The Adam Sandler Post
This newsletter is about Adam Sandler. And probably some other things too.
If I could have any actor's career, I think it would have to be Adam Sandler.
Sure, I may not get the accolades of a Daniel Day-Lewis or Meryl Streep. I wouldn’t be on the cover of fashion magazines like Margot Robbie or Andrew Garfield. But honestly … Sandler has it all figured out.
The man without fail makes movies for Netflix while recruiting his friends for bit parts in exotic locations, and he gets the streamer to pay the bill at the end of the day.
Every so often, he decides to get back into serious acting and blows everyone out of the water. He once had a wrap party at Katz’s Deli and just starred in a movie in which Dr. J plays a pivotal role.
Speaking of the good doctor, this post was sparked by Hustle, a perfectly fine (to good) Netflix movie which stars Sandler playing a scout facsimile of Sandler. He’s married to Queen Latifah, discusses basketball prospects with Khris Middleton and gets drinks with Kenny Smith next to a rooftop pool. It’s one of the better late-period Sandler movies as it feels like there’s real time and effort going into it with The Sandman giving one of the better performances of his career.
A quick glance at his IMDb will show that Sandler has 82 credits as an actor and 60 as a producer. If you have any sense of humor and were born in the 70s or later, Sandler is most likely a pivotal comedian when it came to you forming your sense of humor. The man is a legend in all respects.
Like Hustle shows—or in other more-serious works like Funny People, The Meyerowitz Stories, Punch-Drunk Love or Uncut Gems—Sandler is a legitimately great actor when he has a script and emotional resonance to maneuver. He’s just a magnetic presence that is simultaneously both familiar and alien.
Recently, for no reason whatsoever, I put together a list of my favorite movies of his. And that list goes as follows…
Punch-Drunk Love
Happy Gilmore
The Meyerowitz Stories
Uncut Gems
Big Daddy
There are a plethora of others that could sneak in there from Billy Madison to The Waterboy to 50 First Dates to The Wedding Singer to Eight Crazy Nights to You Don't Mess with the Zohan to even Hotel Transylvania (very fun). We haven’t even discussed his iconic Hanukkah song yet.
You might be asking, okay, so what’s the point of this post? and this is really it. It’s time that we induct Sandler into the acting pantheon. He has more money than god and is still giving us tremendous content with his family and friends from Hawaii or Prague or (one day) Mars.
He’s one of our best Jews, and we should continue to treat him as such.
This newsletter is as good a reason as any to recommend one of (in my opinion) the best movies of all time: Punch-Drunk Love.
Known as one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s lesser movies, this rom-com(?) is maybe my favorite thing he’s done, and that’s saying something. The core construct centers around taking Adam Sandler’s shtick and dropping it into a more dangerous world with real consequences.
If you look closely, Sandler is still playing his usual character. He’s an angry man-child with a quick fuse and a social awkwardness, except in this case it’s not played for laughs. You can tell PTA loves Sandler and tried to make his best version of a Sandler rom-com. It even has the destination vacation that the latter has made his trademark.
One of the best scores, one of the best Philip Seymour Hoffman performances and one of the best uses of Luis Guzmán all come together to make a flawless movie.
I’ve written about this one before and I’ll definitely write about it again.
