Ten Statements About....HAPPY GILMORE (1996)

"I'm Adam Sandler...and I'm Product Placement's Little Bitch.."

"Just stay out of my way... or you'll pay! LISTEN to what I say!"
"Hey, why don't I just go eat some hay, make things out of clay, lay by the bay? I just may! What'd ya say?"

1) I think the saddest thing about this film isn't that it's arguably the best film Adam Sandler has done on his own (as opposed to those films, like Punch Drunk Love, where Sandler is an actor in a project conceived by someone else), but that the best film he did on his own was only his second film overall.

2) ...and another sad thing is how the Sandler formula is firmly in place this early. There's still some wiggle room, but all the earmarks of a 'classic' Sandler movie are there: the shameless product placement, the grotesque supporting characters (many played by his former peers on Saturday Night Live), the cameos by sports figures (what the Hell is rationale behind Lee Trevino sorta stalking Happy and shaking his head?), the awkward romantic arcs....

3) but one of the things that does make this film work is how Happy actually has a character arc that he completes. In the opening montage we are presented with his character flaw, a character virtue (his love of his grandmother), and a physical problem he needs to solve by overcoming his psychological problem (regaining his grandmother's house). We're also given small indicators that Happy has positive character traits, as when he sticks up for the homeless man at the country club and hiring him as his caddy. It's these things that are usually missing from present day Sandler films, and it give us identification with him and reasons to root for him.

Adam Sandler may be making all the cash...but the guy on
the left is the true star of this film

4) God bless Christopher MacDonald, who is to the 90's what William Atherton was to the 80's--namely the perfect asshole-as-comic-foil. His Shooter McGavin is so absolutely smarmy and nasty he actually invests us with even more of a desire to see Happy win. And even better, none of his plans to thwart Happy are unrealistic; because they're the sort of thing you imagine a golf pro would think of, it enforce the reality of the world, even with the unrealistic elements contained within.

5) ...and speaking of unrealistic elements, I have much love for Carl Weathers for taking a silly grotesque caricature in Chubs and making him into a three-dimensional human being that genuinely cares for Happy and his talent. Having him disappear about halfway through for the sake of another Lee Trevino gag (at a point where the non-sequitorial nature of Trevino stalking and disapproving of Happy has begun to wear) is a shame, but while we've got him he manages to help carry Sandler when he's clearly incapable of carrying a movie.

6) Man, is the product placement dripping off this film. Every single one of the stops of the tour is sponsored by a different company, whose symbol is plastered all over the place (I particularly cringed at the Pepsi ball that seems to have been placed for no reason whatsoever next to Happy and Bob Barker save to remind us who paid for this scene to be shot)...and then we get the insane Subway product placement, which includes not only a mock commercial, but actual lines of dialogue insisting that it's the one thing that makes Happy...well, happy, and an obtrusive t-shirt he wears throughout the third act.

I admit it...I post this picture because it makes me laugh
inappropriately...make up your own caption....

7) The main reason I decided to dig this out of my collection is the presence of Julie Bowen, who plays Happy's romantic interest Virginia. Bowen's still at the beginning of her career, where she has yet to grow into her face....and she has the weakest character arc. It's like the script sets up obstacles, yet doesn't figure out how Happy can overcome them--so they just gloss over them to move onto the next plot point. Bowen does what she can with this thankless role, although she can not hide its very artifice.

8) While I know Bob Barker's extended cameo is usually the one everyone remembers, the one I think works the best--to my surprise, given how much I disliked him when he was on SNL--is Kevin Nealon's new-age golf pro. Not only is the advice he gives genuinely amusing in its gobbley-gookiness, his supportive reaction to Happy's behavior adds as perfect punctuation to the scene itself. Why future cameos aren't nearly as effective in Sandler's films is baffling.

9) While I appreciate Joe Flaherty's presence in the film, his is another role where the script kind of doesn't know what to do with him after the initial sequence with him. When he does show up a second time, totaling his car in such a way that it sets up the final set piece, the script doesn't allow it to follow the character to his logical conclusion--namely Flaherty, either consciously or inadvertently, helping to confirm Shooter's duplicity.

10) While he does aquit himself well in the film, there's still a sadness at seeing Richard Keel in here playing one of Happy's former bosses. He looks pretty ragged even at this point, where he's still mobile...and knowing how his body was about to complete its rebellion against him, well....

Overall...it's aged a little badly, its adherence to what we now know is The Sandler Formula damns it a little bit more, and yet it still has a capacity to make me laugh at spots.

Ten Statements About....JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (2001)

It is three hot girls (well, two hot girls and Tara Reid) washing
a car.  Your argument is no longer valid.

"And when the going gets tough--"
"The tough make lemonade!"

1) You want to know just how unintentionally wonderful I find this film? It's the only movie where I enjoy the presence of my ex Tara Reid (It's a long story I don't wish to talk about...but let's just say everyone knows you never give a dog chocolate...). The role of Melody is perfectly suited for her vapid, empty headed persona, and her presence here enhances the film.

(Still doesn't mean I didn't cheer on Carson Daly when he tried to bludgeon Reid to death with a baseball bat....)

2) I think one of the key things that makes the script by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan work is how it embraces the pitfalls of its remit and forces them to work for them. By making the entire film a satire of product placement and the nature of pop music circa 2001, it makes the product placement carpet bombing of the film an integral part of the film's joke.

What's shinier--the CD case, or Alan Cummings' complexion?

3) Every great film needs a great villain--and while an argument could be made for Parker Posey's Fiona as said villain, my favorite is Alan Cummings' Wyatt Frame. Everything about this character, from his usage of famous song lyrics as the names of his nefarious plans to his oily appearance to his strange malapropism, embodies everything I love about Cummings as a performer. Both he and Posey are so perfectly placed in this insane microcosm of a world the film builds that I'm always disappointed when we get to their climatic reveals in the third act.

4) For a movie that should be cynical, even mean, in its conception and narrative--we are talking about a film which has product placement and talk of merchandising its heroines built in--it's surprisingly sweet and gentle thanks primarily to the central three performances. I don't know if Reid, Rosario Dawson and Rachel Leigh Cook knew each other before being in the movie or spent a lot of time together during pre-production, but their friendship feels very real throughout, and its their chemistry and affection that keeps the film from descending into cold, mercenary calculation.

5) I give respect to Elfont and Kaplan for not only breaking the fourth wall, but driving a big wrecking ball right through it...but they wisely establish this early and pick and choose those moments well so that the gags--like when Missi Pyle answers her brother's question about what she's doing here by claiming she was in the comic book, or when the film calls attention to the unlikeliness of the band's meteoric rise in one week--don't jar at all.

6) If there is a weakness in the central trio, it may be the presence of Rachel Leigh Cook as Josie. It's not that she isn't good--she is--but that she tends to be overshadowed by her two co-stars. Cook in particular seems to pale a little whenever she's on-screen with Rosario Dawson's Valerie, who just has a level of charisma she just doesn't have. I admit that the red dye job is also pretty distracting, as its so obviously a dye job, and it seems to emphasize her, ummm, generous chin.

7) This film would have collapsed in a second if the music was lackluster--and thankfully, this probably has one of the greatest collection of power pop songs written for a fictitious band since The Monkees. Written by a raft of power pop luminaries including my beloved Fountain of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, the luscious former frontwoman of Letters To Cleo Kay Hanley (who provided the vocals for Cook) and others, they're perfect lil' nuggets of tuneage and seem exactly like the kind of songs three girls from a small town would write if they're trying to write pop songs.

This is the only film where product placement actually works...

8) You know, for a film that's supposed to be a frothy, silly little comedy, it manages to create a coherent world--and sticks to it. Elfont and Kaplan create this wonderfully subversive history about this conspiracy to control the minds of teenagers and never violates that history for the sake of a gag. Hell, they manage to make the exposition moment explaining all this into one of the funniest sequences of the film thanks to Fiona's presentation of the Eugene Levy hosted presentation film.

9) Now this is the type of film where montages are expected, and there are loads of them. But the genius of these montages is how Elfont and Kaplan work to make each one a little different and distinct--not just through the music, but though the settings, the cutting, and even the storytelling. I was particularly taken with 'Pretend To Be Nice,' which illustrates our heroine's rise to popularity by having them literally climb a giant Billboard chart.

10) I have only mentioned Parker Posey in passing, and part of the reason is that her role is a bit problematic. Yes, she's gorgeous as always, and yes, she has one of my favorite moments in the entire film....but there are frequent moments where she's so over the top she ceases becoming a parody and becomes something of an embarassment, and the subplot that involves her lisping like a duck when stressed just comes off as odd. She doesn't kill the film--far from it--but she is responsible for some of the rare sour notes.

Overall...I continue to marvel at how much affection I have for this, a film that should represent everything I hate about modern movie making...but I do, thanks to its inherent sweetness and surprising cleverness in how it takes on its remit. Don't let its rep as a bomb scare you away!

Oh, and here's some proof that the music rocks....