|
It's
all over. We're
doomed. Hightail it
to a bomb shelter, if you can find one.
Otherwise, just insert your head between your legs and
kiss your ass goodbye. No, we're not under attack by terrorists, a government
hell-bent on stripping away every last one of our rights or the
corrupt corporate world. I'm
talking about something entirely different.
I've seen the signs of the apocalypse.
They're hard to miss, kids.
I know you all saw the first one (The J. Lo marriage
bust-up), but the others might have flown under your radar.
The
second occurred when a film starring Adam Sandler won one of the
most prestigious awards at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival (Best
Director Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love).
The third also involves Sandler (who played the son of
Satan in his last film, Little
Nicky), but this harbinger is so evil and so nefarious,
I can barely muster the strength to tell you about it. Come close, so I can whisper it to you. A little closer. <Adam
Sandler has remade an Oscar-winning Frank Capra film.> Wait!
Stop crying! If
you've lived a pure life, you won't end up in the place that
blasts "The Hanukkah Song" through giant speakers 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
The
Capra classic in question is Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, a
picture that won the legend a Best Director Oscar back in 1936. In the new Mr. Deeds, Sandler assumes the Gary Cooper
role of Longfellow Deeds, a single man from a tiny New England
town who inherits a ton of money from a relative he never knew
he had. When we first see Sandler's Deeds (don't call him Longfellow,
because that's dorky), he's running a pizzeria in Mandrake
Falls, New Hampshire, though he longs to be a greeting-card
writer for Hallmark (cue a half-dozen silly poems).
Deeds doesn't have any family, but he is so close with
the locals in Mandrake Falls, he really has everything he needs.
When
lily-white tight-asses Chuck Cedar (Peter Gallagher, American
Beauty) and Cecil Anderson (Erick Avari, The Glass
House) arrive in town and inform Deeds that he has just
inherited $40 billion from a recently deceased
uncle/international media tycoon, our hero takes it all in
stride, partly because he's a boob, but also because he doesn't
have much need for money. They tell him he must accompany them
to New York City to "sign some papers," and what
follows is the typical fish-out-of-water story with a handful of
typical Sander gags, which are quite often very funny.
In
addition to Chuck and Cecil trying to get him to sign his stock
over to them, Deeds also has to contend with an unscrupulous TV
tabloid anchor (Jared Harris, How To
Kill Your Neighbor's Dog) who forces underling reporter
Bunny (Winona Ryder, Lost Souls) to trail the reluctant
billionaire and pretend to fall in love with him so his show can
get the big scoop. She
does, but – oh my God! – she starts to develop actual
feelings for him as well. Listen
for the scene in which Ryder's character makes up a story about
breaking her arm and try to stifle the giggles. She' s no scene-stealer here, but rumor has it that
<insert joke here>.
With
this film, Sandler has gone back to playing the dimwitted but
extremely bighearted guy who might punch out the occasional
bully. It's the
kind of role that made him such a big star (until the Little
Nicky debacle), and his fans will likely eat it all up.
What they might have a problem with is his character's
saccharine lifestyle. Deeds
doesn't curse and insists on hugging everyone he meets.
It's all quite nauseatingly sweet.
Better is John Turturro (13
Conversations About One Thing) who plays Emilio, a
Spanish servant who floats in and out of rooms like Gary Oldman
in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
| 1:30
- |
 |
for
language including sexual references, and some rear nudity |
|
