alike actor to play their son, and really, by now we're STOPPING the action and bending the whole system over backwards just to say, "Hey, remember that guy who was in the first film for 30 seconds? Well, THIS guy who sort of resembles him is his son, isn't that hilarious?" Well, no, not really. Though stunt casting rapper Eminem as the son of Joe Flaherty's character who heckled Happy all the time, it's a bit funny. But it's hardly groundbreaking, it's just another callback.
In the time away from being featured in movies, golf star Happy Gilmore won 6 championships over the years, and had five children with his wife, Virginia, although she died after being struck by one of Happy's powerful super-long drives, so her character only appears in flashbacks or in Happy's imagination. Yeah, you can tell when an actor doesn't really want to be part of the film, but they're willing to put in one day making a cameo, just for old time's sake. We all know.
But without his wife, Happy quit golf at some point and became a professional alcoholic. Well, at least he was still a pro at something. Also, without his wife taking care of the finances, he lost his car and his grandma's house and he had to get a job stocking groceries at Stop & Shop. How the mighty have fallen - his four sons are complete screw-ups but at least they all have jobs, so they share an apartment somewhere else while Happy lives with his daughter and for some reason, NFL star John Daly lives in his garage. Meanwhile, his rival Shooter McGavin is confined to a mental hospital, still damaged by Happy Gilmore's championship upset. Gee, it would be a shame if he were to get out of the asylum and track down Happy, who knows what could happen but it could be funny at least.
Happy is approached one day by Frank Manatee, an energy drink company CEO who wants to sponsor a new golf league called Maxi Golf, and tries to sign up Happy, only Happy doesn't want to be involved. Still, he needs to raise money somehow so his daughter can attend ballet school in Paris. But Happy instead decides to get back into golf and join the next Tour Championship on old-timers weekend or something. But first he's got to quit drinking, so he joins A.A. and attends meetings that are run by Hal L., another character who was his grandmother's mean caretaker in the first film. While Happy is hanging out with famous golfers, that energy drink CEO manages to free Shooter McGavin from the asylum, so oh, boy, we're headed for some kind of crazy showdown!
Only it doesn't really play out how it could have - it would have been so EASY to set up a rematch between Shooter and Happy, but I don't know, maybe that would have been too "Caddyshack" or something, because they don't really go that way. Also Happy doesn't make the cut on the Tour Championships, because on Mother's Day he has visions of his dead wife that put him in a funk and he ends up finishing sixth - and only the top five finishers will be chosen to battle the new Maxi Golf league in an event that could decide the future of golf itself...
But wait, all is not lost, because in an incredible turn of events, the top finisher on the Tour Championship reveals that he has already signed up with Maxi Golf, so he's therefore ineligible to be in the Top 5 traditional golfers chosen to battle against Maxi Golf. What a shock, who could have seen that coming except for everyone? So all the finishers move up a notch, and Happy Gilmore is back to represent real golf against new and improved WWE-style Maxi Golf. Which is all a bit weird because Happy was never really a traditional golfer to begin with, he swung like a hockey player and had fights with Bob Barker and did a lot of crazy things. Are you sure THIS guy is who you want to uphold the standards and save the sport? OK, but it still seems weird. I was a little shocked when Happy didn't sign with Maxi Golf in the first place, he kind of seemed like a natural fit - but then, he's the hero of the film and the film needed villains, I guess.
The dreaded reunion between Shooter McGavin is a non-starter, they have a bit of a fist-fight in a cemetery, but really, I was expecting more. They established Shooter as a psychotic lunatic, fixated on revenge, but then after the cemetery fight he's just a regular golfer again, and also he's on Happy's side? That makes no sense, but I guess we just can't predict what a screenwriter will make a lunatic do, even if that ends up acting very normal. But God DAMN IT, it just doesn't seem right or funny enough - really, another missed opportunity, not allowing Christopher McDonald to go nuts with this great villain character. And Shooter ends up being a substitute for the "traditional golf" team, is that really what a psychotic lunatic would do?
What do you know, it all comes down to the final putt, because of course it does. And if Happy Gilmore makes the putt, he earns the money he needs for his daughter's ballet school and his caddy's Italian restaurant, but if he misses the putt then he has to join Maxi Golf and promote the evil energy drink. Gee, I wonder what's going to happen...come on.
The whole thing seems like maybe it's a thinly-veiled takedown of the LIV Golf League, that rival league to the PGA that signed up a bunch of younger pro golfers and was funded by Saudi Arabian money, in an attempt to make up for a bunch of human rights issues or something. Come on, you just know that whole thing is corrupt, right? But we live in a competitive society, like there can be rival leagues and the sports fans are always desperate for more things to bet on, so if you want to start up another league or something, go for it. But in the long run the NFL will always win out over the USFL or whatever, and the MLB will probably last longer than that league they started up where women could play. They had a team called the Colorado Silver Bullets and it was supposed to be the first of many female teams only there never were more. I think they're trying to get another women's baseball league started next year, because the WNBA actually has worked out. Good luck with that.
Directed by Kyle Newacheck (director of "Murder Mystery" and "Game Over, Man!")
Also starring Adam Sandler (last seen in "Men, Women & Children"), Julie Bowen (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Christopher McDonald (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Benny Safdie (last seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Bad Bunny (last seen in "Bullet Train"), John Daly, Dennis Dugan (last seen in "Jack and Jill"), Haley Joel Osment (last seen in "Somebody I Used to Know"), Lavell Crawford (also last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Martin Herlihy (ditto), Jackie Sandler (last heard in "Leo"), Sadie Sandler (ditto), Sunny Sandler (ditto), Maxwell Friedman (last seen in "The Iron Claw"), Philip Schneider, Ethan Cutkosky (last seen in "Fred Claus"), Conor Sherry, Steve Buscemi (last seen in "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie"), Kevin Nealon (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Kym Whitley (last seen in "You People"), John Farley (also last heard in "Leo"), Nick Swardson (ditto), Robert Smigel (ditto), Blake Clark (ditto), Jonathan Loughran (ditto), Chris Titone (ditto), Eric Andre (last heard in "Trolls Band Together"), Margaret Qualley (last seen in "Kinds of Kindness"), Verne Lundquist (last seen in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"), Post Malone (last seen in "Spenser Confidential"), Jack Giarraputo, Keegan Bradley, Fred Couples (last seen in "Tin Cup"), Corey Pavin (ditto), Bryson DeChambeau, Nick Faldo, Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia (last seen in "Stuck on You"), Charles Howell III, Brooks Koepka, Hunter Mahan, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Jack Nicklaus, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Lee Trevino (last seen in "Happy Gilmore"), Bubba Watson, Seth Waugh, Will Zalatoris, Marcello Hernandez, Travis Kelce, Eminem (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Dan Patrick (also last seen in "Jack and Jill"), Stephen A. Smith (last seen in "Creed III"), Chris Berman (last seen in "The Program"), Jim Gray (last seen in "Ali"), Oliver Hudson (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Fernando Marrero, Reggie Bush, Rebecca Quin, Nikki Garcia, Tim Herlihy (last seen in "Blended"), Judith Sandler (ditto), Nelly Korda, Nancy Lopez, Boban Majanovic (last seen in "Self Reliance"), Lila Titone (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Frank Coraci (ditto), Joseph Vecsey (last seen in "The Wrong Missy"), Ted Scott, Niall O'Connor, Brian Thompson, Blake Nathaniel Jones, Brady Duval, Quinn Dempsey Stiller (last seen in "Locked Down"), Kyle McDonough, Jraice Finau, Paige Spiranac, Carter Hambley, Ling L. Titone, Jana Sandler, Robert Simonds, Ella Stiller (also last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Charlotte Reff, Charley Hull, James Downey (last seen in "There Will Be Blood"), Jena Sims (last seen in "The Last Movie Star"), Julia Herlihy, Rosie McDonald, Claudia Robinson (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), Scott Stuber, Dani Deette (last seen in "Reptile"), Michael Everett Johnson (last seen in "A Complete Unknown"), Alix Earle, Cam'ron, Treasure Wilson, Sean Evans, Kelsey Plum
with cameos from Guy Fieri (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Ken Jennings, Kid Cudi (last seen in "X"), Bobby Lee (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Jon Lovitz (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Andrew Santino (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Rob Schneider (also last heard in "Leo")
and archive footage of Bob Barker (last seen in "Happy Gilmore"), Frances Bay (last seen in "The Grifters"), Richard Kiel (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Will Sasso (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Carl Weathers (last seen in "Sly")
RATING: 6 out of 10 gold jackets
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