Happy Gilmore 2 (3/5 Stars)

For those of us with memories of the 1980s and 1990s before streaming and really before the advent of Netflix DVDs, one’s experience of movies was influenced by what was a relatively limited supply. You either saw a movie in the theater, when it was on television cut up and divided by advertisements, or by renting/buying VHS. You generally bought less VHS movies then you rented, so you probably had a fairly limited number of movies that you could watch at will. As a result, those movies in your possession, well, you watched them alot. We watched Jurassic Park so much that my little brother (toddler age) would go around the house pretending he was a dinosaur. Happy Gilmore was another one of those movies that we had on VHS. I watched that movie many times, which clued me in on a lot of the call-backs in the sequel.

I like the sequel well enough and want to state that upfront because given how the rest of this review will go, I don’t want the reader to get the sense that I didn’t like the movie. The fact is, I like Adam Sandler and have no qualms with his type of comedy. I have no problem admitting that. The problem I have with him is that, well, the opportunity to turn in a superior product is there provided he just puts a little more effort into it. Everyone once in a while he does, and you get a glimpse of what he can do. But too often he doesn’t, and you leave a little disappointed and wonder what it would take to make him care enough to suffer just a little (just a little!) for his art.

Happy Gilmore, being a movie made before Sandler was an established star, does not have some of his trademark fat and happy bullshit. There isn’t an over-reliance on cameos by celebrities, mainly because celebrities wouldn’t have been drawn to the production of a relatively unknown comedian. There isn’t an overreliance on weirdos that Sandler, well ensconced in normality, merely chuckles and rolls his eyes at. In Happy Gilmore, Sandler is the odd man out, an unaccomplished hockey player who spills his rage onto polite golf courses. And Happy Gilmore has a particularly good antagonist, Shooter McGavin, (played by Christopher McDonald at his 1990s peak) who inhabits not only the smug country club class that looks down on the blue collar Gilmore, but also inhabits the critic that looks down on Sandler’s type of comedy. There is a sense of entitlement to McGavin that is earned. He has paid his dues, worked really hard, and is at the top of his game. He wants and (probably deserves) that gold jacket. And then Happy Gilmore comes over with a scientifically bullshit long drive. No doubt there were established comedians who looked upon Sandler’s comedy and his inexplicable success in the same way. Here was a guy who would go on the SNL Weekend Update Desk with characters such as Opera-Man (a Man who Sang Opera) and a guy with last-minute Halloween Costume Ideas (i.e. Sandler gives a big grin, calls himself Smiley-Man, and asks for candy) and somehow got consistent laughs. And then he became a big movie star. It feels unfair and McGavin, in one way or another, represents all of us who don’t find this sort of thing funny.

The sequel’s plot is derivative of the first. It should be mentioned that it feels that way on purpose in order to capitalize on nostalgia, not simply out of a lack of creativity. Gilmore kills his wife with an errant golf drive (a similar joke occurs in the first movie when Gilmore kills with his father with a slap-shot at a hockey game) and Gilmore gives up golf and starts drinking. Along the way he loses all his money because someone he beats up sues him for assault and battery (why didn’t anybody else think of that?), so now he needs money to support his daughter’s higher education bill. Hung over and desperate, he turns back to golf.

In the first movie, he was trying to buy back his grandmother’s house from foreclosure, which is a relatively good reason to raise money. Here, his daughter (Sandler’s actual daughter in a cameo) is a talented ballerina whose teacher recommends sending her to Paris Ballet College which costs $75,000 in tuition a year. That is a relatively stupid reason to raise money. With $300,000, you don’t need to go to a fancy school to establish your career. Just start your own company and fund your own shows. (Adam Sandler and Tim Herlihy, writers of the original are back as the writers of the sequel, except now thirty years of making Sandler comedies, I bet they are much richer than they were. That might explain this out-of-touch premise). What is better is Sandler’s four idiot sons who take after their dad. They are much funnier and are gainfully employed with careers that didn’t drive their parents into six figures of higher education debt.

After many decently funny montages in which Happy Gilmore realizes his lost golf game (getting sober helps), he attends a gold jacket dinner which epitomizes one of the problems with sequels to successful comedies in general. This dinner is attended by many many actual golf legends who sit there content to get credit for being themselves. Comedy is better told from the outside and though the makers of the sequel may pat themselves on the back for having the type of pull that gets Jack Nicklaus' onscreen participation, it doesn’t make the movie any funnier.

The golf world has a problem which has provoked this dinner of gold jackets. There is a new startup league called Maxi-Golf which promises to make golf more exciting. This gives the movie the convenience of defending traditional golf (now that Sandler is a secure incumbent) while also making the climax of the movie far more cinematic than traditional golf (i.e. the competition takes place in the new and exciting golf tournament space). One of the new Maxi-golfers carries around a working chainsaw as part of his persona. The only thing missing is Norm Macdonald as a commentator musing that it is Ridiculous.

Cameos are one thing. The movie includes such non-Hollywood types as Travis Kelce (football player) and a host of musicians in small roles (Bad Bunny, Post Malone, and Eminem). These are generally neutral developments though I did like Eminem’s short bit a decent amount. What is actively detrimental to the movie is the re-telling of jokes from the original movie. This clearly is purposeful, the movie wants you to remember the old movie for nostalgia purposes, but it is antithetical to comedy, which abhors the telling of the same joke twice.

The frustrating thing is that the movie doesn’t really have to rely on these nostalgia traps. It has enough new things to explore, and with a little more effort could have explored them more. Here are two story ideas that would have helped the movie: 1) It is revealed that Shooter McGavin has spent the last 30 years in a mental institution because he couldn’t get over the events of the first movie. Why? Wouldn’t it be funnier if Shooter McGavin had spent the last 30 years trying but continually failing to win a gold jacket for various reasons? 2) It is revealed that the Maxi-Golf people are enhancing their golfers via experimental surgery which enables longer drives. Why not reveal that Happy Gilmore suffered a hockey injury way back in the day that had the same effect? That would go a long way in justifying his unscientific golf drive. And it would bring up a conflict about what truly counts as performance enhancement that is natural as opposed to deliberate.

The movie is good enough to the point where I can see these improvements as possibilities of where it could have gone had it put in the effort. But the movie is just content enough to be mediocre, to get all of Adam Sandler’s friends onscreen and paid, and to have several obvious product placements before Sandler moves onto the next film. You could say this about Adam Sandler’s career in general. Every five or six years, he shows us how good he can be, which is why the vast majority of his work product, which revels in mediocrity, is such a continual disappointment. If only this movie could have positioned Shooter McGavin in such a way that the main conflict was a comment on Sandler's career, just like it was in the original movie. If only.

Uncut Gems (5/5 Stars)

The comedian Artie Lange once described the lure of a gambling addiction. He’s sitting at his home with a friend watching a football game, Browns v. Rams, two terrible winless teams.

“What a boring game, I don’t care about this game,” says his friend.

“You want to make it interesting?” says Artie, “How much money do you have in your savings account?

“$800”

“Put $1,500 on the Rams.”

Suddenly you are watching the most exciting game of your life.

Artie’s anecdote came to me while watching “Uncut Gems,” a whirlwind of a movie about a compulsive gambler, Howard Ratner, played by Adam Sandler. The movie starts with Howard Ratner in the hole six figures deep with loan sharks circling and his family falling apart. We do not have much sympathy for Howard. It seems highly likely that he legitimately owes the money (he probably gambled it away) and that his wife should definitely divorce him (he is cheating with an employee at his jewelry store). But Howard has a plan or at least chutzpah and he is about to take us on a fast and frenetic tour of the diamond district in NYC at a very specific time in 2012. It’s all or nothing game time. He is betting big long shots to either save everything or lose everything. Whether or not he wins feels besides the point. Who cares if the Browns win or Rams win. Everything is on the line and it is exciting.

This movie is exciting, remarkably so. It was written and directed by a relatively new team of writer/director brothers Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie, and their natural talent sparks off the screen. The movie’s plot is all walking and talking. There are no special effects, no fight scenes. And yet, “Uncut Gems” feels like it has more action than most blockbusters. And it is continual action. It starts off frenetic and keeps the pace for the entire movie. This is great writing, stirred with great direction, finished with great editing. I would love to see the Safdie brothers get their hands on a comic book blockbuster. It would be interesting to see if they can translate their skills through the machine. The outcome, if successfully, ought to be the best of both worlds.

The plot is exceptionally clever. Howard Ratner’s crazy scheme involves getting his hands on a lucky rock, a solid block of uncut gems, smuggled in from black Jews in Ethiopia. He loans it to a professional athlete who believes the rock is lucky and will help his game. Howard then bets big on the personal stats of the professional athlete. As his bookie says to him, “that’s the dumbest fucking bet I’ve ever heard of.”

But who is this professional athlete? Well, it is Kevin Garnett, the real professional basketball player. And guess what, there is Kevin Garnett, cast in this movie as himself. And when does this movie take place? It takes place during the 2011-2012 Eastern Conference semifinals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. These are real games and the actual ESPN footage is shown in this movie. And here Garnett is in this movie acting as his approximately seven years younger fictional self, looking to give his historical self an edge via a lucky stone. Because “Uncut Gems” is such a great movie, it may have the effect of cinematically immortalizing that playoff series. Print the legend sort of thing. For what it is worth, Kevin Garnett’s performance is the best by an NBA player I have ever seen, but then again that bar is decidedly low (looking at you, Shaq)

The casting in this movie is perfect and contains the kind of names that make you believe the Safdie Brothers may have some special pull in the acting community. Adam Sandler pulls off a great performance. Everyone who has seen “Punch Drunk Love” knows he can be a good actor, if only he showed up and cared more than once a decade instead of doing a fourth Hotel Transylvania. The Safdie Brothers somehow made him care. They also got three of the more interesting Jews in the business: Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirch, and Idina Menzel. And these guys aren’t especially in the business anymore as far as I know. Eric Bogosian is a monologist. Judd Hirsch is retired. Idina Menzel is on Broadway. Then there is the irreplaceable LaKeith Stanfield who always seems to be underutilized.

Overall, “Uncut Gems” is one of the best movies of the year. I think they should pass it out in all major movie studios to those in charge of the action blockbuster department. If only movies with 100 million dollars budgets were this entertaining.

Funny People (3/5 Stars) August 26, 2009

Death by Penis Jokes! 


The third movie from Writer/Director/Producer Judd Apatow is “Funny People,” starring Adam Sandler as a rich and famous comedian who has just received news from his doctor that he has a terminal illness, a newly thinned Seth Rogen as an up and coming stand up comic that Sandler hires as his assistant, and Leslie Mann as Sandler’s “one who got away.” Rounding out a strong supporting cast are Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Rogen’s fellow standup comic roommates, Eric Bana as the Mann’s Aussie husband, and Aubrey Plaza as Rogen’s love interest. There are also an impressive number of cameos by other comics playing themselves like Andy Dick, Paul Reiser, Norm MacDonald, Dave Attell, and Sarah Silverman. Inexplicably Marshall Mathers (Eminem) also shows in one scene where he impressively rants about the annoyances that come with being a celebrity and tells an eavesdropping Ray Romano to go “Go F*** Himself.” As in ‘Knocked Up,’ Apatow’s own daughters play the children. Both of them do a good job of acting like they are Leslie Mann’s (who is Apatow’s wife) actual children. 

The title notwithstanding, this movie is not a comedy. It is a drama that happens to be about comedians. Since comedians have a tendency to draw on their lives’ tragedies to produce humor, this movie has many jokes in it. But the jokes in this movie don’t work like the jokes in a regular comedy. In a regular comedy the jokes would work for the purpose of making the tragedy somehow okay by various techniques. Perhaps the best example of a joke making DEATH okay is King Arthur’s fight with the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” A more modern example is South Park’s Kenny being murdered in almost every single episode for several seasons. These jokes take the big topic of DEATH and belittle it by absurdly suggesting that a) it doesn’t hurt (Tis’ but a flesh wound!) and b) it isn’t necessarily terminal (OMG they killed Kenny…Again!). In this movie, jokes are made about death, but they aren’t successful in belittling it. The story wants us to take George Simmons (Sandler) terminal illness seriously. There is one scene where this is especially telling. Ira Wright (Rogen) has brought upon himself to make George an itunes list of reflective songs to help him cope with the illness. Simmons asks to hear some of them and jokes about how hokey and phony the first two are. Then Rogen puts one on that is undeniably moving. George finds his mind blanking on jokes, is reminded of why Ira made the list, and angrily berates him as he storms out of the room. Let the record show that Adam Sandler can be a nuanced actor when he feels like it.

I would compare the experience of watching this movie to the experience of watching Scorsese’s “Casino.” Let me explain myself. I could tell the movie had top-notch directing, editing, casting, acting, and writing. The creators knew the material inside and out. The stand up routines that were meant to be funny were actually funny. The pathos made sense. Technically speaking, everything seemed to be fine about this movie. The problem is that “Funny People” is an especially long movie about essentially miserable characters. George Simmons is an isolated and alienated comedian who lives alone in a huge house that seems to be useful only for attracting groupies for one night stands. He has to pay Ira to be his assistant and confidante. He constantly berates him about his last name and private parts. For the whole movie it seems that George is not learning any lessons from his illness. His first act after learning he is may be well is to get back the woman that ‘got away’ i.e. he cheated on her and she left. He does this by attempting to breakup a troubled marriage. That guy can be quite a vicious clown. It simply isn’t easy to feel sorry for a rich and famous dude who lives in a mansion and treats other people like shit. 

Seth Rogen also plays against his usual “Seth Rogen” oafish confident type. Having lost a lot of weight, his character Ira Wright seems a whole ten years younger than his usual fat self. He plays the guy young, starstruck, and way over his head. If there is an arc to this movie than it is in this character because he seems to be the only person who changes any. He goes from idolizing George Simmons, to doubting him, to finally willing to throw away any perks he could have gotten career wise just to tell the guy off. It is probably a shame that the movie focused on George Simmons so much because the heart of this story is in the coming-of-age tale of Ira Wright. Seth Rogen may have struggled at the box office this year, but in consecutive movies he has acted against type in two very different roles and has performed admirably in both of them. (the other being ‘Observe and Report’)

Also worth a special mention is Aubrey Plaza who has very little screen time as a struggling fellow standup comic but gives the most memorable performance in the movie. She is introduced cynically enough. The Jason Schwartzman character, a successful comic with his own TV show, brings her home and gives Ira ten days to ask her out or he will sleep with her. Three weeks later, after Ira has only gotten a tentative date set up with her to see a Wilco concert, Schwartzman sleeps with her. Ira doesn’t get mad at Schwartzman (because hey, he said he would give him ten days and ended up giving him twenty one.). He instead gets mad at Aubrey. Here is where the movie makes an interesting choice. Instead of simply using the scene to allow the audience to get vicarious revenge on groupies who sleep too willingly with stars, the movie gives the woman an impressive and ultimately sad retort, and Aubrey knocks the scene out of the park. What we come to understand is that two fundamentally good people who may have had a chance of being together, but feel that they have to compromise themselves because they are bottom feeders in a business that seems to arbitrarily pull some people up and keep others down. It is such a sad scene. Aubrey’s performance is, in my opinion, good enough for a Supporting Actress Nomination. Sometimes one scene is enough. 

You Don't Mess With the Zohan 06/09/08

Looking back at my movie reviews I find that this is the first Adam Sandler movie I've ever officially critiqued. I haven't been too eager to see a Sandler film after I was hoodwinked into seeing 'Anger Management' which really sucked. It wasn't the bad taste that had killed it. Overall it was the incredible lack of creativity. Sandler has had a string of really lazy movies. I think 'Zohan' may be his most creative in years. For one thing his new character doesn't yell and scream in annoying rants like many of his characters. He still inflicts pain but it is calm and collected and because of this much more enjoyable. 
The story involves an Israeli counterterrorist played by Sandler who is superhuman at his job but who tires at the ceaseless violence in the Middle East. He one day fakes his death while fighting a superhuman terrorist played by John Turturro, escapes to the New York City, and follows his dream to become a hairdresser. There he falls for a Palestinian woman and is amazed to find that on the same street Israelis and Arabs coexist nonviolently. Cue the cultural stereotypes, funny accents, hummus, and goats. Still there seems to be a great deal of sincerity in the premise and I'm glad that Sandler had the guts to do it. 
The best thing about this movie is the action. Zohan and Turturro possess superhuman powers. They catch bullets, walk on ceilings, have enormous packages, etc. etc. etc. There is a scene where they face off each other and take turns screaming 'I feel no pain.' How they resolve the dispute involves one of the worst things you can think of. There is this magic aura around the movie where Zohan can do incredible feats and nobody seems to notice. He walks across the street to apply for the job at the salon and spontaneously breaks out into dance. He bangs scores of old ladies. He brushes his teeth with humus. All of this seems appropriate. 
I would only change one thing from this movie. There's a subplot that concerns a developer who tries to turn the street into a mall. He hires a bunch of redneck whiteys to incite the Israelis and Palestinians to fight each other. This was a mistake. I don't think they should be in the movie. That way you keep the conflict between the Israelis and Arabs where it would be more meaningful and it would shave the least funny ten minutes out of the movie. I also could have done without the overload of peepee jokes. I can take a load of them, just not an overload. I didn't mind the banging hot mamas scenes. 
I'd also like to mention actor Nick Swardson, a good character actor. He had basically one joke in this movie, but he must have made me laugh a dozen times. Rob Schneider wasn't bad also.