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Showing posts with the label adam sandler

THE WEEK OF - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES - REVIEW

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Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)  was released on Netflix this month after a respectable performance at the Cannes Film Festival. The film stars Dustin Hoffman as Harold Meyerowitz, an ageing sculptor whose children have grown up resenting him somewhat based on their divisive upbringing. Harold constantly confuses his own sons' childhoods since his art was and still is always at the forefront of his mind with his daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) trailing far behind. Danny (Adam Sandler) and Matthew (Ben Stiller) are very different from each other as a result of Harold's lack of interest: the former is a down-and-out musician with a limp, the latter is a successful yet high-strung private wealth expert. The film follows this family as they are forced to reconnect when Harold suffers a significant health scare. These are "New and Selected" stories in that, while the film is mostly linear, it skips through portions of

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2 - REVIEW

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Hotel Transylvania being the box-office success that it was, a sequel was pretty much inevitable. The first film was your typical Romeo & Juliet type of scenario except silly and... about a human and a vampire. This sequel continues the story as Mavis and Jonathan welcome their first child. Once again, plot-wise this isn't exactly the most original thing out there but it works as Count Dracula (Adam Sandler) tries to encourage his grandson to become a monster just so his daughter will have to stay at the hotel instead of starting a new life somewhere else. When animated sequels start to bring babies into the mix, you know it's probably the end of that franchise being good ( Shrek Forever After , Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs ) but Hotel Transylvania 2 actually does a decent job at keeping afloat. The animation is, once again, fantastic with all the larger-than-life Tex Avery-style characters constantly doing something random and funny, the voice cast clearly havin

SANDY WEXLER - REVIEW

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Happy Madison returns with Sandy Wexler , another Netflix-exclusive release starring Adam Sandler. This time, it's a biopic of the titular talent manager, who managed Sandler among many others. The film focuses on Wexler's discovery of a talented unknown singer he also falls in love with. While this is a rare genre for Sandler to tackle, we're very much in familiar territory here between his usual team's countless cameos (Schneider, Vanilla Ice, Lovitz etc.), the actor himself doing a silly voice and reliably goofy humour throughout. Essentially, this is your typical agent-finds-talent/talent-outgrows-agent story in the vein of Broadway Danny Rose , except with a corny love story at its heart and a cartoonish tone. Jennifer Hudson portrays Courtney Clarke, the singer Sandy first meets performing in a duck costume for kids in a Six Flags amusement park and she's easily the most likeable aspect of this movie. She's obviously talented and never becomes the div

THE DO-OVER - VIDEO REVIEW

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Here's the video version of my The Do-Over review.

THE DO-OVER - REVIEW

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Following The Ridiculous Six , Adam Sandler delivers his latest Netflix-produced creation The Do-Over , a buddy comedy in which Sandler gives David Spade's loser the chance to build a whole new life for himself. It's a much smaller film in scale than the aforementioned Western and it's all the better for it as it allows more focus on the characters and the story rather than endless silly jokes and too many side characters. Which is not to say The Do-Over doesn't have silly jokes but it doesn't feel the need to hit you over the head with them too often. The core premise is pretty clever as Max, Sandler's character, reconnects with Charlie (Spade), an old friend from high school, before the former takes it upon himself to fake their deaths in the hope of freeing each other from the burdens of their current lives. It turns out that Charlie isn't too keen on reinventing himself just yet plus it turns out that Max isn't the FBI agent he was claiming to b

THE RIDICULOUS 6 - REVIEW

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Adam Sandler stars in, produces and writes this Western comedy which was released straight to Netflix last year and, though it did really well on the online platform, it was somehow given worse reviews than Sandler's other 2015 effort Pixels . The Ridiculous 6 goes for a kind of Happy Madison version of Blazing Saddles crossed with The Magnificent Seven as Sandler's orphan-turned-Native American-turned-cowboy goes on a journey to raise enough money to save his kidnapped estranged father (Nick Nolte) and, on the way, meets 5 of his half-brothers who all agree to help out. Each of them has their own ludicrous story and their own reasons to find their father, which gives the film a weird Wizard Of Oz vibe. Speaking of weird, you can expect quite a few surprises from this movie including Rob Schneider playing a Mexican dude, Vanilla Ice as Mark Twain, a character called Never Wears Bra, Taylor Lautner going all-out as a mentally challenged yokel and Steve Buscemi doing ungo

50 FIRST DATES - REVIEW

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Here's a movie which, on paper, sounds like the worst thing you'll ever see: an Adam Sandler rom-com starring Drew Barrymore as a girl with no short term memory, a girl Sandler has to woo every single day. The Hawaii-set romantic comedy, as expected, is a pretty cheesy affair with more than its share of infuriating moments. For one thing, Rob Schneider cameos as Sandler's slobby pal so expect loads of bad jokes and borderline racist stereotyping, plus awful child actors speaking loudly around him as a bonus. Then there's the plot which is about as believable as whatever happened in The Adventures Of Pluto Nash and the earnest way in which it's handled often clashes with the usual mostly low-brow Happy Madison brand of humour. Walrus vomit jokes, anyone? Then there's Drew Barrymore who really does her utmost to hammer in how adorable she is, often to irritating effect. Though one scene sees her hitting Schneider repeatedly with a baseball bat, something

PIXELS - REVIEW

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What's that, Hollywood? You wanna make a movie about retro games which would include the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong? I'm in! As long as you don't turn it into a dopey, half-assed Adam Sandler comedy or something! Hahaha. Oh... Yes, just when you thought your memories of Jack and Jill were finally fading forever, Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison troupe are back in cinemas (minus Rob Schneider, mercifully). This time, Sandler plays the ex-best Donkey Kong player around who is called upon to help stop some hugely unconvincing alien invasion with the help of some old friends. We're told the reason the aliens have taken the shape of old video games is because we once sent out game footage into space but the film leaves so many plot-holes wide open that pretty much everything past the first minute mark will make little to no logical sense so you might as well give up on that front straight away. And if that wasn't enough nonsense to buy, we're then t

THE BIG REWIND: EPISODE 51 - PODCAST

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In this 51st episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, the Oscars 2015 and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  and now  Stitcher  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula