And your garbage, Mr. Valentine. Well, from my experience, it's not very homosexual garbage.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

(2007)

A couple of years back, Adam Sandler pictures appeared to be critic-proof. Sure, there was Little Nicky, but he was a guarantee of $100m+ Stateside (much less in the world at large; he has always been a decidedly US phenomenon). But he’s just come out of a year of flops (Jack and Jill, That’s My Boy) and finds himself required to return to the well of Grown Ups for his first sequel (it should be noted that ‘toon Hotel Transylvania was a success, but we’re talking undiluted Sandler hits).

Chuck and Larry goes back to a period where anything that actor picked seemed to have hit potential. Mossad agent-turned-hairdresser? Hit! Macho firemen-pretending-to-be-gay-lovers? Hit! That’s the premise here, and the result is exactly the kind of bromantic, mildly homophobic attack on homophobia you’d expect from perpetual man-child Sandler. Widower Kevin James persuades the reluctant stud Sandler to pose as his better half in order to claim the necessary benefits (James has two children). Problems ensue as they are subject to a fraud investigation (Sandler films regular Steve Buscemi) and Sandler finds himself attracted to lawyer Jessica Biel (she’ll get those red-blooded man juices flowing, right?). Dan Aykroyd has an enjoyable supporting role as the fire chief while Ving Rhames gets to poke fun at his hard-man image.

The jokes here are mostly incredibly obvious, but that’s par for the course in Sandler films. I don’t especially like or dislike the comedian; he just rarely taps a vein of quality laughs (The Wedding Singer is a rare exception). Still, I’d rather see home mining the same tired shtick than attempting “meaningful” comedy in crap like Funny People. What’s surprising here is Alexander Payne’s (Sideways, The Descendants etc) screenplay credit. But, then, Sandler’s the guy who turned up in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punchdrunk Love. There’s none of the sophistication that Payne’s name might suggest. This is a film with an extended “Don’t bend over in the shower” soap gag.

But you do get the sense, that for all his “have it both ways” sensibility in mocking what he wants to preach tolerance for, Sandler means well in his own clumsy, exaggeratedly-mincing manner. The tide of casual homophobia that rises towards them once Sandler and James are “out” is believable (even if the rousing finale is fantasyland), and the portrayal of James’ gay son shows awareness of the abuse he will likely receive at school (even if it only addresses this in a victorious moment for the boy). But it’s far too frightened of offending Sandler devotees to show him playing tonsil hockey with James at the climax (the only way this film would actually have been daring would be to have Sandler and James discover they did love each other, as that’s exactly where this kind of set-up would have led in a hetero-romcom).

Ultimately, though, this is no more or less offensive than your typical Sandler comedy. Which is to say, it’s lazily unrefined and thinks any target is a legitimate target. After all, we’re treated to Rob Schneider as a caricature Asian (Mickey Rooney eat your heart out), complete with prosthetics. So even if he thinks he taking one step forward, Adam’s likely taking three back without realising it.

*1/2

Comments

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Everyone wants a happy ending and everyone wants closure but that's not the way life works out.

It Chapter Two (2019)
(SPOILERS) An exercise in stultifying repetitiveness, It Chapter Two does its very best to undo all the goodwill engendered by the previous instalment. It may simply be that adopting a linear approach to the novel’s interweaving timelines has scuppered the sequel’s chances of doing anything the first film hasn’t. Oh, except getting rid of Pennywise for good, which you’d be hard-pressed to discern as substantially different to the CGI-infused confrontation in the first part, Native American ritual aside.

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994)
(SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump. And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

That woman, deserves her revenge and… we deserve to die. But then again, so does she.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
(SPOILERS) I’m not sure I can really conclude whether one Kill Bill is better than the other, since I’m essentially with Quentin in his assertion that they’re one film, just cut into two for the purposes of a selling point. I do think Kill Bill: Vol. 2 has the movie’s one actually interesting character, though, and I’m not talking David Carradine’s title role.

Do you read Sutter Cane?

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
(SPOILERS) The concluding chapter of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy (preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness) is also, sadly, his last great movie. Indeed, it stands apart in the qualitative wilderness that beset him during the ‘90s (not for want of output). Michael De Luca’s screenplay had been doing the rounds since the ‘80s, even turned down by Carpenter at one point, and it proves ideal fodder for the director, bringing out the best in him. Even cinematographer Gary K Kibbe seems inspired enough to rise to the occasion. It could do without the chugging rawk soundtrack, perhaps, but then, that was increasingly where Carpenter’s interests resided (as opposed to making decent movies).

Check it out. I wonder if BJ brought the Bear with him.

Death Proof (2007)
(SPOILERS) In a way, I’m slightly surprised Tarantino didn’t take the opportunity to disown Death Proof, to claim that, as part of Grindhouse, it was no more one of his ten-official-films-and-out than his Four Rooms segment. But that would be to spurn the exploitation genre affectation that has informed everything he’s put his name to since Kill Bill, to a greater or less extent, and also require him to admit that he was wrong, and you won’t find him doing that for anything bar My Best Friend’s Birthday.

I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
(SPOILERS) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other tall tales of the American frontier is the title of "the book" from which the Coen brothers' latest derives, and so announces itself as fiction up front as heavily as Fargo purported to be based on a true story. In the world of the portmanteau western – has there even been one before? – theme and content aren't really all that distinct from the more familiar horror collection, and as such, these six tales rely on sudden twists or reveals, most of them revolving around death. And inevitably with the anthology, some tall tales are stronger than other tall tales, the former dutifully taking up the slack.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it, I’ll be waiting.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
(SPOILERS) It sometimes seems as if Quentin Tarantino – in terms of his actual movies, rather than nearly getting Uma killed in an auto stunt – is the last bastion of can-do-no-wrong on the Internet. Or at very least has the preponderance of its vocal weight behind him. Back when his first two movies proper were coming out, so before online was really a thing, I’d likely have agreed, but by about the time the Kill Bills arrived, I’d have admitted I was having serious pause about him being all he was cracked up to be. Because the Kill Bills aren’t very good, and they’ve rather characterised his hermetically sealed wallowing in obscure media trash and genre cul-de-sacs approach to his art ever since. Sometimes to entertaining effect, sometimes less so, but always ever more entrenching his furrow; as Neil Norman note in his Evening Standard review, “Tarantino has attempted (and largely succeeded) in making a movie whose only reality is that of celluloid”. Extend t…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog