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#6 - Billy Madison
Tamra Davis, 1995
The immature drop-out son of a wealthy hotel tycoon ends up engaging in a wager that he can finish every possible grade of school within a certain period of time in order to prove that he is capable of running his father's business.
Billy Madison is another one of those films where I'd watched practically all of it but didn't count it because I hadn't watched it from start to finish. A peculiar distinction, but I stick by it. I also figure that, despite Sandler being considerably unfunny in the bulk of his cinematic outings (especially the recent ones), I should at least try to watch this one (as well as Happy Gilmore, but I'll get to that later). Given the presence of Sandler, I of course lowered my expectations suitably and the result...well, it wasn't too bad. Granted, Sandler as the titular man-child can be rather grating, especially during the early scenes where he's communicating almost exclusively in whiny gibberish, but as the film progresses the jokes actually improve. Swapping out the annoying kid-like sing-song voice for a petulant hamminess was the right decision on Sandler's part, especially the scene where he gets an eight-year-old classmate to call up their attractive teacher. Even without having seen the movie in full, I was already capable of quoting a variety of lines from the film and even in their original context they're still funny enough (such as Chris Farley's brief role as a bad-tempered bus driver or Steve Buscemi of all people as a former classmate of Sandler's). The "straight" characters play their relatively one-dimensional roles well enough and act as suitable foils to Sandler's zaniness. Despite the ridiculous nature of the high-concept, the writing on offer makes it seem plausible enough that you can just roll with it without much question.
So yeah, I'm not about to change my mind about the various other Sandler vehicles that annoyed me over the years, but I'll concede that Billy Madison is at least intermittently funny. Being on the lighter side of ninety minutes doesn't hurt either. Some jokes fall flat, sure, but I think the fact that I'll reference jokes from this about as frequently as I'll reference Anchorman or Fletch or even The Big Lebowski is a testament to a certain unspoken quality that the film possesses. Though I may give it what's technically a negative rating, it's still surprisingly solid.
Tamra Davis, 1995
The immature drop-out son of a wealthy hotel tycoon ends up engaging in a wager that he can finish every possible grade of school within a certain period of time in order to prove that he is capable of running his father's business.
Billy Madison is another one of those films where I'd watched practically all of it but didn't count it because I hadn't watched it from start to finish. A peculiar distinction, but I stick by it. I also figure that, despite Sandler being considerably unfunny in the bulk of his cinematic outings (especially the recent ones), I should at least try to watch this one (as well as Happy Gilmore, but I'll get to that later). Given the presence of Sandler, I of course lowered my expectations suitably and the result...well, it wasn't too bad. Granted, Sandler as the titular man-child can be rather grating, especially during the early scenes where he's communicating almost exclusively in whiny gibberish, but as the film progresses the jokes actually improve. Swapping out the annoying kid-like sing-song voice for a petulant hamminess was the right decision on Sandler's part, especially the scene where he gets an eight-year-old classmate to call up their attractive teacher. Even without having seen the movie in full, I was already capable of quoting a variety of lines from the film and even in their original context they're still funny enough (such as Chris Farley's brief role as a bad-tempered bus driver or Steve Buscemi of all people as a former classmate of Sandler's). The "straight" characters play their relatively one-dimensional roles well enough and act as suitable foils to Sandler's zaniness. Despite the ridiculous nature of the high-concept, the writing on offer makes it seem plausible enough that you can just roll with it without much question.
So yeah, I'm not about to change my mind about the various other Sandler vehicles that annoyed me over the years, but I'll concede that Billy Madison is at least intermittently funny. Being on the lighter side of ninety minutes doesn't hurt either. Some jokes fall flat, sure, but I think the fact that I'll reference jokes from this about as frequently as I'll reference Anchorman or Fletch or even The Big Lebowski is a testament to a certain unspoken quality that the film possesses. Though I may give it what's technically a negative rating, it's still surprisingly solid.