"Grown Ups"

Grown Ups - Directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf, starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Chris Rock - Rated PG-13

Grown Ups is simply boring and forgettable.

Adam Sandler has been a comedic favorite of mine since I was in grade school. I loved his comedy albums and his early movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. I guess you could say I grew up enjoying Adam Sandler’s comedy. It’s unfortunate, but now I think my sense of humor has grown up past Sandler’s. Or more accurately, his sense of humor has lost its edge.

On paper, Grown Ups sounds like a sure thing. It has Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and a number of cameos. If all of these guys are in it, it has to be funny, right? Well…yes and no, mainly no.

Grown Ups can best be described as a family comedy (if the youngest child in your family is around 9-10, that is) and that was part of the problem for me. I’m not a family comedy kind of guy. I don’t recall enjoying the more innocent comedies even when I was young enough to be considered “innocent.” They’re just not my thing. If your idea of comedy involves playful (translation: bland) jabs between spouses and old friends, then you’ll probably like this one.

I call the jabs bland because it all seemed so forced. I thought, if anything, this film would realistically represent what a group of old friends could be like. For one thing, most of these guys actually are old friends in real life, but they couldn’t get that across onscreen, though. Instead, we get a group of guys playing it safe. What’s worse, they laugh at their own jokes, creating a strange kind of laugh track for the audience. There’s nothing worse for a comedy than a character laughing way too hard at a weak joke, trying to trick the audience into believing that they’ve just witnessed comedy. All that forced laughter just accentuates how unfunny it all is.

Grown Ups just isn’t all that funny. I want that to be clear before I point out a few positive comedic elements. Make no mistake, though, this film is a disappointment. It’s really hard not to laugh at least a few times during a comedy and this film did have a moment or two. The biggest laughs this film got out of me came from the supporting cast. I’m a sucker for a good cameo and this film has plenty of regulars from the Sandler movie universe. My personal favorite was Steve Buscemi. I don’t want to go into too many details because a good cameo is a bit of a surprise. Just know that if you watched SNL during Sandler’s time and you’ve seen his other films, a few familiar faces will crop up.

The fact that my favorite moments were cameos is a big problem. The main cast, who have all starred in their own comedies, should be the ones bringing the big laughs. The only one that I found consistently funny was Kevin James. This is strange because I’m not much of a Kevin James fan (the popularity of Paul Blart will forever confuse me). I enjoy a self-deprecating heavyset guy, though, and James is perfect for the part. He takes the fat jokes very well, and then he’s willing to dance around with an empty chicken bucket on his head.

Kevin James’ character is one note, just like the rest of the stars of the film, but his note was funny to me. It’s quite possible that someone may find Rock funny as the stay at home husband, or Spade as the single, aging ladies man, or Schneider as the new age idiot with the older wife. It all comes down to taste.

Sandler’s character is the only one that didn’t seem one note to me. He’s a successful (agent, producer, I couldn’t really tell) Hollywood man who has lapsed in the parenting department, leaving the job to a nanny. (His explanation for having a nanny around all the guys provided a few laughs for me.) He tries to set things right by forcing his kids to abandon technology for some old fashioned outdoor fun and this is where the film works. When Sandler looks around and sees what is happening to his family and friends, the film shows a pulse. It’s just a shame that the film didn’t focus more on that. If this film had been a comedy that took life and how things change over time a bit more seriously, then I am sure the laughs would be genuine and the movie itself would have had a lasting effect on me.

As it stands, though, this film focused more on some really clichéd and goofy comedic elements like a bad toupee, a farting grandma, a muscleman with a high pitched voice, etc. There was so much potential here, though. It’s a shame they went goofy and lame with it. But then again, I have a darker, more cynical sense of humor. If you like your humor extremely light (so light it’s almost nonexistent at times), then you may enjoy this one.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D / Living in Oblivion

Okay, obviously The Wrestler did not make its way to my area. In fact, I probably will not get a chance to see it until Feb. 13. So, I decided to watch some trash this past weekend. But I'm adding a more respectable independent film that I recently watched on DVD to try and church up this review lest I end up reviewing nothing but slasher flicks and Jason Statham movies. But first: the trash...

My Bloody Valentine has a plot, I think. Something is going on where a guy kills a lot of people with a pickaxe. Let's face it, anyone who wants to see this knows exactly what it is. There is bad acting by a cast of TV actors, there are ridiculous plot twists that aren't even worth pondering, there's gratuitous nudity (a naked woman even picks up her clothes, only to discard them to grab a gun from her purse as if to say, "I could put my clothes back on before I go outside, but what's the fun in that?"), etc. I knew about all of these aspects and that is exactly what I was wanting to see. I laughed quite often during this film, which I can only imagine was part of the point of it all. But the bigger aspect to this film is obviously the 3-D.

This is not that crappy 3-D you see on TV every now and then that calls for those blue and red glasses. These glasses are pretty much clear, using some technology I don't care to look into. All I know is that they are well on their way to perfecting the use of 3-D in film. It was certainly problematic; some things move too quickly and it gets blurry at times, plus it can get downright disorienting at first. Apart from that, the bigger 3-D setups are great. The pickaxe is the perfect weapon for this. There are countless moments when a pickaxe is swung at the screen and it all honestly looked like it was right in my face. I didn't duck out of the way or anything like in the preview for the film, but it was still very impressive. Overall, the 3-D turned what would have been a mediocre slasher flick into a mediocre slasher flick with a great visual gimmick. It was mindless fun.

Enough with the mindless fun, now on to some slightly intellectual fun. Living in Oblivion is director Tom Dicillo's 1995 film about what can happen when you try to make an independent film. Apparently this is mainly based on his experiences when he made Johnny Suede (with Brad Pitt), but I have not seen that yet, so I'm not sure how well it ties in. I do know that James LeGros' character, an up and coming pretty boy actor, is based on Pitt. LeGros is only a supporting player, though; the star is Steve Buscemi and he is at his best in this. It is basically a three part film (it was orginally a 30 minute short film, that was turned into a three part 90 minute film) that shows a mix of nightmare and reality on the set of an independent film. So things go wrong on set: LeGros wants to change shots around, a smoke machine doesn't put out smoke, a little person refuses to laugh, a senile mother shows up on set, relationships are made and broken, etc. People end up breaking down and it leads to some hilarious moments. One particular gag involving a DP and his eye patch is quite funny. This is not laugh out loud material, but anyone into behind the scenes stuff, self deprecating humor, or Steve Buscemi in general will have fun with this. One warning, though: there are multiple times where Buscemi is trying to get a scene and you are forced to watch a fake scene played out over and over and that can be a bit boring after awhile. But that is only a small issue. This is definitely worth a look if not for Buscemi alone, but Dermot Mulroney is suprisingly good as the DP, and Catherine Keener is decent (though I am personally not a fan of hers).

I don't know much when it comes to transfer quality on DVDs and stuff so I'll stick to special features when I write about them. I skipped the Director's commentary and watched an interview with Dicillo and Buscemi from 2002. I strongly suggest you check this out if you rent this as it fills in a lot of information about supporting cast members and how it all came about. It's quite funny, also.

Finally, thanks to the Bradley family for all the comments. Good to know someone's reading this already. And yes, I could've gone on and on about Nixon, but I was able to restrain myself. I don't know, though...I might have to do a DVD review of the Oliver Stone Nixon film...that might be interesting.