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Oh,
You Silly Boy (taken from Newsweek.com)
Adam Sandler's low-budget movies might seem puerile and dumb. But his many loyal fans wouldn't have it any other way. By Kendall Hamilton and Yahlin Chang
That rustling you hear may be the sound of 1,000 critics rolling up their sleeves. Adam Sandler's new movie, "The Waterboy," opens this week, and if the notices for the comedian's prior efforts are any indication, reviewers are getting set to dish out some serious criticism. "Friends don't let friends make movies like this," one reviewer wrote of Sandler's 1995 opus, "Billy Madison." Another called it "a story that has all the soul of plastic eating utensils." Then again, that rustling in the air might be something else. It could be the sound of Sandler's diehard fans reaching back for their wallets. Just ask Leo Nolan, of Summit, N.J., if he's excited about "The Waterboy." "Oh yeah," says Nolan, 12. "It's the big movie. It's the one everybody can't wait to see." Screening an Adam Sandler movie for critics might be like waving a pound of raw hamburger in front of a pit bull, but his young fans see only USDA prime. From his years as a stand-up comic and class clown at New York University, through his profile-raising stint on "Saturday Night Live" and on into his Hollywood career, Sandler has steadily built an empire of the absurd. Low-budget, high-profit-margin films like "Billy Madison"--in which Sandler played a wealthy wastrel forced to repeat grammar school--and the 1996 golf goof "Happy Gilmore" enshrined Sandlerian humor in the grade-school pantheon. "The Wedding Singer," his dip into the Cheez Whiz of '80s music, gained Sandler some grown-up fans, and even won over a few critics. It also earned almost three times its $28 million budget. The suits in Hollywood are hoping "The Waterboy," which tracks the rise of a dimwitted Cajun water boy to varsity football star, will do even better. Then there are his platinum-selling comedy albums, and the sold-out appearances at venues like New York's Radio City Music Hall. Whether Sandler is giving voice to a bathtub battle for supremacy between shampoo and conditioner as he did in "Billy Madison," brawling with game-show host Bob Barker ("The price is wrong, bitch!") as he did in "Happy Gilmore," or just singing in a grating falsetto about his favorite red sweat shirt, as he does onstage, somewhere out there, someone is laughing. What does Sandler think of all this? We'd love to tell you, but for the past few years the comedian has refused to be interviewed by print journalists. "I wish I could get him to talk about himself some time," says his manager, Sandy Wernick. "It's not important to him. What's important to him is making his movies and having all his buddies around him." Sandler has become something of a one-man career-placement office for his NYU pals. After landing his gig at "SNL" in 1990, Sandler helped his freshman roommate, Tim Herlihy, win a job as a writer on the show, where he remains today. The two also co-write many of Sandler's movies. Frank Coraci, who directed "The Wedding Singer" and "The Waterboy," is another NYU chum, as are film editor Tom Lewis; actor Allen Covert, a frequent Sandler foil, and Jack Giarraputo, who has coproduced most of Sandler's films. "He is a guy who is uncomfortable in the world," says one associate. "So he surrounds himself with guys from his past. He needs that insulation." |
