"BILLY MADISON"
Blu-ray Review by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: **** (out of 5 stars)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: **** (out of 5 stars)
There are some comedians in this world who actually made better films when they were young and immature. Both Kevin Smith and Adam Sandler fall into this category. A lot of it has to do with the fact that their best work tends towards the young and immature. Once they start growing as a film star, their more adult work comes out trite, overdone and sometimes just downright wretched.
“Billy Madison” is and continues to be one of my favorite Adam Sandler movie. It loses a bit out of the contemporary context, and it really fit better as a transition from his obnoxious “Saturday Night Live” characters than as a stand-alone film. But damn if this film doesn’t still make me laugh. The story of a idiot man-child who has to redo his entire education to prove his worth starts as crazy and obnoxious as you can get, but in the end it has a nice dose of heart and hilarious moments.
This is Adam Sandler at his best, and his latest films (like “Grown Ups” and “Just Go With It”) are cheap grabs at what once came so easily to him. In the modern context, Adam Sandler has just grown up a bit too much. And him making feeble attempts at the hilarity of “Billy Madison” feels more like the woman in her 40s trying to dress in the clothes that Hannah Montana made fashionable.
The recently-released Blu-ray includes all the DVD bonus features imported to this new disc. These include 25 minutes of deleted scenes, a set of outtakes and a feature commentary. Like some comedies, the outtakes and deleted scenes are actually worth watching because they’re funny and just didn’t fit in the final cut.
"HAPPY GILMORE"
Blu-ray Review
by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars)
Like “Billy Madison,” “Happy Gilmore” features Adam Sandler when he was younger and more raw. There is already signs in this film that he’s trying to grow out of his idiot man-child persona that SNL and “Billy Madison” built. But there’s still plenty of true immaturity (rather than grasps at reclaiming immaturity that we see in cinemas now from Sandler) to go around.
In a rare turn, Sandler does not play someone who is ridiculously wealthy (which seems to be his shtick, considering this was a factor in “Billy Madison,” “Mr. Deeds,” “Reign Over Me,” “Funny People,” “Just Go With It,” “Grown Ups” and the apocalyptic sign of the upcoming “Jack and Jill”). Instead, he plays a has-been hockey star who takes up golf to gain a cult following and shake up the circuit.
Similar to “Billy Madison,” “Happy Gilmore” includes plenty of bizarre moments, including a great turn by Carl Weathers as his golfing mentor and Bob Barker as one of his nemeses on the golf course. and while it’s steeped in the feeling a golf (a sport I find mind-numbingly boring), it’s still entertaining to watch, even 15 years after it was made.
The Blu-ray has fewer features than “Billy Madison” does, but at least it some deleted scenes and outtakes.
