Tag: Adam Sandler

Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie (or The Safdie Brothers) released a movie called Good Time in 2017. And it was way better than anyone expected it to be.

Robert Pattinson was a great lead, it was high energy with a banging edge of your seat soundtrack. It made quite a few best of lists and was nominated for some of the more independent film awards.

And yeah, it caught me by surprise, but didn’t elevate itself to my best list. However, I was very intrigued with Uncut Gems, going in knowing nothing about the plot except it was their movie and Adam Sandler starring. After all, Adam Sandler is actually known for acting good in movies he had nothing to do with production or direction. Like The Meyerowitz Stories or Reign Over Me (I haven’t seen Reign Over Me, I’m just assuming).

Bring on the almost Bear Jew.

This looks like a man who could collect many Nazi scalps. I don’t think anyone would disagree that Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a fuck up. Sure, he has his own diamond/jewelry shop in a classy part of NYC and deals with high figures and big clients, lives in a nice fancy house and has a family. But his judgement is questionable.

For one, he owes a lot of money to various people. One guy about $100,000, but smaller amounts to others. He likes to gamble money away in hopes of getting rich. He likes to pawn peoples items to secure funds to gamble them away. Don’t worry, he will pay it back.

Oh, he is going through a divorce with his wife (Idina Menzel) but they are keeping it a secret until after Passover. His new lady (Julia Fox) lives in an apartment with him in the city and works in his store.

But things are finally going to change for Howard. He is getting a package he has waited a long time for in the mail, and Kevin Garnett (Kevin Garnett) is walking in to his shop before a big playoff game. Yep, things might finally start looking up.

Also starring Tommy Kominik, Keith Williams Richards, Eric Bogosian, Jacob Igielski, Jonathan Aranbayev, and of course Lakeith Stanfield.

Ah yes, Lakeith, you should be in all of our movies. For about two-thirds of the film, I already knew most of my final thoughts. I knew this film made me feel uncomfortable. It made me feel disgusted at points. I was nervous the entire time. And I figured I’d never want to see it again, but I also knew I loved it.

Much like Good Time, once again, the soundtrack has to be experienced with excellent speakers. It almost feels like half the movie. The “action” in this movie is a lot less serious than that in Good Time, but the soundtrack still elevates his stakes and puts us in his ever more and more agonizing shoes.

Sandler is definitely giving it his all in this movie, really diving into the character. Enough to make me forget about Sandler at some point and just think of this crazed diamond dealer. I don’t know if he has ever been better, but I do know this has to be near his best and is worth the agonizing nature of the film.

The level of detail these brothers put into this movie, setting it in a specific period in 2012. The real events, the concerts, the games. I have never cared more about a 7 years ago NBA playoffs match up than this movie, and I was happy I was in a situation where I couldn’t just find out the results of the match on my phone real quick.

Finally, I was wrong with the thoughts I had two-thirds of the way in through this movie. I would totally go through the experience again.

4 out of 4.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Animated 2018! Basically, all of the animated movies of 2018 that didn’t get their own review.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

Animated 2018

Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

First up is the only third film in a franchise in the group, but there are a few unnecessary sequels as well. And in terms of unnecessary things, this is near the top. This film doesn’t relaly have any redeeming qualities. It is very clear right from the get go what a twist would be, so instead of milking it, they give it away early as well.

The real twist is tricking you to give money for this terrible, terrible movie. The ending features a several minute long dance battle, from various artists, and then an even longer Macarena dance party. Yes, that Macarena. Were they paid to have it featured so prominently, has it been too long outside of our pop culture sphere? It seriously had to milk this scene so hard, as each main character needed to be shown doing the dance, and then group shots, and then tons of tourists, and every person everywhere, with extreme body movements to highlight their awkward appearances. It was one of the worst endings of a movie this year, so well done Hotel Transylvania 3. Please stop now.

0 out of 4.

If only Van Helsing was successful hundreds of years ago, none of this would be here today.

Incredibles 2

Next up is a sequel people have actually been wanting forever, and Brad Bird said only when he had a worthy script, and apparently that meant 14 years later. Real time, not the movie time, as it takes place right after the first movie. And I honestly thought he should have waited longer. This film just feels so uninspired by me. I really didn’t need to see moments after they finished the first film, leaving me at the same exact point except we have a baby with changing every power nonsense. I could have used years later, more developed.

This plot feels too similar to the first. Still people are afraid of supers, but instead of the man going out to fight, its now the lady. The plot twist was once again obvious, so it didn’t do much for me. In 2004, Superhero movies were shit, so The Incredibles stood out as a beacon of hope for things to come. Now Superhero films have been able to elevate their game, bring a whole lot more exciting things, and this film more or less stayed the same. My mind checked out by the end, and it felt like too little too late.

2 out of 4.

Babies are hard to care for. Hialrious!

Ralph Breaks The Internet

This sequel is a lot sooner after the first film, to maximize off of its success. However, this felt like a rushed piece of movie that relied on current style jokes only to work, which is going to doom it in the long run. This movie is by Disney, who wanted to flex their expansive collection and throw in all of the princesses and more in an internet hub world to make people giddy, almost as counter to Ready Player One , another nostalgia heavy film. Except this one combines nostolgia with extremely current, so we get memes, we get current popular websites, and it is going to do what many modern comedies do: fade into obscurity in a few years.

It is still nice to look at, and the ending is totally weird, but honestly, they made Ralph into such a shit in this movie. In the first film, he was tired of being a bad guy, who tried to do the right thing, but from his good intentions some bad still happened. In this film, he becomes selfish and straight up almost gaslighting Penelope into staying, and going out of his way to be a dick, whcih causes the problems. He felt like an extreme nice guy. “I did all of this for you, and now you want to leave!? Love me!” These are not the traits to be highlighting in our animated heroes, even if he learns his lesson. He still needed to not be such a dick.

2 out of 4.

Ha ha ha ha screaming goats ha ha manipulation ha ha ha free will.

Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero

This movie is an awkward one, as it had a small release, not a big studio, and looked like absolute shit. Letting us know it is based on a true dog from World War I doesn’t make this feel any less uncomfortable the whole time. In highlighting what a dog did, with most likely extreme examples that might not have happened, we downplay the hell out of actual soldiers in the war who died. I don’t know if anyone is still alive from that war, but I know they would definitely not like this movie iteration.

It was a terrible war, and not saying we can’t make kid versions about the war. But it didn’t do a good job of really informing the details of the war, so it isn’t really educational. Instead, it is a super pup movie, who has a soldier friend, who saves everybody. It is so soft and basic it just feels like a waste of time. Cool, at least one dog in a war was given the title of sergeant. Please don’t trivialize the war at the same time.

1 out of 4.

Yo dawg, just no.

Sherlock Gnomes

For those of you who did not see Gnomeo and Juliet (which I will assume is everybody), it was lawn gnomes, but the Romeo and Juliet story line. And for whatever reason, they got Elton John on board with it, and a lot of his hits were either background, or the tune of his songs with different lyrics. It was uncomfortable. So yeah, let’s do a sequel. But a different story. Completely unrelated, except also being British in nature.

Now, if you are like me, you assumed okay, new story, new hero and will just be gnomes. But no, they think we really like the pair from the previous movie and it is still really about them, with also a mystery and extra characters. And despite the first being a big movie about their romance and getting together, this one is also about how Gnomeo is a shitbag who won’t let his woman do her own things, so he has to be insecure and they should not be a couple. More bad things for kids, really. Also, what the fuck is this Shelock plot line. I haven’t seen Homes & Watson yet, but this has got to be the worst year for that poor detective in hundreds of years. Straight up I will let you know, at some point, Watson is found to be part of the bad guy plot as well, because they want something new. Get out of here.

Oh yeah, and still, Elton John music.

0 out of 4.

Here are four characters no one ever has, or will, care about.

Smallfoot

This is one of those movies I had completely dismissed before watching it. It looked like an Illumination movie, and they are generally godawful always. But it isn’t that! It is Warner Bros, who is known for Lego Movies and Storks (and that’s it right now). Knowing Storks, I wasn’t excited either. But strangely enough, Smallfoot had a lot going on for it. It had pretty good lead acting and some fun characters. It dealt with a serious topic about dealing with religious doctrination, from many angles. It didn’t say blindly follow, or screw all of it and get rid of it. There were layers to the plot.

I didn’t know it had songs in it either, so when they started I was a bit turned off, but for the most part they are really great. Even when one had to take the riff from Under Pressure, it completely ran with the premise and made it into something wonderful. Shit, the music was dope. I laughed. Now the ending did have a lot of problems, it got clunky and a bit off. But for the most part, Smallfoot is a solid film and better than most of the animated films this year. I’m looking at you, Disney and Pixar.

3 out of 4.

Who really has the small feet in this situation, WB, Disney, or Pixar?

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

And finally, we have a movie that came in a summer and I actually heard a lot of good things about. I heard it was hilarious. I heard I didn’t need to watch the show to like. I watched the first Teen Titans a few times, and it seemed quality. The Go version looked like, and maybe even smelled like trash. And it turns out, their movie seems to go with my preconceptions of the show.

Let’s make this clear. I didn’t laugh once. It had a few fart and potty jokes in it. It had a group of five people but it could not at all let them all be the stars, despite it being a team film. Clearly, a movie about Robin wanting a movie about himself will be more about him. Fine. But the other four are barely used. Cyborg is used a lot more, then Beast Boy, and our girls are rarely mentioned or get a line it seems. It is also a surprise musical, with some tunes being nice.

But what makes this movie insufferable is its over reliance on meta humor and current meme standards. We get it. Its a movie about making a super hero movies. We got superheroes in it, and they are hilarious. It just went all these terrible directions and never felt like something I would ever want to watch. It is like an idea someone made on an internet message board, and for whatever reason, a studio executive was drunk and actually listened to it. Yeah, a movie about making movies. But fart humor. And not showcasing all of the members of the team. And repeated jokes. Yes. God awful.

0 out of 4.

God awful.

Overall, I am not surprised that three of these films got the lowest rating. I am surprised at how much I disliked Teen Titans though, could never imagine that poor of a film. I figured Sgt. Stubb would have been worse. I am surprised at the mediocrity from our big studios and how good Smallfoot ended up being.

Some of these films will make the worst of the year list, none will make the best. If you wanted quality animated films from this year, from America, check out Isle of Dogs and Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) is not a movie I was jumping in my car to see. I mean, just look at the title. You don’t have to know anything about it to realize how much of an indie movie it must be, and how many hipsters must have died to make the production.

But it is a new one coming to Netflix, so those are usually surprising to me in quality. I have seen a lot of stuff on there that I have hated and quickly loved while watching.

The other factor is the director, Noah Baumbach, king of the Hipsters himself. He has about a 50% success rate from my point of view, so I was ready to be wow’d or annoyed.

The way they sit reminds me of an Olympic medal podium.

Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a slightly eccentric retired sculptor. He never really got famous from his work, but he feels famous in his heart. He worked as a professor at a college in NYC to pay the bills and get a decent living that way. He has had several wives and spawned three kids, but he does not love them equally, especially due to the fact that they never really seemed to inherit his artistic talent.

Or at least that is what Danny (Adam Sandler) thinks, his eldest. He has a daughter of his own (Grace Van Patten), about to go to college, and he is recently divorced and about to be homeless. He was a stay at home dad, he played the piano, but he again was never really famous. There is a sister too, Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) who is sarcastic and tries to not hang out with her parents too much.

And their youngest brother is Matthew (Ben Stiller), born of a different mother, and clearly the favorite kid. He was encouraged the most and constantly looked after unlike his older siblings, but he still didn’t become an artist. He went and got a real job, making real money, but a job that doesn’t really have much a soul behind it. He also moved far away to California.

Basically, this film is about the children dealing with their lives from their emotionally abusive father, always feeling like let downs in their eye, as he himself is getting older and thus about to leave this world.

Also starring Emma Thompson, Judd Hirsch, Rebecca Miller, and Adam Driver.

The movie increases the facial hair game of several of the actors.

Like a lot of Baumbach films, the acting is definitely top notch. I have rarely seen Sandler better. Marvel carried her own wait with a very unlikely character for her, and Hoffman is kicking a lot of ass in his old age. Stiller is one of the few roles that doesn’t feel like a lot of acting, and mostly just Stiller feeling like Stiller. If anything, this film is worth the watch for the acting.

The plot isn’t as good as the characters in the story. We have some nice dialogue, and a lot of backstory, but we don’t get to see a whole lot happen on the screen.

But really the reason it is just left in okayland is due to the ending. It just began to drag, going further and further into the aftermath portions of the film and it took awhile to just stop. That is how I will describe the end. It just stopped. It was not worth the wait of what felt like multiple good stopping points to get to the actual ending.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) has an elitist title about a few people who most would consider to be in the elite class. It just fails to live up to the characters it created.

2 out of 4.

In case you haven’t been keeping count, The Do-Over is movie #2 of the Sandler-Netflix collaboration. Netflix has said they don’t care about having the best movies, they just want a very diverse set of films, films that reach many different demographics and personality styles.

So they don’t always care about the critics. Which is why they offered Adam Sandler a four movie deal, because some people really like his brand of comedy, including the overseas market. Go figure.

Movie #1 was The Ridiculous 6, which I found very disappointing. The Do-Over seems to be going in a very different direction, both in terms of style, genre, and size of the cast. So there is a chance that this one ends up much better.

Holy crap, the promo images for this film are crap!

Charlie (David Spade) doesn’t like his life. And no, its not because the actor hasn’t had a hit in a long time. He is at his ten year high school reunion, watching his constantly cheating wife (Natasha Leggero) get down with the old high school prom king (Sean Astin). He is a bank manager, but the bank is inside of a grocery store. There are two step kids who treat him like shit. But then he sees Max (Adam Sandler).

Max has changed and seems really chill and cool now. And when his life goes on a vacation with him, Charlie decides to hang out with Max on a boat and have a great bro weekend. Then the boat explodes, Charlie is drugged, and Max takes him away.

Why? No, not to kill him. Max thinks that Charlie hates his life, so he decided to fake their deaths taking the identity of two people who recently died. They had a lot of money, a sweet vacation home, and they can just get away from it all and get a second chance at life. Or, you know, a do-over.

But there are problems with their plan, especially since the two men were murdered and those who are after them are going to come after them too. But that is a problem for later. Right now it is time to party party party.

Also starring Paula Patton, Kathryn Hahn, Nick Swardson, Catherine Bell, Michael Chiklis, Luis Guzman, and Torsten Voges.

Seriously, what do I do with any of these pictures? So generic.

The Do-Over just may very well be one of the okayiest movies I have ever seen this year. Almost on every front the film just feels average. The acting is as expected, the jokes are average, the twists are too many and the plot a little bit stupid. But some of the action scenes are entertaining, some of the jokes made me smile, and some of the twists were actually decent.

but taking it as a whole, there are a lot of stale moments. The intro goes on for too long. Too many fake identities for Sandler, and just too many twists overall.

It isn’t super strong on comedy or action, making the jokes and shots seem like after thoughts.

But when compared to the last 15 or so films, it is at least better than 12 of them. That is saying a lot about Sandler’s recent film career, but what it really says is that I loved You Don’t Mess With The Zohan and didn’t think Just Go With It, Pixels, or That’s My Boy were that bad. These comparisons still probably don’t sell the movie for you, and honestly, they really shouldn’t.

Would not super recommend.

2 out of 4.

Happy Marcho-wene! For those who read this months from now, I quite lazily decided to finally review Hotel Transylvania 2 in March. Hell, it even came out to DVD in January. No excuse valid, not even a busy Oscar season.

I thought Hotel Transylvania was only okay and really wasn’t surprised it had had a sequel. The animation isn’t top tier, so it is probably relatively easy to throw together a movie. And you know everyone in the voice cast is available for work. They keep busy, but they keep busy together.

Except for one person. CeeLo Green! He voiced the mummy in the last movie, but this time he is nowhere to be found. Instead they got Keegan-Michael Key to voice the mummy, keeping their “token black role” to one I guess?

Oh, and now old people might be voicing characters!

Mavis (Selena Gomez) and Jonathan (Andy Samberg) are getting married! But that isn’t the important plot point. They invite all of the family over, on both sides, except for Mavis’ Grandpa (Mel Brooks). He apparently doesn’t like humans. That will come back later.

Then they have a kid. A little ginger kid (Asher Blinkoff), gross I know. Because he is a male, Dracula (Adam Sandler) assumes he has inherited the vampire DNA (because his genetics is weird) and can’t wait for him to go doing Monster stuff. But instead, he can’t fly, has no fangs, can’t turn into a bat, and does a lot of normal baby things. Mavis is now very protective of the baby, living in the harsh Hotel monster environment. Jonathan just wants her to trust a babysitter and let them spend some time alone together.

Now it is like, five years later and it is still the same. Mavis wants to move to California, where Jonathan comes from, to live a normal and safe life. So Jonathan agrees to take her on a trip, but he likes the hotel and likes working there. So Jonathan and Dracula agree to hatch a plan: While they are gone checking out Cali, Drac will take the kid and go on a fear-adventure with his friends (Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key) to scare him into going full vampire. Jonathan will try and make her think California is terrible so she won’t want to leave. Can’t go wrong.

Also featuring the work of Rob Riggle (Which was great), Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, and Dana Carvey.

Jonathan fucked up. How could you go back when you get rainbow teeth?!

Hotel Transylvania 2 doesn’t live up to its predecessor. It also doesn’t improve anything along the way, with the exact same quality of animation.

First of all, it takes a long time to really understand just what this movie is about. Sure, vaguely it is about the family the whole film, but that isn’t a plot, those are just characters. A good third of the movie happens at least before we find out that the plot is a dad and husband lying to their daughter/wife, on a very ridiculous idea.

Secondly, it is all over the place in terms of applying its own rules. Namely I want to talk about vampires. They early on make the joke about how vampires can’t have their reflection, commonly shown through mirrors, but also any other thing that would capture their image. So of course, the wedding photographs are a bit funny. But then they let the vampires use skype and appear on video cameras, like they are really anything different. And of course, if they were wondering if the boy had any vampire in him, all they had to do was take a picture of him and see what happened. Unless in this world the vampireness just can develop all at once, and literally zero traits show up before hand.

Finally, the ending is a complete disaster. It ends with a complete brawl, all of our main characters versus an army of other characters (I wouldn’t want to spoil it). But yeah, it basically ends the same way that Grown Ups 2 ends. The fight is unnecessary and a bit nonsensical. It is unnecessary because it is the type of thing that could have been prevented and stopped at any moment by one of the characters literally just saying something. The bad guys wouldn’t have a beef with most of the monsters either, so they’d have no reason to attack them. And it was nonsensical, given the extreme powers that apparently exist in tiny bat forms. They just wanted to end it on a silly note, and kids like brawls I guess. But it is a shit move.

There were the occasional funny jokes. But this film had no focus and had no great conclusion. Mavis should take the baby and leave her husband and family behind, I think.

1 out of 4.

How many movies does Adam Sandler do in a year? Usually one right? Maybe two?

Well this year, he stars in three different movies. The Cobbler, Pixels, and now The Ridiculous 6. Sure he is getting older, but those private yachts aren’t going to pay for themselves. And as he does more and more films, he gains more and more friends to have to support on his army of yachts.

This film is a Netflix original movie. Last year he signed a four film deal with the company, and so it will be awhile before his films are released theatrically again.

And uhh. I guess this is Adam Sandler’s take on a western, with a name similar to those other western and samurai movies.

There are rag tag groups and there are shit groups. This group is worse than the later.

White Knife (Sandler) grew up never really knowing his father or his mother. But he is half Native America, despite looking white. And yes, her is freakishly good at using knives. Name explained, boom.

Then one day, an old guy comes to town. Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), a famous bank robber who was notorious throughout the land. Turns out that is his real daddy. But he needs help. Members of his former gang are going to kill him, unless he pays back money that was stolen from there. The gang is now lead by Cicero (Danny Trejo), and they are ruthless. Frank lies to them about the location, so that White Knife aka Tommy can get the money and put it in the spot before the bad guys get there. Then, after saving his dad’s life, he can enjoy some of that sweet ass quality time he has been hoping for. So he will run off and do that, before he gets married to Smoking Fox (Julia Jones).

Along the way, Tommy finds out that his dad really did get around, by meeting several half brothers. There is Ramon (Rob Schneider), half Mexican with a burro. There is Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), who is half retarded and well. Yeah. Herm (Jorge Garcia) is half…Mongolian or something. He speaks gibberish. There is also Chico (Terry Crews), half Black and a piano player! And finally, Danny (Luke Wilson) who is half an alcoholic and half an American traitor.

Remember when I said Sandler had friends? Yeah, a ton of them are in this movie.

Chris Parnell. Blake Shelton. Harvey Keitel. John Turturro. Jon Lovitz. Nick Swardson. Saginaw Grant. Steve Buscemi. Steve Zahn. Vanilla Ice. And Will Forte!

Lautner’s tooth gap is played by Steve Carell!

I almost forgot to mention the controversy! You know, where Native American extras walked off the set because they found the humor to be racist and demeaning. One would say that isn’t good publicity, but of course we know there is no such thing as bad PR.

In fact, Netflix can only gain from a raunchy Sandler film. No one will cancel their account because it exists, but they will get more international audiences who love the shit out of him still. Win for them, no matter how terrible a film is.

But in all honesty, this film isn’t even super terrible. No, it is really fucking…slightly below average. Sandler’s character is a bit boring, which is true for a lot of his things lately. He is just playing an every guy, who happens to be good at knives I guess. The only reason to watch the film is for the rest of the 5 brothers.

Taylor Lautner playing what amounts of Simple Jack? Fantastic. He was the best part of Grown Ups 2 and one of the best parts of this one as well. I have been know to enjoy Schneider, and I think his performance is one of his better ones lately (again, not saying a lot). Garcia and Crews felt a bit underused, especially Garcia. His character didn’t even make sense.

But really, the movie has bottom of the barrel. I only laughed occasionally, the twists were obvious, and it was just far too long. It looks like they really did try to make a good western parody, but you know. Poop jokes. Under using actors. Some racism. You know what you are getting going into the film, I suspect.

1 out of 4.

For some reason, Happy Madison is developing a bad rep. Adam Sandler‘s production company has been around for awhile and has brought in such classics like, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2! Hell, just this year we already got Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.

With such a rich pedigree, how does a company like that get hated on? Hell if I know.

And then there was Pixels, their third film of this year, and one I thought would be completely animated given the posters. Whoops. I obviously figured it out before I watched it, but damn, I don’t think I have ever been fooled like that before. Sure, it could be loosely based off of a Futurama episode, but that was a cartoon, so everything is fair game.

Unless they wanted a giant Mickey Mouse here, then they’d have been fucked.

Brenner (Sandler) was a big deal, in 1982. He was the master of the local arcade, able to see the patterns in the games, creating high score after high score. Hell, he entered into the national arcade tournament and made it all the way to the finals. He lost though to Eddie (Peter Dinklage), a cocky son of a bitch though, because Donkey Kong has some real random elements to it, so he can’t quite figure it out. Oh well, it didn’t ruin his life.

After all, 33 years later, he is working for what constitutes a Geek Squad like company, installing technology in rich big houses. Oh hey, and his best friend, Cooper (Kevin James) ended up as president (married to Jane Krakowski too). But he is seen as a buffoon. Who gives a shit though, because Aliens are about to attack!

Oh yeah, there was a third friend, Ludlow (Josh Gad), who was pretty good at games too, but became a conspiracy nut. And looks like he was write about aliens at least!

The strange thing about these aliens is they are attacking using what looks like arcade games from the early days. You see, after the tournament, they sent digital copies of the games and a lot of pop culture items into a time capsule into space. And alien race took the games as a challenge and built giant replicas of these games to attack the Earth. Each side will only have “three lives” so the first to “win” 3 of these attacks, wins overall. If Earth wins, they leave, if Earth loses, everyone dies. You know where this is going: losers from the 1980’s have to save the day!

Also starring Michelle Monaghan, Matt Lintz, Sean Bean, and Brian Cox.

I’ve had a nightmare like this before. I was playing a real life centipede, but I had no ammo.
Basically insects just fell on me from the sky.

Maybe its the nostalgia, maybe the cool effects, or maybe Dinklage giving his impression of the guy from King of Kong, but Pixels wasn’t super terrible. I know everyone around me said it was bad and they hated it, but I also know they went in ready to rage on it.

Pixels definitely had its moments, but the best parts were the clever ways they “fought” the various levels that totaled the many cities around the world. Having Pac-Man terrorize NYC as they chased him with cars? Come on, that’s clever.

There are unfortunately some lamer elements to the film. Having a cheating subplot? Waste of time, and ruined some of the fun. Q*bert? Fuck Q*bert. That mostly felt like an annoyance more than anything. Creepy suggestion that a woman can be a trophy? Well, you know.

But overall for the most part, Pixels was entertaining. It could have had more fun real life battles instead of an all out attack at the end to cameo in games. If we got even more in depth levels, it would have been great. It was like an advanced Nick Arcade. Just one that probably should have gone for the PG-13 rating, since it probably didn’t deserve PG at all with some of the jokes and language thrown in.

2 out of 4.

Buy It! – This movie is available now on {Blu-Ray} and {DVD}.

I miss Chris Farley. I don’t know a single person, outside of future review comment trolls, who hated the guy. He had some of the best sketches on SNL, was always full of energy.

Sure, his movies are hit and miss. Sometimes terrible. But they helped elevate David Spade way more than he could on his own. Sure, he mostly wasted it after the fact, but he tried, damn it.

I wanted to see I Am Chris Farley, which yeah, is a made for TV documentary. It aired on Spike TV. I was curious about Farley before he was big on SNL, and since they interviewed tons of his former friends and coworkers, it would feel great to hear some behind the scenes stories of some of the bigger sketches.

Shit, they were even able to get Lorne Michaels to do an interview, and I assume that dude is super busy.

Maybe it isn’t a “traditional documentary” on a “respected channel” that is worthy of a “Review” but I am “writing” it anyways.

This is a short post because there isn’t a lot to talk about. I learned about Farley’s earlier life. I learned about how he played Rugby in college, how he got into sketch comedy and eventually SNL.

The highlight of course would be the stories about and dealing with Matt Foley: Motivational Speaker. And the stories we hear are told by Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Dan Aykroid, David Spade obviously, Bob Odenkirk, Bob Saget, Christina Applegate, his brother Kevin P. Farley, Pat Finn a college friend, and more actors of course.

As a suggestion, you might want to have a copy of the SNL: Best of Chris Farley on hand, because you are going to want a lot more Farley than the documentary can give you and want to see the sketches without tons of interruptions from his friends telling stories. Pure. Unadulterated. Farley.

But if you are cheap, just watch Tommy Boy instead. It will get you through the urges I suspect, but not fully satisfy them.

2 out of 4.

When I grow up, I want to be a cobbler. I don’t think anyone has said that in at least 150 years.

But at least it is a funny word.

Times are strange when you find Adam Sandler in a VOD movie with very limited theater release. His movies have practically printed money the last few years with the minimum amount of effort. Sure he sold out, but he can’t hear the complaints due to the hundred dollar bills falling out of his ears. And plus all of his friends get parts in his movies, and he uses the same crew. He is at least a good guy in that regard.

The Cobbler is about magic though. Or something. I dunno. Bring it on.

“‘Bring it on’ Adam said, as he slowly slid the red heels on for the first time.”

Max Simkin (Sandler) lives in modern day New York. He lives a boring life in down town, running the shop that his father (Dustin Hoffman) abandoned. He doesn’t really enjoy it, but he needs money. He also has to take care of his mother (Lynn Cohen), whom he lives with. There are protests lead by Carmen Herrara (Melonie Diaz), trying to protect the residents and store owners from higher rents, driving them from the area and forcing to sell their livelihoods for cash.

You know what. That sounds nice to Max.

But first he has to deal with some rude customers. Like this guy Leon (Method Man) who needs some shoes repaired that day to pick up that night. Well, Max’s main machine breaks. Shit. He finds a manual one hiding in a back and makes it from that. And wouldn’t you know it, eventually he finds out that machine is magical. SPARKLES AND EVERYTHING. Well, no sparkles. But in boredom, Max puts on the guy’s shoes waiting for him, and he transforms into that guy. Aw shit, shape changing powers. After all, Max is the owner of their soles.

How will he use this power? For good? For evil? For sex? To be a super HERO? No. Not the last one. Kind of all in between.

Also featuring Steve Buscemi as the neighbor barber, and a whole lot of other people, like Dan Stevens, Ellen Barkin, and Elena Kampouris.

For a guy who fixes shoes for a living, there are quite a lot of shots of him being shocked at having shoes.

Despite the movies flaws, I don’t think that they are the fault of Mr. Sandler. I know, that may sound crazy, but it is true. The problems must all lie instead with the directing, script, and whoever made decisions behind the scenes. Because honestly, Sandler was fine in this role. Disgruntled Jewish middle aged worker, poor and bored with life. He fit the bill really well. His character also made sense for his new powers. He isn’t a great guy. He uses his power for as many shenanigans as he can figure out, until his shenanigans run away with him.

But despite the decent enough pun/premise, the movie just fell completely flat.

The movie didn’t know what it wanted to be. A comedy, a drama, a dark comedy. Its indecisiveness rested on the main characters indecisiveness. Shit, it feels like a family movie for the most part, outside of some partial nudity, attempted sex, and murder scenes. Basically everything outside of that is extremely family friendly outside of a few moments. Kind of super awkward.

The movie also dragged. It only took 20 or so minutes before we got to both the power and realization of how to get said power, but everything else was extremely slow. Not to mention not really funny. At all.

Damn it! This movie could have gone to so many good places. And everything is just so damn drab and boring about it.

1 out of 4.

I can say for certain that I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Blended. It looked like feel good trash. This is like the fifth movie in a row where Adam Sandler is playing a father like figure, and the third time he has had Drew Barrymore as the love interest.

It kind of just felt like a money grab from the start, where the jokes are mostly just Africa jokes with a shitty plot behind it.

But yet at the same time, something compelled me to watch this movie as soon as I could.

Basic plot time! Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) are on a blind date. Lauren is recently divorced due to her husband cheating on her (Joel McHale). Jim unfortunately is recently widowed. But also, Jim seems to be a dick, taking his date to Hooters and stuff. Both are awkward. It is a bad blind date, they don’t want to see each other again.

Until they do. A lot. Mostly on accident. They are very similar. And due to strange circumstances, they are both able to take their families on a vacation to Africa! But they are also sharing a romantic getaway package. One meant for families made up of step-children/parents, half-whatevers. You know. Blended shit.

So now they are on a zany adventure, both in each others lives, with each others kids, and hey, maybe they will learn to love and trust again too?

Jim has three daughters (Belle Thorne, Emma Fuhrmann, Alyvia Alyn Lind) and Lauren has two sons (Braxton Beckham, Kyle Red Silverstein).

Who else do we got? Well, we got Shaquille O’Neal as a best friend and Wendi McLendon-Covey as a different best friend. Kevin Nealon is a guy on the trip, with his son Zak Henri who becomes a love interest to the older girl.

And last but not least, Abdoulaye NGom as the vacation host, and Terry Crews as a lead singer of an African A Capella group to serenade us the whole movie. Also, countless other guest stars, some from most of Adam’s movies and some that were only in one before.

Basically, here is most of the cast outside of a couple kids and best friends.

Sandler is such a jerk. He can do pointless ass movies involving as many cheap celebrity cameos as possible now, or a movie that actually has some heart behind it. I blame the director. The director did Click, The Waterboy, and The Wedding Singer before this. He knows how to make a decent Adam Sandler movie. Although this one didn’t have me cry like that sneaky movie Click, it did have a lot of touching moments behind it. All the asshole-ish behavior on both sides seem to get explained away with great excuses and reasons, and you can’t help but feel sorry for both sides.

But that is the surprise drama element of the movie! You don’t want that, you want the comedy promised to you in the trailers! Well, here are actually a decent number of laughs. I am a bit disappointed in how much of the funnier moments in the movie ended up in the trailers. Mostly since a lot of them were based on a surprise/sudden action. But thankfully the film had a few more surprises up its sleeve.

Funniest movie ever? No. Great drama/comedy? Debatable. Definitely at least decent. Crews was really awesome in his role, dude always gives it the 100%.

I am mostly thrilled this movie actually had a plot and a jokes derived from the plot and characters, and not just 50 sight gags with African related scenery. They have some, but a lot more is available than the “Random jokes” that I was afraid the whole movie would end up being.

Is it better than the last two collaborations between the two? Arguably not, but eh, it was still a pretty good experience on its own.

3 out of 4.