Movies you loved and later realized were horrible (1 Viewer)

this is a semi-derail (but really only semi-), but after seeing a reasonably funny article which described Pixels as a film "in the sense that colonoscopies produce 'films'" and went on to rail against Adam Sandler, it occurred to me that Sandler might have the worst filmography of anyone i ever thought was good in any way.

the following are the movies in which he has starred, co-starred, or played a significant supporting character:

Airheads
Billy Madison
Happy Gilmore
Bulletproof
The Wedding Singer
The Waterboy
Big Daddy
Little Nicky
Mr. Deeds
Punch-Drunk Love
Eight Crazy Nights
Anger Management
50 First Dates
Spanglish
The Longest Yard
Click
Reign Over Me
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Bedtime Stories
Funny People
Grown Ups
Just Go With It
Jack and Jill
That's My Boy
Hotel Transylvania
Grown Ups 2
Blended
Men, Women and Children
Pixels

i mean, are you fucking kidding me? that is the longest line of shit i have seen in a LONG time from someone who actually showed evidence of legitimate talent at one point.

read Live from New York or The Chris Farley Show and you'll hear some of the most talented, hilarious people of all time talk about how Sandler had them literally on the floor laughing constantly at SNL. i personally spent hours upon hours listening to his first couple of comedy records and watching billy madison and even happy gilmore and i still legitimately think both are funny.

but holy god someone stop this fucking guy. who the hell goes to see shit like Blended and Grown Ups 2? didn't they already see 50 First Dates and Grown Ups 1? and they chose to go see the next two rounds of each? it's like biting into a sandwich and finding a turd, but taking the next bite anyway.

in fairness, he did several interesting - if not all successful - films even after his downward spiral began. Punch-Drunk Love was great, but it's a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, so of course it is. and Reign Over Me had serious heart even if it didn't have much else. he tried something with Funny People even if he was undermined by Judd Apatow who apparently doesn't own a fucking watch. even in That's My Boy, he tried to get back to his more surreal roots. Men, Women and Children was horrible, but for reasons that have nothing really to do with Sandler.

but the aforementioned 50 First Dates/Grown Ups/Blended/etc are just patently obvious branded garbage intended to be a compromise when braindead 40-year old men have to take their braindead wives to the movies. the wives think they're going to see a romantic comedy or at least a dramedy and the husbands hope to see poop jokes once or twice while they sit silently pretending to enjoy the two garbage-filled hours.

Adam Sandler isn't funny and hasn't been for nearly 20 years. fuck that guy.
 
actually enjoyed Click but not as a comedy obviously

before Click that last movie I enjoyed was Big Daddy, and not as a piece of art or anything, simply for laughs
 
Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison and Little Nicky still get me every time I run across them. Classics.

All others = unwatchable.
 
I actually enjoyed 50 First Dates, but probably more for the Rob Schneider parts. But yeah, Sandler's 15 minutes was up long ago. then again, they made a Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 (hell, they made a Paul Blart Mall Cop 1!) so there's no accounting for taste in Hollywood anymore.
 
grandgnu said:
they made a Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 (hell, they made a Paul Blart Mall Cop 1!) so there's no accounting for taste in Hollywood anymore.
Click to expand...

Yep - there's a whole rack of the Paul Blart 2 DVDs sitting at the register at the local (middle of nowhere) Dollar General for the low, low price of $19.95. I literally busted out laughing when I saw that - the clerk asked me what was so funny and I had to be like "uhhh... never mind." :)
 
Ben said:
Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison and Little Nicky still get me every time I run across them. Classics.

All others = unwatchable.
Click to expand...
The water boy made me lol, but he has an amazing amount of steaming pile of crap movies
 
Ben said:
Yep - there's a whole rack of the Paul Blart 2 DVDs sitting at the register at the local (middle of nowhere) Dollar General for the low, low price of $19.95. I literally busted out laughing when I saw that - the clerk asked me what was so funny and I had to be like "uhhh... never mind." :)
Click to expand...


I made this point with my friends when i saw the first trailer for Paul Blart 2....here goes....there are probably at least 5,000 movies that I would love to see made into a sequel...sadly Paul Blart does not make this list, that is the only point I need to make regarding a sequel.
 
Ben said:
Yep - there's a whole rack of the Paul Blart 2 DVDs sitting at the register at the local (middle of nowhere) Dollar General for the low, low price of $19.95. I literally busted out laughing when I saw that - the clerk asked me what was so funny and I had to be like "uhhh... never mind." :)
Click to expand...

manamongkids said:
I made this point with my friends when i saw the first trailer for Paul Blart 2....here goes....there are probably at least 5,000 movies that I would love to see made into a sequel...sadly Paul Blart does not make this list, that is the only point I need to make regarding a sequel.
Click to expand...

and keep in mind that Adam Sandler produced both Paul Blart and Paul Blart 2. he continues to spread his horribleness.
 
I liked the early classics (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore etc) and think the Sandman is funny. Little Nicky and Mr Deeds still make me laugh too. The rest is garbo. I never considered him a serious actor though, just a comedian; or more of an amusing clown person. lol

BTW Airheads belongs on the list, I actually used to like that movie. (thread back on track)
 
Big Jilm said:
I liked the early classics (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore etc) and think the Sandman is funny. Little Nicky and Mr Deeds still make me laugh too. The rest is garbo. I never considered him a serious actor though, just a comedian; or more of an amusing clown person. lol

BTW Airheads belongs on the list, I actually used to like that movie. (thread back on track)
Click to expand...

big daddy is probably the closest to acceptable of any of his post-wedding singer movies, but even that i think is pretty shit. i actually rewatched airheads maybe a year or so ago and still liked it. steve buscemi and adam were both really funny in that.
 
jbutler said:
big daddy is probably the closest to acceptable of any of his post-wedding singer movies, but even that i think is pretty shit. i actually rewatched airheads maybe a year or so ago and still liked it. steve buscemi and adam were both really funny in that.
Click to expand...

true, there was a reason I liked airheads. Big daddy was pretty good too. I look at that list and I CAN say that the bottom 70% is pretty sad! Did you guys ever listen to his comedy cd? This skit and a few others were funny:

 
The first couple of albums were pretty good. After that it was like he turned into the Frank Caliendo version of himself. Of course, Caliendo's take on Sandler's career is pretty good.

Couldn't find a better version but here ya go...

 
Barfly. If I could find a copy that wasn't a crappy import or a VHS, I would LOVE to buy this. It qualifies as a movie I used to love (much more than I do now) and is definitely crap.

 
tommythecat said:
The first couple of albums were pretty good. After that it was like he turned into the Frank Caliendo version of himself.
Click to expand...

agreed. his first two were pretty great imo. my favorite of the sketches (not songs) of the first two albums:

assistant principal's big day
mr. spindel's phone call
the cheerleader
joining the cult
respect
the goat
memory lane
sex or weight lifting

looking back at the tracklists, they were pretty hit or miss, but the highs were pretty damn high. speaking of high, i can't tell you how many times i bawled laughing to the goat. jesus that was hilarious.
 
The goat gets me every time. Sex or weightlifting is also excellent. Was a fan of Toll Booth Willie, but it got old quick. Lunch Lady Land is and always will be a classic, while Medium Pace is and always will be absolute garbage. A couple of the severe beatings I remember being pretty funny.
 
Forrest Gump
Shakespeare in Love
Speed
Titanic
National Lampoon's Vacation
Kingpin
BASEketball
(obviously some of these were more critically acclaimed than others but to me the watchability factor for all of these has plummeted).
 
kirchhausen said:
Forrest Gump
Shakespeare in Love
Speed
Titanic
National Lampoon's Vacation
Kingpin
BASEketball
(obviously some of these were more critically acclaimed than others but to me the watchability factor for all of these has plummeted).
Click to expand...

damn i loved baseketball, now dreading the rewatch a little bit.

if you want to give vacation another go, the remake comes out today. i wouldn't anticipate greatness.

also, speed still kicks ass as does kingpin.
 
Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish (lol don't know why) have always been my two favorite Sandler movies. I can remember hearing the album with the goat, assistant principle, etc on it and dying laughing, it was legitimately one of the funniest things I had ever heard at 17 years old. Other than that though, I always felt like the outcast because I didn't think every movie he did was the best thing ever, I was almost stoned to death in my circle of friends when I told them I thought the Waterboy was shit.

Same with Jim Carey. I know he's a funny dude, not trying to be a hater, but my god some of the movies he's made have sucked horribly, and even the "good" ones only had certain good parts to me.
 
jbutler said:
damn i loved baseketball, now dreading the rewatch a little bit.

if you want to give vacation another go, the remake comes out today. i wouldn't anticipate greatness.

also, speed still kicks ass as does kingpin.
Click to expand...
Last summer I was hanging out with one of my buds at a ballgame and the subject of funny movies from the 90s came up. He got so excited when we both brought up Kingpin that he decided to purchase it on the spot. A week or so later he calls me up and let me know it had arrived, (he ordered the blue-ray from Amazon) and we dropped all plans (ok probably didn't have any plans but whatever) and decided to watch it that night Maybe it was the anticipation, but both of us were very disappointed in how well it held up.

Maybe it is just the genre, but to me Speed (and probably most action movies that are very high on the action to plot ratio) just don't hold up well.

BASEketball still had its moments, but it went from a 8 to a 4 or 5.
 
kirchhausen said:
Forrest Gump
Shakespeare in Love
Speed
Titanic
National Lampoon's Vacation WRONG
Kingpin
BASEketball
(obviously some of these were more critically acclaimed than others but to me the watchability factor for all of these has plummeted).
Click to expand...

Well I haven't watched Kingpin for a while but loved it. BASEketball I watched not too long ago and still thought it was ok. Wasn't as good as the first watch. And Vacation is the best. Love all of the Chase vacation movies.
 

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