That's My Boy - 2012

"That's My Boy" - 2012
Dir. by Sean Anders - 1 hr. 56 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

There are people that would have you believe that any time Adam Sandler sets foot in front of a camera, you instantly have a contender for the Worst Film of the Year.  So much so that it's become an eye-rollingly lazy assessment, one that says more about the reviewer than the film in question.  "That's My Boy" is not the worst film of it's year.  I don't know what film was, but to my tastes, it would have to be one of the legion of joyless, devoid of love film designed to push toys via explosions and a humorless steroidal crew trying so hard to be badasses, but are undone by the fact that none of them are over five foot six nor one hundred fifty pounds.  Is "That's My Boy" a good movie?  Not really, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is that Adam Sandler is a Job Creator, and what have you ever created aside from a daily pile of loose stool?  Who are you to judge anything?

The film itself is a paragon of American Values; honesty, the importance of family, and buying American-made.  Babies get made the way they get made, but circumstances (and a vital lack of liberal sexual indoctrination) leave the thirteen-year old Donny (Adam Sandler) with a son.  Donny and his son, Han Solo (Andy Samberg) travel a rocky path, one that leaves them estranged, and neither are happy.  Donny stares down an insurmountable tax bill (thanks, Obamacare), his only hope of covering is to reunite with his son.  Meanwhile, Han has changed his name and invented a fictitious back-story, trying to ingratiate himself into the One Percent.  Han's marriage announcement finds it's way to Donny, and the reconciliation starts haltingly.  At the same time, Donny always has the King of Beers at hand, supporting the American economy by buying the greatest beer ever made, American Made.

In real life, Adam Sandler makes movies with steely determination and oat bran-fueled regularity.  For more than twenty years now, he has been keeping his crew of liberal sleazebags gainfully employed and off the streets, otherwise the crime rate would have surely risen, coating our society with a nearly imperceptible, yet acutely odiferous veneer of low morals.  Ask yourself, would you rather have this crew of ragamuffins contained to the silver screen, where you can't smell them or be accosted by their insistent cries for spare change, or would you rather have them in your town, on your streets, and in your daughter's bedroom?  Adam Sandler creates jobs, makes money, and keeps the mentally-challenged entertained as well.  What have you done to make your community safer?  Cowered behind your doors while sipping lattes?  Exercised your First Amendment rights?  Gone cheese shopping?  There is only one kind of cheese for Americans, called American, and it's individually wrapped in cellophane for your protection.  Cheese variety is a secret Muslim plot to keep you from enjoying more Adam Sandler films, and that's not an America I want to live in.

I personally find it comforting to know that every single year, Adam Sandler will wrangle his batch of miscreants with enough skill and organizational know-how to produce a feature film, containing pretty much the same jokes last year's model had, and usually having most of the same Godless Hollyweirdos in the cast.  This is American Exceptionalism: find one thing that works, and then cram it down people's throats repeatedly until you die, and be sure to call it innovation.  I'm glad that Adam Sandler has been making movies for twenty years, and if you don't like that, why don't you move to San Salvador or something?  I hope he makes movies for another twenty years.

1.5 / 5 - TV (HD)

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star - 2011

"Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" - 2011
Dir. by Tom Brady - 1 hr. 37 min.

Official Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

You and I both know going in that "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" is not going to be a "good" movie.  From the trailer, premise, and talent involved, there's nothing that suggests a surprisingly good comedy is even possible.  And I'm not going to suggest otherwise.  But once you've appropriately set the bar for your expectations (and un-clenched your anus, and accept that low-brow humor will forever be funny), this movie does clear that bar by an inch or two.

Bucky Larson (Nick Swardson) is a golly-gee Iowan, whose parents just happen to be porn stars from the 1970's.  Since Bucky has been fired from his grocery-bagging job, the discovery of this previously unknown fact about his parents gives him some direction: he's headed to Hollywood to act in "nude movies."  Once there, he befriends Kathy (Christina Ricci), a waitress who's slumming in a greasy spoon.  After a few failed attempts to make inroad in the nude movie industry, down-on-his-luck direction Miles Deep (Don Johnson) decides to give him a chance.  The resulting clip goes viral, launching Bucky into success.

So...  I laughed quite a few times.  The real problem that I have with this movie isn't the faux-naughty premise ("Orgazmo" did a different take on the same sort of situation), and it isn't with any of the people involved (I do like Swardson's stand-up).  My real problem with this movie is that the first act is weak, and that's tough for a comedy to recover from.  And the bizarre appearance of the main character comes off poorly in the first act, because there doesn't appear to be much effort or skill put into making things funny beyond a weird haircut and buck teeth.  And if that's supposed to sustain the entire film, it doesn't instill much confidence that the next hour or so is going to be any better.

Once Bucky is out of the Midwest and in Los Angeles, his no-nonsense earnestness plays off of the more jaded "industry" types, and the humor works a lot better.  I'm not going to lie, I laughed quite a bit once Bucky got to L.A.  Christina Ricci is likable, Don Johnson fills his role well, and Kevin Nealon has a one-note character, but that note is consistently funny.  I'm not sure what could have improved this movie (and if you say "not making it in the first place," you now have to go stand in the corner); the premise is funny, and the performances are decent.  If you accept that Adam Sandler and company are going to make this movie (regardless if you like it or not), then I think you have to accept that they made as much of the material as is possible.  There are a few good scenes present, the awards ceremony sequence and the scene of Bucky and Kathy visiting an oddities museum among them.

Swardson (and writers Swardson, Allen Covert, and Adam Sandler) take an interesting approach to Bucky - no apologies.  The character may be naive, but once he finds his direction he's committed and ready to do whatever it takes.  If there had been a hint of shame in either the writing or the performance, this film would have been unwatchable.  Even if the jokes sometimes fall flat, it's just a joke that didn't work.  There's nothing undercutting it.  But for the first twenty minutes or so, there was a much higher percentage of jokes that didn't work.  For instance, I couldn't tell if Bucky's friends were setting him up when they got together to play a stag film with Bucky's parents in it.  That completely undermined any humor for me - the other characters seemed surprised, but there was an undercurrent of maliciousness in the other characters that tipped the joke and suggested otherwise.

Again, this isn't the best movie I've ever seen.  I think Nick Swardson is generally pretty funny, and I've surely seen my share of Happy Madison movies over the years.  But people act like Adam Sandler murdered their parents or something every time he or his production company releases a film, as if his mere existence is too much to bear.  I wish I could muster up that much rage over a somewhat funny movie just because it didn't suit my tastes exactly.  Honestly, it's not like anyone had to go see "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star;" if this sort of film isn't your cup of tea, it's self-inflicted damage.  But if it is, it's definitely better than "Benchwarmers."

2 / 5 - Blu-Ray

Grandma's Boy - 2006

"Grandma's Boy" - 2006
Dir. by Nicholaus Goossen - 1 hr. 34 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Is this a good movie?  Well, that's a complicated question.  A movie can be good without being good, in the sense that a candy bar is sometimes exactly what you need to eat.  Would a carrot be better for you?  Perhaps, but you may not always be in the mood to eat a carrot.  "Grandma's Boy" is that kind of good - it's a candy bar when you need it.

One thing I appreciated very much about "Grandma's Boy" was that, in spite of numerous opportunities to turn itself into a paint-by-numbers "save the house" movie, it never really turns in that direction.  Early on, Alex (Allan Covert) is evicted from his house because his roomie has been spending both of their rent money on exotic massages, but instead of rallying to save that situation, it leads to a couple of dicey guest stints (a memorable one involving Nick Swardson's character, a co-worker who still lives at home and sleeps in a race-car bed).  Eventually, Alex lands with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two similarly-aged roommates (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight).

With that settled, the story settles into two-pronged approach - a love story involving a consultant called in to help keep production deadlines (Alex works at a video game publisher), and the professional story about keeping those deadlines.  Since this is a light comedy, you probably already know where these storylines are going to end up, but since this is a light comedy, it's all about the ride.  And the ride is pretty damned funny.  Two of the main actors (Allan Covert and Peter Dante) show up in pretty much everything that Adam Sandler has ever done, and are clearly used to working with one another.  In smaller roles, Nick Swardson and Jonah Hill get the chance to chip in asides and one-liners, which works pretty well for them.  Kevin Nealon plays a suitably odd, new-agey boss, and the sort of villain (J.P, played by Joel David Moore) is so bizarre and socially awkward that it feels like someone like that could really exist.

Probably the best thing I can say is that, while this isn't a great movie, it's infinitely re-watchable.  I've seen this one around half a dozen times, and I still laugh all the way through it.  "Grandma's Boy" doesn't set huge goals, but it does stay entertaining all the way through, and if it's on TV, I'm definitely not changing the channel.

3 / 5 - DVD

30 Minutes or Less - 2011

"30 Minutes or Less" - 2011
Dir. by Ruben Fleischer - 1 hr. 23 min.

Official Trailer

This was a movie that I was actually pretty excited to go see, and now that I have seen it, I don't have a whole lot to say about it.  Yes, it is about as funny as you'd expect.  If you're a fan of Danny McBride, Jesse Eisenberg, Nick Swardson, or Aziz Ansari, you're not going to be let down (although I thought Michael Pena knocked his role out of the park).  If you're going because it's from the director of "Zombieland," well, it's not on that level.

Basically, you've got a film about how male friendships survive stress (in the guise of a dumb criminal caper plot).  One of the things that is done really well is feeling like the pairs of guys (McBride and Swardson, and Eisenberg and Ansari) actually have been friends for a long time.  That's the sort of thing than can float fairly inconsequential movies (like David Duchovny and Orlando Jones in "Evolution"), and take the air out of films when done poorly (which happens more often than I could count).  And while I know it's a staple of this sort of film, the directionless of the core of main characters kind of drags things down.  That sense of directionlessness isn't necessarily a movie-killer (see "Slacker" or "Clerks" to start with), but here I felt like it needed to either be amplified or addressed in some meaningful way.  Yes, even in a superficially dumb comedy, these things need to be worked out.

Well, that's more words than I figured I'd squeeze out on the topic of "30 Minutes or Less."  Yes, I laughed, and yes, I enjoyed it.  You probably will, too.  But there's not much about these 83 minutes that resonate beyond the cinema.

3 / 5 - Theatre