Ellis Dee:
Glad to see I’m not the only one who liked it (though I don’t know I’d go quite that far).
I love broad, high concept comedies. You want me to defend anything starring Will Ferrell? Melissa McCarthy? Kevin Hart? Want me to explain why comedies starring Vince Vaughn are usually criminally underrated? Tell you about my love for stoner comedies, even those with Franco and Rogen? I’ll do it. I have no shame. Pauly Shore? You want me to tell you about Pauly Shore? Son in Law and In the Army Now are actually well-crafted, enjoyable comedies. Yeah, I went there.
So the fact that I detest, and I mean, DETEST half of what Sandler does, and quite enjoy the other half doesn’t come from me being some sort of elitist cinema snob who hates broad stuff by default. It’s just that a lot of movies from his production company are lazy nonsense. I love Happy Gilmore because it’s an excellent parody of sports movies that makes narrative sense as a story. I hate Billy Madison and similar stuff because it takes a premise, then pretty much forgets about the premise and just shows random sketches about Sandler’s overgrown manchild character making an ass of himself.
It’s not the fact that they are dumb. I love dumb. It’s the lack of focus and general lack of effort.
I watched Pixels this weekend at a Bad Film Festival (not one of mine), and I have to admit it wasn’t bad, if you turned your brain off. Its main problem seems to be its conceit that Sandler is a likeable character. I find him annoying and the fact that the female lead falls for him even more unbelievable than the central idea of aliens attacking us using vintage 1980s video games. But if you ignore that it’s an enjoyable film.
There are approximately 20 million teenage boys (well, 10-19yrs) in the USA. They get an allowance. Mystery solved!
I liked Jack & Jill, granted I didn’t pay anything to see it just watched it on cable, but for a couple hours of mindless comedy, you could do much worse.