Tag: Nick Swardson

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.

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.

Here are some facts about Adam Sandler!

Adam Sandler has never made a sequel to any of his movies before Grown Ups 2. He has been in one sequel before, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, but he wasn’t in the first film, and he obviously didn’t make, direct, or star in it.

Who would have thought that Adam Sandler secretly had some standards? He only works with new(ish) ideas. That is unless his film makes a lot of money, like Grown Ups did.

Okay, that is really just one long fact about Adam Sandler. Sorry if you expected more.

The scene from the trailer where he says “Your car is filthy” is cut out. Disappointment. The movie takes place soon after Grown Ups, except now in a small town! Lenny (Sandler) has moved his family away from Los Angeles for a quieter and simpler life. Long story short, Grown Ups 2 is a day in his and his friends life.

Lenny’s wife (Salma Hayek) wants to discuss having a fourth kid. Marcus (David Spade) just realized he has a son who is visiting him today. Kurt (Chris Rock) wants to celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary, but his wife (Maya Rudolph) forgot. And uhh, Eric (Kevin James) really loves his mother and hides that fact from his wife (Maria Bello)? One of his kids might be dumb? His part doesn’t really have a plot.

There are other characters too. Like Nick Swardson, playing some sort of extremely drugged out bus rider. Or Taylor Lautner, leader of the frat boys, with assistance from Milo Ventimiglia.

Sorry agian, but I think that is the best plot description I can give of this film. Honestly, it feels like it is a skit movie. The plot is basically childish adults hanging out, so most of the scenes are really unrelated. It isn’t set up like a traditional skit movie, like the recent Movie 43, but it feels like it could be a long strange episode of Saturday Night Live. Or a live action Family Guy.

The amount of cameos in this movie only helps that stigma. Here is a big list! There is Colin Quinn, Tim Meadows, Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz, Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Austin, Dan Patrick, Aly Michalka, Andy Samberg, Will Forte, and even Paulina Gretzky, daughter of (of course) Wayne Gretzky.

Yet no Rob Schneider. Where the heck did he go from the first movie?

I say some shocking things in this review about Mr. Lautner. Read on to find out! D: D:There is a lot wrong from this movie. All the jokes are extremely low-brow, almost 100% poop and sex jokes. In fact, there were so many sex related jokes that I was surprised this movie was rated PG-13 still.

It just felt bad overall. Yes, I still found some of the scenes humorous, but because it was put together so badly and without any context, it just left a rank taste in my mouth. There might have been ten minutes worth of plot. Maybe.

The CGI was out of place in this movie too. The Moose didn’t look real, nor did the “tire rolling down the hill” scene. It almost felt like a cartoon, in that people were doing things that should have killed them, but they were completely fine afterwards.

The ending itself is lazy humor. I am describing it as slap stick to the extreme, as it ends with all the adults in a literal fist fight with a group of frat boys, and kicking there butt. I do mean all the adults, as in everyone linked to above. The ending of the movie is just a long brawl.

Speaking of the frat boys, Taylor Lautner was literally the best part of this movie, and he had a huge role as the main villain, with tons of dialogue. Yet he wasn’t even listed in the credits? What? Six different frat boys were credited, only two of which had real names, but not the main frat guy.

Just an example why this whole film was a mess. That and the unexplained disappearance of Rob Schneider.

 

1 out of 4.

“What the fuck is this shit?”

That might be you, if you had a vulgar filthy mouth. But I heard someone say that when I first saw a trailer for A Haunted House. “Did they forget to name it Scary Movie 5?!”

Of course not, it isn’t the same franchise. Especially since Scary Movie 5 is coming out in April. I am sure you know that after Scary Movie 2, the Wayans brothers left the franchise (As the major writers/producers) and went on to do their own thing. That explains how bad the rest of them were, and five will probably be.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t do horror spoofs, even though this one is jut Marlon Wayans, damn it. Sucks to be Scary Movie though, since both of these are parodying Paranormal Activity.

“All of these parodies make me so angry!”

Malcolm (Wayans) is pumped. The woman of his dreams, Kisha (Essence Atkins) is about to move into his house. Life couldn’t be better. Until it immediately suck. Living with a woman isn’t as sexy as he hoped. Plus, she hates his maid, poor old Rosa (Marlene Forte).

But then weird things start to happen. Meaning her keys weren’t where she left them. OH NOESSSSSS. So they install nice cameras, from Dan the Security Man (David Koechner) and his assistant Bob (Dave Sheridan). They also happen to be ghost hunters.

Why the fuck am I still describing this? We know the plot, its a parody. Who is what though may matter. Nick Swardson plays a psychic, Cedric the Entertainer a priest, and Andrew Daly / Alanna Ubach play a couple who might be into some extra curriculars.

I labeled both pictures as Ahh Ahhhh. AHH is the movie acronym, and ahhhh describes each one. Hooray!

A Haunted House was exactly what I expected. As a bonus, it was also rated R. The first two Scary Movies were also rated R, and I didn’t hate them. But when the Wayans left and it went PG-13, I thought it was pointless drivel.

Does AHH have a lot of that too? Yeah maybe. But also a few amusing scenes. Sure, there are some art jokes, ome thug jokes, some joke about a gay man hitting on a straight man. But hey, these can be guilt pleasures. I generally did laugh out loud at certain scenes, and thought there was at least a couple of unexpected scenes. If you are going to watch this movie, you know exactly what you are going to get.

So yeah, fuck it, have an average rating. Welcome back Marlon!

2 out of 4.

I think most people would agree that the quality in Adam Sandler movies has been in a decline for some time. But I think part of that is also just nostalgia. How different is a Jack and Jill movie compared to a Happy Gilmore really? I guess more gags in the former, but the same guy making silly jokes. But That’s My Boy has the potential to be very different. It is rated R. Uh oh, that means titties and bigger jokes.

His last R movie was Funny People, but that was not really his movie. So who knows where this will go.

And really, this movie is a love story deep down at its roots. Heh.

Donny (Sandler) was the coolest kid in middle school. For whatever reason, his teacher Miss McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino) became infatuated with him, he got his sex on, became really good, and then they were caught. She was sent to prison for 30 years for showing no remorse, but she was pregnant. Donny didn’t like his dad, was aggressive and mean, so he promised to be the complete opposite, a fun dad. Who cares if they were only ten to thirteen years apart. Once he got full custody, he was gonna kick some ass.

He had lots of success too, and sold his story for a made for tv movie, of him trying to raise his kid! But he wasted a lot of it. And his son, Han Solo (Andy Samberg) moved out at 18, fat and annoyed and hasn’t spoken to him since. But now he owns $45,000 in back taxes, or else he goes to prison in a week. Shit. Well his son is super successful, he could ask, but that’d be dickish. Instead he can get paid as long as he reunites his son with his wife in prison and him, sounds good! Too bad that same weekend he is apparently getting married.

So why not crash the party, pretend to be an old old friend, maybe develop a relationship with his son again, and maybe not go to prison. Won’t be hard to convince them all that he is just a friend, since he lied to say his dad died in an explosion. Leighton Meester plays the bride to be, Milo Ventimiglia her brother, Blake Clark and Meagen Fay as her parents, and Tony Orlando is his boss looking for a new partner.

Want more?! There is also work mates (Will Forte) random drunk rednecks (Nick Swardson) and Vanilla Ice (Vanilla Ice) as himself.

SHOTS. SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS. SEXY TIME.

There is a lot to potentially dislike about this movie. They rely on a lot of slapstick, poop joke like humor. Fat strippers, sex with old people, a different sex act that is arguably very very gross (which is a funny thing to say, if you knew what it was). And Adam Sandler doing an annoying voice. But there is a bunch that you could like too.

It seemed like the character was trying to rekindle the bond that used to exist, to fix his past wrongs, to be known for something other than banging a hot teacher. It did feel pretty heartfelt at points, from both sides, with enough Vanilla Ice to make everyone excited.

I enjoyed watching it, laughing out loud on multiple occasions, but I doubt it’s going to be a film I seek out to buy anytime in the near future.

2 out of 4.

Generally when you sit down to watch a movie (like Jack and Jill), knowing that it was nominated for the most Razzies of the films that year, you might go in thinking it will be bad. Which is understandable, can’t avoid it. If you haven’t heard of the Razzies, you might have guessed it by the the many commercial previews for it, that looked bad.

Well, yeah. It was. But how bad? A lot of the times bad movies by Hollywood standards are considered rage inducing bad, with people carrying their pitchforks to take down the director, but they are also fueled mostly by people who hadn’t seen the movie. That will always happen, forever, because the general reasoning is “No, why would I want to watch that? Its bad!” The whole reason for this website, pretty much, to fight that behavior.

So let us all go watch supposedly bad movies anyways, just to make sure its not a conspiracy!

So Adam Sandler plays Jack, a sort of successful commercial director/advertisement agency thing. Thanksgiving is coming up, also known as the annual visit from his twin sister, Jill. Why do they look identical minus hair and stuff? No idea, shits impossible. She used to live in the Bronx with their mom, but now that she is dead, it has been only her and her bird. So she is lonely. That is most of the plot really, his twin sister is annoying, but just trying to be less lonely and sad.

Jack’s family involves his wife (Katie Holmes), his daughter (Elodie Tougne), and adopted son (Rohan Chand).

His boss is played by Tim Meadows, and his atheist assistant is Nick Swardson. The big problem they are facing is that Dunken Donuts wants to pull away from their company, their biggest client,if they cannot get Al Pacino to be in their new commercial product line for a “Dunkacino”. But that is Al Pacino, there is no way they could get him to do something so silly. [I think I just got that the commercial is a metaphor for this movie?]

Al Pacino, playing himself, falls in love with Jill, who keeps making excuses to stay around, and eventually Jack realizes he can use Jill to land Al Pacino (Even if she finds him repulsive). Eventually everyone learns to love each other, and yay family.

It makes me cry a bit knowing this is a real scene in a real movie.

So, I did find parts of the film funny. The ending with Jack and Pacino watching the commercial and talking about how it must be destroyed, I assume is about the movie, and was funny. The opening and beginning had actual twins talking about their lives (I assume the stories weren’t made up) which was neat. Jack also had some nice lines at his sisters expense early on in the film. Obviously Sandler as Jill was annoying and horrendous. So he pretty much ruined all of his jokes, by having her react to them in the manner that she did.

But besides that,I thought Katie Holmes was the worst part of this movie. She felt so fake, and did just a bad job at appearing concerned and caring. Seriously. Her facial expressions were the worst. Al Pacino as himself also hit a nerve. Sometimes he was amusing, but his deep fascination with Jill, on a level compared to stalking wasn’t as good as his general anger towards other things in Hollywood.

Lot of cameos in this movie, and thought Norm MacDonald‘s was the best.

So worst movie ever? Nah. Bad? Sure, definitely. Would have been the same result if it wasn’t twins and Adam Sandler just played the role of an annoying sister. Well, at least kids will like it.

1 out of 4.

This movie, Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star, was a bad idea, and I am pretty sure everyone in America knows that. Even the actors. They got into a meeting and said “Lets make a bag of shit. And then drop a book on it so it splatters funnily. We will call this art, a Jackson Pollock.”

Or at least I hope so. Even this ad campaign that I just found out about was made, and it is horrible. There are a bunch of these videos, and they ran for a few days before it came out in theaters. But apparently they were pulled for being too damn sucky, a whole week before the movie came out.

Enjoy!

Nick Swardson plays the title character and is from Idaho or something. He is an adult, living with his parents, and doesn’t even know what masturbation is until his friends teach him. But when they teach him and use a random old porno, they discover that it is Bucky’s parents as the lead couple. What?! (Bucky finds this news great. His parents were stars!).

So he decides to go to Hollywood and become a star, just like them. He meets Christina Ricci at a random diner, and she hooks him up with one of her friends who needs by roommate. The crazy roommate played by Kevin Nealon.

Eventually he finds a gig with a producer (Don Johnson) who used to know his parents, hoping there is a nostalgia audience out there for a quick buck. Turns out people love the movies he is in (because yes, he has a very small dick and it makes the women feel better about their men, and the men feel better about themselves). Can his new stardom take him out of Dick Shadow’s shadow (Stephen Dorff)?

Above: An Idea Thought To Be Good

This is probably the lowest IMDB rated movie I have reviewed thus far. Way lower than the Twilights and other “bad movies”. People hated it. Understandably so, because this movie is horrible.

But what are the positives? Kevin Nealon was hilarious. He was in maybe 5 scenes, where he was just bad/controlling/weird roommate to Bucky, like in the clip from above about grapes. And they were fantastic. Also Christina Ricci was super wasted in this movie. Bad news for her career. This movie is bad enough, but with Pan-Am getting cancelled, she has nothing now, which is a sad day for America.

But yeah. Dicks and tits are in this movie, as expected. And a lot of it is pretty gross.

1 out of 4

I have been avoiding “Jennifer Aniston movies” recently, for some unknown reason. Mostly because she has just been in wayyyy too many Romantic Comedies lately, helping flood the market. So I figured my first one back in awhile would be an “Adam Sandler movie” that has her in it too. Sure it’d probably still have a lot of RomCom elements, but a lot more focused on the comedy elements. A ComRom, I guess!

And plus, he is good with the kids!

Just Go With It begins with a ridiculous concept and runs with it. Adam Sandler is a skeezeball. Sure, it begins with him getting dumped (dude has a big nose, who just wanted his money). But instead he becomes a plastic surgeon, gets rid of the nose, and realizes he can wear a wedding ring, talk about how he is about to get divorced / left at the alter, and pick up chicks. One night stands for the win!

Aniston is his assistant at his clinic, and doesn’t agree with the methods. Well one night he meets Brooklyn Decker, who he really connects with, and they have sex! Yes! This time without the wedding ring though, which she finds in his pocket. Now she thinks she is a home wrecker. He quickly has to make up a story of how he is getting divorced and find a woman to play his soon to be ex wife. Guess who?

Needless to say, things get super complicated, as a trip to Hawaii ends up happening, and the kids of Aniston are involved. Similarly, somehow, Aniston’s rival, Nicole Kidman and her husband Dave Matthews are there, so she needs to pretend she has a husband as well. Also, Nick Swardson is playing her pretend boyfriend for Brooklyn’s sake.

Got all of that? A normal rule of improvisation is to never say no, negatives don’t work. You kind of just have to…go with it. So other people may put you in awkward situations, but you most play off of that. Thus the title, thus the humor. Also, Kevin Nealon is addicted to plastic surgery, and is quite scary.

Behold! No, his face. Not the other thing.

Despite the horrible plot that obviously has no chance of success at achieving his goal (you know, just dating Brooklyn Decker, for real), it was a pretty funny movie. Of course by the end Adam and Jennifer find out they really want each other, and make it so, but there is enough hilarious moments that had me “lol”ing by myself, which is good.

Well played, Jennifer Aniston. Well played.

3 out of 4.

I originally listed this movie as 30 Seconds or Less. Whoops. Minutes are larger than seconds, by at least a factor of 60. Math!

The start of Skynet was actually learning how to make calculators speak.

So we have the good guys. Mark Zuckerberg and Todd Haverford.

And the bad guys. Kenny Fucking Powers and Bucky Larson. Ugh. Sorry. Nick Swardson is better known as Nick Swardson. He doesn’t have many memorial roles. Instead you think of him as that guy in blah and blah.

Jesse is just a down on his luck no prospects pizza delivery boy. For some reason, his restaurant also has the 30 minutes or less guarantee, which as everyone knows is silly. No real basis for who’s clock is actually right, just leads to a whole bunch of problems. Especially since they apparently don’t start the timer until the pizza is given to the driver and on the way, not when the call is made. How are these customers going to be all “oh man, 2 minutes late”. Unless they magically know when he left. Err, nevermind.

So yeah, he is a slacker, but a good guy and smart. Danny McBride is living off of his dad (a war vet’s) wealth, and mad that his dad keeps buying shit with his lotto earnings. He figures at this rate, by the time he dies, there will be no money left. So why not have his dad killed? But they gotta play it smart, cant just have them be the killer. So they find a guy who will do the job, but first they need $100,000.

Using that same logic, they think they should find someone else to steal the money for them too. So they agree to kidnap a complete stranger, strap a bomb to his chest, and give him 24 hours to rob a bank. CRIMINAL. MASTERMINDS.

This was a pretty funny movie. Aziz may have been the funniest part of the movie. But that is because he is secretly one of the funniest people in television. It is his high pitched voice when he is yelling that does it.

Danny McBride acted how he generally acts in all movies. Swardson was dumb sidekick. Jesse E is in more serious things than he is in comedies. He was a funny character as well, but more importantly, when he had a bomb stuck to his chest and he was panicking, I believed the fear he displayed. That alone is almost worth the watch itself. It is hard to play believably scared, especially in a comedy, but he does it well.

Pictured: Serious shit.

So yeah. Good movie. Why aren’t you watching it yet?

3 out of 4