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These days, it's fashionable to shit on Adam Sandler. That's largely because Adam Sandler likes to shit on celluloid. Or Netflix, where he's currently plopping out fare like The Ridiculous Six and The Do-Over as part of an exclusive deal he struck with the streaming company, apparently so he could continue to come to work in sweatpants.
In the wake of Little Nicky, Pixels, 50 First Dates, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Grownups and the like—films that run the gamut from obnoxious exercises in high-concept idiocy and lazy-ass vacation reels—it's become increasingly easy to forget the era when Sandler was actually fantastic. It was 1994-1998, and this week it's alive in Portland.
The Golden age of Sandler—which was probably more a Rusty Bronze Age for anybody who had grown armpit hair prior to the era—includes the inspired lunacy of Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, but it's bookended almost perfectly by slacker comedy Airheads (Cartopia, 9 pm Sunday, Aug. 21) and The Wedding Singer (Mission Theater, opens Wednesday, Aug. 17).
Incidentally, both movies are grounded in music, and showcase Sandler—fresh off his skit and music-based They're All Gonna Laugh At You record–playing to all his strengths. 1994's Airheads involves a trio of grunge rockers—Steve Buscemi, Sandler and… Brendan Fraser, for some reason—who get all Dog Day Afternoon in a radio station. It's not the strongest film, but it shows us Sandler at his subdued best, offering a glimpse at the actor's keen ability to go from meek to rage-fueled that he'd use to perfect effect in PT Anderson's Punch Drunk Love, a rare latter-day Sandler film that showed a glimmer of a great actor. A great actor who would go on to star in fucking The Cobbler. So it's kind of a wash.
Perhaps Sandler's best-loved films, The Wedding Singer fais better remembered, largely because the '80s setting crystalizes it in a specific time. And while the laziness that pervades Sandler's entire filmography is present here—wigs as punchlines, a little pre-Chuck and Larry homophobia—it's heart is in the right place.
But the popularity of The Wedding Singer—essentially a film version of I Love the '80s—had consequences. It announced Sandler as a bona fide A-lister and established his rapport with Drew Barrymore as a lowbrow Hanks/Ryan team that would show diminishing returns in 50 First Dates and Blended, two movies in the Adam Sandler and friends take a vacation subgenre that sent the pair to Hawaii and Africa.
Airheads shows us a young, energetic Sandler emerging from the shadows of SNL, hungry and willing to take chances on absurdist humor that embraces the sophomoric. With The Wedding Singer, he showed a sensitive size and a willingness to go for broke when it came to higher-concept fare. The role meant he could basically do whatever he wanted going forward.
Apparently, what he wanted was wear pajamas and go on vacations with friends. That makes his early work all the more fascinating… Sandler got to do exactly what he wanted. And because of the goodwill built between 1994-1996, we keep going back for more, hoping at some point he'll strike "stop looking at me swan" lighting once again. Who knows… maybe there's a static charge on the nice couch he bought with that Netflix money.
See it: Airheads screens at Cartopia, 9 pm Sunday, Aug. 21. The Wedding Singer opens Wednesday, Aug. 17 at Mission Theater.
Also Showing:
Weird Wednesday once again unearths a gem with 1966's The Undertaker and his Pals, and we'll let the tagline speak for itself here: "A macabre story of two motorcycle-riding, knife-wielding, shiv-shaving, eye-gouging, arm-twisting, chain-lashing, scalpel-flashing, acid-throwing, gun-shooting, bone-breaking, pathological nuts and their pal the Undertaker." That's poetry. So's the film. Joy Cinema. 9:15 pm Wednesday, Aug. 17.
The Mission keeps the '80s thing going with the John Hughes classic The Breakfast Club, which will inevitably remind us all to get sad when we realize summer is almost over and school's around the corner. Mission Theater. Opens Friday, Aug. 19.
Flicks on the Bricks rounds out another summer (NO!) of outdoor screenings in the square with kids' baseball classic The Sandlot, marking the first time when barf in Pioneer Square was a good thing. Pioneer Courthouse Square. Dusk Friday, Aug. 19.
5th Avenue Cinema's been on a roll with the double features this summer, but they might have taken the cake by pairing Terrence Malick's breakthrough crime-spree road classic Badlands. With director/star(!) Emilio Estevez's attempted homage Wisdom, a 1986 riff that skids out spectacularly. 5th Avenue Cinema. Friday-Sunday, Aug. 19-21. See 5thavecinema.com for full times.
Frak! Theater rolls out a digital restoration of the groundbreaking Planet of the Apes, but offers no answer as to why we still haven't seen a fully realized version of Troy McClure's Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off! Hollywood Theatre. 6:45 pn Thursday, Aug. 18.
The John Waters musical classic Hairspray gets the Top Down treatment, with the roof of Hotel deLuxe poised for a touch of the Divine. Hotel deLuxe. 7 pm Thursday, Aug. 18.
Queer Horror presents the 1996 teenage-with classic The Craft, a film that likely boosted sales of Urban Decay nail polish and Hot Topic stocks, and gave Neve Campbell the same kind of goth cred Emilio Estevez gained by starring in Repo Man. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Thursday, Aug. 18.
The Hollywood's 90th anniversary celebration continues with the Oregon-shot Buster Keaton classic The General, featuring a live score from Portland composer Mark Orton. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Friday, Aug 19.
Family Pictures rolls out Clash of the Titans, the classic 1981 version with amazing Ray Harryhausen effects. Not the shitty version with the dude from Avatar. Hollywood Theatre. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 20-21.
Grindhouse Film Fest pays tribute to the late divisive auteur Michael Cimino with a screening of his rollicking Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a strange crime caper featuring Clint Eastwood and a pre-Dude Jeff Bridges. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Aug. 23.
The Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner's Daughter, featuring Sissy Spacek as the 13-year-old singer and Beverly D'Angelo as Patsy Cline, helped lay the foundation for every modern biopic, from Ray to Walk Hard. Laurelhurst Theater. Friday-Thursday, Aug. 19-25.
In Tim Burton's Batman, Jack Nicholson pulled off the miracle of making a damaged gangster in clown makeup seem damaged without tattooing the word "damaged" on his fucking forehead. Academy Theater. Friday-Thursday, Aug. 19-25.
With King Vidor's Beyond the Forest, Bette Davis began her slow transition from Hollywood icon to trash-cinema champion. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 20.
Featuring perhaps Bette Davis' finest performance in a career of highlights, 1950's All About Eve remains one of the finest takedowns of celebrity and one of the era's most delightfully scathing mainstream classics. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 21.
Willamette Week