Adam Sandler Comes Out As Having An Enormous Package

That was shot as he filmed his upcoming movie Don't Mess With The Zohan.

I'm calling it right now: From what little I know, this movie is going to be huge, almost as big as that ridiculous codpiece Sandler's wearing for the part. Zohan is an ex-Israeli counter-terrorism commando who makes Jack Bauer seem like, well, Kiefer Sutherland. But he gives it all up because he can't take the horror of torturing Palestinian "suspects" and killing noble "freedom fighters."

No, wait, that would be the movie if Sean Penn were in it. He actually retires from the Mossad's Super-CTU to pursue his lifelong dream... of being a hairdresser in New York. And taking on an evil Land Developer (played by... Michale "Are you ready to rumble?" Buffer?) who wants to drive out all of the local businesses to make room for a new Mall of America monstrosity.

And of course he needs to use his acrobatic style of IDF kung fu to thwart them.

I've said before that the Wedding Singer's huge success hurt Sandler's recent films. Suddenly he had this huge date-movie audience -- all those women -- and he tailored his films a bit to appease that demographic. There was still the big dumb comedic moments that are his trademark, but the movies tried to be more rooted in reality, and the silly-stupid humor often grated with the films' overall tone. A really stupid joke works in a really stupid movie, but a really stupid joke in a movie that's making a halfway serious stab at being something like a genuine date-night romantic comedy just seems out of place.

Well, in Zohan, he seems to be getting back to the Happy Gilmore style of anything-for-a-laugh humor. I'm sure there's a romantic angle in it-- all of his films have that -- but it doesn't seem to be aimed at the Wedding Singer demographic. It seems more like Grandma's Boy in knowing its target audience -- retarded, sexually frustrated boy-men like myself -- and pandering to us relentlessly.

Keep an eye out for it; from what I know, it's going to be very funny and very big.

And it's interesting, I think, that he got a movie greenlit featuring a heroic Israeli counter-terrorist operative. Generally Israelis are considered too "controversial" for movies; barring the moral-equivalency Spielberg vehicle, the last time I saw one was played by Robert Shaw in Black Sunday.

Plus, it give him a chance to a do a funny accent again. He hasn't done that since, what, Little Nicky?

Sandler's Politics: I'm mentioning this just because Surnow claimed Sandler would endorse Giuliani.

I don't know about his politics, except from vague hints like his offices at Sony being clearly identifiable because they seem to be the only ones on the lot flying a great big American flag.

He did do something pretty cool, I'm told. Apparently he felt wrong about taking money for his 9/11-survivor's-guilt movie Reign Over Me so he donated his entire fee from the movie to a hospital for wounded vets in Texas (I think; some charity, at least). The interesting thing is that he didn't publicize this; I never heard of it before.

If I had to guess I'd imagine he's a 9/11 moderate, pro-War on Terror, not necessarily a Republican per se, but not hostile to Republicans either.

I know this stuff, I guess it's all right to say, because Allen Covert, one of Sandler's co-writers/co-producers/frequent cast members and star of Grandma's Boy, actually reads this moronblog and hung out with us at the Aceapalooza West and then let me hang out at his offices for a bit.

(And yeah, for anyone worried, I got clearance to say that.)

I guess I should apologize for not disclosing that fact when I gave Grandma's Boy a glowing recommendation, but really, I laughed all the way through it, so I didn't feel compromised. I was actually worried I wouldn't like it, but within two minutes a laughed and then could relax about it. Besides, my recommendation was hardly atypical. Even the amateur leftist webzine Slate deemed it "The Movie That Will Save Humanity."

Sorry about withholding that, though. But you know, stuff like this is kind of dicey. I don't want to burn anyone of course.

posted by Ace at 03:32 PM

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