I don’t know what’s going to upset you all more. The fact that Rorie’s swan song on the site was a review of the Wrath of the Titans (thanks for that one ), or the fact that my first post is going to be about Jack and Jill. But hell, it’s time to get back to work…so here we go…
In 1995 Al Pacino starred in Heat, and Adam Sandler starred in Billy Madison. In 2011 they both made their way into Jack and Jill. The trajectory that caused this to happen may someday be the subject of an undergrad film studies class, but for now it’s the subject of my very first post.
As of this week, Jack and Jill holds the “distinction” of being the first movie to sweep the Razzies – “winning” every single category (including awards for both Sandler and Pacino). It’s probably not the worst movie ever made, but it is one that is a microcosm for everything that has gone so wrong with some of our favorite actors from the 90s. I’ll stay away from Pacino for a minute (don’t want to unleash on the star of Scarface and Godfather on day one) but what I will say is that Adam Sandler breaks my heart. There, I said it. He BREAKS. MY. HEART.
I’ve been called a lot of things in my life (most recently, I believe it was a subhuman Hollywood Douchebag – thanks for that @artgarcrunkle) and I hate to feed that description with fact, but I do live in LA, I do see Adam Sandler tossing a football outside of his house all of the time, and all I want to do is pull over and yell WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!!
He had all the cred he needed. The critics hated him, and the audience loved him. What more could you want as a former SNL’er making a bajillion dollars per movie? We idolized him, revered him, quoted him ad nauseum (dear god I STILL quote his movies at least once a day) and he blew it… he abandoned us… started throwing us tainted meat and telling us it was a delicious steak. Some say it started with The Waterboy, some say it was Little Nicky. Whenever it happened is a moot point. It’s happened, and I’m not happy about it.
And so we wait - hopeful for the next movie – hopeful that it won’t disappoint us yet again. Every time the trailer comes out with Adam Sandler being some variation of an angry man-child I pray that it will return us to the Glory Days of the nineties. This time he will make us laugh in the way punching Bob Barker in the face can make us laugh or the way teaching one of those Sprouse twins to pee on a wall can make us laugh. That this time he will feel up his third grade teacher during a private tutoring session (that one sounds a little iffy in retrospect) and then, alas, he does not. In fact he does the opposite. He sucks. And his movies now sweep the Razzies.
So maybe next time I’m driving by him and I see him casually tossing a football outside of his 20 million dollar mansion maybe I’ll stop and ask him what has gone so terribly wrong.
Or maybe I’ll just stick my tongue in his direction and give him a razzie of my own.
