Among the "wins" for Sandler: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (for Sandler's work in "Jack & Jill" and "Just Go With It"), Worst Actress (as "Jill"), Worst Supporting Actor (for Al Pacino's cameo as himself), Worst Supporting Actress (for pal David Spade as "Monica"), Worst Screen Ensemble (for the entire cast), Worst Director (Dennis Dugan for "Jack and Jill" and "Just Go With It"), Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel ("Jack and Jill" for ripping off Ed Woods' camp classic "Glen or Glenda"), Worst Screen Couple (Sandler and Katie Holmes, Sandler and Al Pacino or Sandler with himself) and Worst Screenplay.Yeah, Sandler won in both the actor and actress categories, but I think the funniest thing there is that Al Pacino won Worst Supporting Actor when he was playing the role of himself. How can you screw up playing yourself? Ah! That seems like a deep and metaphysical question. It reminds me of the notion that made André Gregory cry, as described by Wallace Shawn in "My Dinner with André":
The reason I was meeting André was that an acquaintance of mine, George Grassfield, had called me and just insisted that I had to see him. Apparently, George had been walking his dog in an odd section of town the night before, and he'd suddenly come upon André leaning against a crumbling old building, and sobbing. André had explained to George that he'd just been watching the Ingmar Bergman movie Autumn Sonata about twenty-five blocks away, and he'd been seized by a fit of ungovernable crying when the character played by Ingrid Bergman had said, "I could always live in my art, but never in my life."But let's check YouTube for what Pacino actually did in the movie "Jack and Jill." Here:
Pacino's got the perfect lines, revealing that Sandler, et al., knew their movie was perfectly bad:
"Burn this. This must never be seen... All copies! Destroy them!"
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Al dances pretty well. That's something.
Well, this does nothing to make me want to see more movies than I do, which is almost none in theaters, but a few at home.
Incidentally, I watched the Princess Bride, with Wallace Shawn on Saturday. When that was done, I was able to catch then end of Hoosiers. Great movies.
I swear that Dennis Dugan had a brief appearance on the Rockford Files, and then in a very short lived TV series based upon the same character. Wikipedia makes no mention of it. I remember the name because my younger brother was very fond of a book called "Dugan Duck," and I must have read it to him a hundred times.
Al's great weakness in portraying himself- his reasonably proportioned head...
typo alert, Althouse: "that" should be "they"
@Jon Thanks. Fixed.
You mean worse that "Istar"?
Worse that "Heaven's Gate"?
Patrick said...
I swear that Dennis Dugan had a brief appearance on the Rockford Files, and then in a very short lived TV series based upon the same character.
Richie Brockelman.
For about 10 years, everything Stephen Cannell (who died last year, BTW) produced was a riff on "Rockford" until he did "The A-Team", which could also be said to be a riff on "Rockford".
What's worse, Adam Sandler escapism or the total lie of any serious, sensitive, concerned film directed by Robert Redford?
I do like the lining of his jacket and the vest. That should count for something.
I swear that Dennis Dugan had a brief appearance on the Rockford Files, and then in a very short lived TV series based upon the same character. Wikipedia makes no mention of it.
Yes, his IMDB page confirms your recollection.
It's hard to make a good comedy movie. I've sat through a lot of dreck looking for the occasional nugget of gold. I was recently extremely disappointed in The Hangover 2, a movie nowhere near as funny as the original.
Sandler makes a lot of crap. I liked Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy. That's about it. Little Nicky was so bad I haven't seen much of him since then.
He's conditioning me to stay away from his movies, just as Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller have done. (Carrey I never found funny; Stiller was great in Something About Mary; good in Meet the Parents. Meet the Fockers was abysmal, as was Zoolander, as was a bunch of others.)
I give Sandler points for trying. Making good comedy movies is very, very tough. Damn near impossible. I can see why Tom Hanks went hard into drama.
I don't think I'll see the full length film, but I thought this clip was hilarious. A parody of a parody, Pacino was dead on with his line, "This must be burned." lol.
This movie allegedly cost $79 million. One theory is that this was a con job by Sandler. I go further and suspect the studio realized this and piled on, using the movie as a tax dodge--basically writing off expenses they couldn't otherwise write off.
(It's claimed that it made money, but the advertising budget was clearly massive, so I doubt it.)
I liked it and didn't like Midnight in Paris. I even liked Australia when approached with the proper frame of mind, that is the one you might use to read a Michener novel.
This movie doesn't get within a barge pole of Independence Day when it comes to bad movies.
If you were going into a Sandler move expecting something other than what you got, you didn't deserve to hold on to the $11 in the first place.
I went to the movies with a friend the other night, and a preview for a new throwaway Sandler comedy came on.
These must make money; he's made tons of them. Yet they're so horrible. Who goes?
We know from Reign on Me, Punch Drunk Love, and old Saturday Night Live that Sandler is talented.
Maybe the dreck makes possible the decent.
Speaking of Robert Redford, what's the deal with Love Story? That was laughably bad. Why do people remember it?
This movie allegedly cost $79 million. One theory is that this was a con job by Sandler. I go further and suspect the studio realized this and piled on, using the movie as a tax dodge--basically writing off expenses they couldn't otherwise write off.
One of my favorite reviews of the movie made this point: http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag/jack-and-jill/
Thanks for the updates on Mr. Duggan's career. It appears I've got a virus, because when i click on Google's search results, I get re-directed. Malwarbytes finds nothing.
Speaking of Robert Redford, what's the deal with Love Story? That was laughably bad. Why do people remember it?
You haven't heard? Al Gore claims it was based on his burgeoning love affair with Tipper. Not.
It's only a matter of time until Christopher Walken kicks everyone's ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZwZiU0kKs
From the article about Love Story linked by Joe Schmoe:
And, asked why such an appealing fact had never come to light during his years of public life, Ms. Terzano said: ''Because they're shy people, those Gores. They don't talk about themselves.''
LMAO
Oh I'm a huge fan of Adam Sandler!
Vastly underrated comic, in my opinion. But comedy is always underrated, so that's nothing new.
Sandler is uneven, he's made some shit. He's got a bit of a Jerry Lewis persona, actually. When he annoys, he really annoys. But that's the way humor is. If it works for you, it's brilliant. And if it doesn't, it's the worst thing ever made.
My review of 50 First Dates
Drew Barrymore is always good for Adam Sandler. Sandler usually makes frat boy humor movies, except with Drew. She drags him, kicking and screaming, into the rom-com genre. Most of the Sandler movies have a love interest who is a second banana to the real story. Well, Drew's not a second banana. She is the banana. So these films bring out the nice side of Sandler. He is wooing a woman. So he writes her songs and sings them to her. Singing Sandler is not to be missed.
I love The Wedding Singer, and I love this movie even more. I think it's one of the more brilliant rom-coms to come along in a while. It's not hysterically funny. It's more than a bit vulgar in places. (Is walrus vomit funny? I say yes). But it also has gorgeous cinematography, awesome set design, and it's maybe the sweetest movie alive. In fact, for an Adam Sandler movie, there's a surprising bit of sadness mixed in as well. It's a handicap movie, and I'm almost always immune to those, but this movie is different. It's not playing the victim card. What comes out instead is an incredible vulnerability, and Drew's unawareness of her handicap just makes her all the sweeter and more vulnerable. Like all the men in the movie, I had an immense desire to protect Drew.
The vibe of this movie is all over the place, but one of the things you will feel is a sweet melancholy. This movie probes into identity, dreams, and memory, and challenges you in a way that is surprising. I literally had no idea how they were going to end this thing. I was worried they were going to screw it up. It's a beautiful film. I've already seen it four times without even trying.
Happy Gilmore: Adam Sandler finds so much comedy from anger. He uses anger like W.C. Fields uses fear. The difference is that Fields would use fear over and over. He could tap into his fears throughout his life. Anger is a young man’s game. Sandler is totally mellow now, he can’t pull off this type of humor any more. It’s all his anger that makes Happy Gilmore so hilarious. “Oooo, I hate that Bob Barker.”
The Wedding Singer:
Sandler's song is so sweet, and then so dark ("It's a little uneven") that it's shockingly funny. It's a childlike and innocent ditty, kinda like we're back on Sesame Street. And then it's "Somebody kill me, please! Put a bullet in my head! I want to die! Kill me, kill me, please!" Sandler is at his funniest when he's angry and dark and childlike and singing. The best humor comes out of pain and he really taps into it here. Brilliant. And Drew Barrymore is so sweet in this film. Her sweetness makes it even funnier. "I like it!" She kills me.
I didn't see Jack and Jill, though. That trailer really sucked.
Just Go With It is a lot of fun.
Fields was sublime, and Sandler, for all his talents, could never attain such.
Fields was sublime, and Sandler, for all his talents, could never attain such.
If I had to rank 'em, Marx brothers would be #1, and W.C. Fields would be #2. Here's what I had to say about The Bank Dick
W.C. Fields' favorite bar has a big sign. It says "Black Pussy" and then under that it says "Cat Cafe". That cracks me up. And the screenplay is written by Mahatma Kane Jeeves. You got that? The writer is one third Gandhi, one third Orson Welles, and one third Wodehouse. Oh, he's a sneaky man. It's a subtle joke--it would have to be to get by Breen and the production code--but what other white comedian is joking about having sex with black women in 1940? Later in the movie, Fields is startled by a black man, and he jumps. It's a racist joke, to be sure, but Fields is commenting on racism, too. As always, Fields makes himself the butt of the joke. He's mocking himself and his fear.
What I love about W.C. Fields is his fear. He's scared of everything. He's scared of black people, he's scared of women, he's scared of children, he's scared of dogs, he's scared of authority, he's scared of policemen, he's scared of his wife. He's so vulnerable and mean and scared. And he shocks you with his physical grace. That's the other thing about Fields: he's sneaky, he's afraid, and he has perfect comic timing. He's a fat acrobat. Amazing, amazing talent.
And here is The Dentist
I recommend Half in the Bag's two part evisceration of Sandler, here
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