BEFORE: I'm in a summer slump, that's for sure. One job is mostly closed for the summer, as you might expect for a college. But they're open for screenings, there just isn't one until Friday. The other job is hosting concerts, but is not calling me in for concerts, so I'm kind of stuck in the middle right now, I'm sidelined for the week unless they suddenly realize they're short-handed - I'm standing by, checking my e-mail just in case, but unless something changes I guess I'll be catching up on laundry this week or organizing my comic books. Guess I'll take some naps and make sure I'm caught up on sleep too.
Adam Sandler carries over from "Flipside". I thought maybe I might have to fall back on profiling Louisiana today, because of the character he played in "The Waterboy", but it turns out Sandler grew up in the great state of New Hampshire, so let's Get to Know Another State:
Date admitted to the U.S.: June 21, 1788 (the 9th state)
Claim to fame: Still looking, let me get back to you on this. Maybe Mount Washington? I mean, this state had ONE interesting rock feature, the Old Man of the Mountain, but that fell apart a few years ago, which has got to be a metaphor for something.
Prevalent language: Christian Science
State Motto: "Live Free or DIE" and really, those are your only two options there if you think about it
State Flower: Purple lilac
State Fruit: What's a fruit?
State Fruit: What's a fruit?
State Fish: Brook trout (freshwater) / Striped bass (saltwater) - yes, the state has about 10 miles of Atlantic Ocean coast, and they will NOT let you forget it.
State Insect: Ladybug
State Bird: Purple finch (they just love purple stuff, apparently)
State Tree: White birch
State Beverage: Beer (but you have to cross over the border from Massachusetts to get it)
Notable Sports Teams: Absolutely not.
Fun Fact: The state is some kind of concentrated breeding ground for SNL comedians, Seth Meyers, Sarah Silverman and yes, Adam Sandler all grew up there. I knew this and I guess I forgot it. Maybe because there's nothing to do there besides go skiing and making fun of stuff - this is kind of how Seattle became famous for rock music and Portland, OR became famous for animators. Climate is everything, apparently. The economy seems to all be based on maple syrup and summer camps, but there are also county fairs and community theater - you know, it all seems rather idyllic except for all the skiing accidents.
Since I grew up in Massachusetts, I've definitely been there when I was a kid, even if it was just to pass through and get to Maine. Really it was the go-to state if people from my hometown needed any beer, lottery tickets or fireworks, since everything was legal there and also no sales tax. So yeah, my visitation record rises to 11 out of 13.
THE PLOT: The inside story on Adam Sandler, actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and a consistent favorite among movie fans who are comforted that they will always have a good time.
AFTER: I have crossed paths with Adam Sandler, but it was a long time ago - we lived in the same dorm at NYU, just for one year, I think - he was a junior or senior when I was a freshman, meaning he got a higher pick when it came to room assignments, and if I remember right, he chose the coveted penthouse suite while I had a room on the eighth floor, right across the street from church bells that would wake me up every Sunday morning. But we all bumped into him from time to time down in the TV room or the laundry room, and before long he had a bit part on "The Cosby Show" as Theo's white friend and then SNL appearances came along shortly after that.
But man, even Adam Sandler deserves a better documentary about him than THIS. This is the worst kind of documentary, somebody slapped this together using 99% press interviews and red carpet footage, and half of the time you can't even hear what they're saying. But that means nobody put any effort into this at all, they didn't contact any celebrities to be interviewed, they never shot any footage, they probably didn't do ANY research at all, they just went to Sandler's Wiki page to find out which were his most successful films, they sourced all the red carpet moments from whatever Extra or Entertainment Tonight didn't air, and the main goal was just to fill up 90 minutes of air time on FM channel, whatever that is. Half of the programming on that channel seems to be recycled "stockumentaries" like this, focusing on how Tupac or Biggie or Elvis died, or similar lurid fare. I'm kind of ashamed that I'm using cheapo docs like this to round out the line-up this year, I've fallen for these in the past, like "Elton John: Becoming Rocketman" and "ABBA: Super Troupe" earlier this year. I should probably declare some kind of moratorium on these, umm, starting next year because this year I want to hit 50 docs and I'm going to need every one of them.
This is kind of the counterpoint to "Flipside", here the director is invisible and somebody just slapped all the footage together and didn't care one bit (some of the red carpet speeches are repeated TWICE, which is really annoying, but it shows they were desperate to fill up the time allotted) - while with "Flipside" the director was front and center, he found a way to make each failed documentary project about HIM somehow, and he agonized over completing each film, to the point where you could say he cared a bit TOO much and that was paralyzing for him. Chris Wilcha had director's block, but today's director had something more like director's diarrhea.
What's even worse is that the voice-over says the SAME EXACT thing about each one of Adam Sandler's movies - "critics hated it, but the fans loved it, it made XXX million at the box office". Do we need to hear that every single time, we get it! They say it so many times that I couldn't tell if they were trying to imply that the critics don't matter or that moviegoers are idiots. Adam Sandler works with his friends, again and again, like Kevin James and David Spade and Rob Schneider, everybody already KNOWS this, we don't need a doc to tell us this, it's hardly a shocking reveal. Wait, Adam Sandler does DRAMAS too, like "Uncut Gems" and "Punch-Drunk Love" - well yeah, duh, everyone already knows that, too. Even when they get up to the Safdie brothers and we're expecting some great revelation about what it's like to work with Sandler on a drama, they don't really give us any surprising insights about that, either. You know, it was cool to work with him, he's really funny but he can also be intense, like WHO CARES?
Ugh, and we have to endure the entire speeches given by Kevin James and Henry Winkler when Adam Sandler got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - I mean, I can take what Henry Winkler said, he seems like a genuine, stand-up guy but the jokes that Kevin James made are very terrible and difficult to endure. It's called editing, guys, maybe look into it one of these days. Look, I'm just going to call a mulligan tonight and move on - maybe someday someone will make a good documentary about Adam Sandler but man, this ain't it. My low score tonight should not be taken as a rebuke toward the actor, but just against the very sloppy, amateurish work someone didn't do in making this barely-coherent combination of footage and voice-over. Don't watch this, whatever you do, it's just a time-suck, you won't learn anything from it.
Directed by Danielle Winter (editor of "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation" and "Tom Hanks: The Nomad")
With archive footage of: Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Murder Mystery 2"), Bob Barker (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Jon Lovitz (ditto), Kevin Nealon (ditto), Benny Safdie (ditto), Rob Schneider (ditto), Drew Barrymore (last seen in "Big Miracle"), Noah Baumbach, Eric Bogosian (last seen in "Reptile"), Joseph Bologna (last seen in "Big Daddy"), Dana Carvey (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Phil Hartman (ditto), Dennis Miller (ditto), Ellen Cleghorne (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Terry Crews (last seen in "Draft Day"), Brooklyn Decker (last seen in "Lovesong"), Dennis Dugan (last seen in "Knox Goes Away"), Luke Evans (last seen in "Good Grief"), Chris Farley (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Jorge Garcia (last seen in "The Munsters"), Dustin Hoffman (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), Jennifer Hudson (last seen in "The Secret Life of Bees"), Kevin James (last seen in "Playdate"), Chris Kattan (last seen in "Will & Harper"), Taylor Lautner (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Jay Leno (last seen in "Martha"), Michelle Lombardo, Idina Menzel (last seen in "Wicked"), Kyle Newachek, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You"), Andy Richter (last seen in "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2"), Chris Rock (last seen in "Boomerang"), Josh Safdie, Jackie Sandler (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Blake Shelton (last seen in "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me"), David Spade (also carrying over from "Flipside"), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Nutcrackers"), Julia Sweeney (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "Matilda: The Musical"), Malcolm-Jamal Warner (last seen in "Fool's Gold"), Luke Wilson (last seen in "You Gotta Believe"), Henry Winkler (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"),
RATING: 2 out of 10 films made directly for Netflix
No comments:
Post a Comment