Big Daddy

(REWATCHED)

Dennis Dugan, 1999

Can I Stream It?

3/5

Sonny Koufax is a law school graduate aiming low with a job at a New York City tollbooth. When a child belonging to his out-of-town roommate appears at his doorstep, he decides to use the opportunity of fatherhood to prove himself to some of the disappointed people in his life. 

Big Daddy represents a period in time where Adam Sandler was still using his creative energy to star in films that had a simple construct but delivered a fulfilling story. And although it's a flawed film, it sets you up, pulls you in, and leaves you quite satisfied after it's over. He is basically the same character in every film that he stars in. The lazy guy, who has a niche talent with a short temper and manages to overcome an obstacle and surprises everyone in the end. Oh yeah, and he always gets that girl that he didn't stand a chance with early on. Big Daddy is of course no different. In fact, the flaws in this film may be more frustrating than those in Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore. Sonny and Kevin (John Stewart) manage to have this apartment that would likely cost upwards of $5000 a month. Kevin may be able to carry that weight, but he would likely not be willing to carry his college buddy who only can offer a simple tollbooth income. Well, maybe he's the nicest most generous college buddy in the world. Then there's the social worker Arthur Brooks, played by the great Sandler-centric Josh Mostel. Arthur is a bit too facilitating, simply agreeing on a handshake to quietly set up a family for Julian while he can play Dad for a few weeks. Sonny is also this lawyer in hiding who his working friends ask for legal advice at cocktail parties and he seems to know of the one case that they didn't. And there's the bad acting by Julian, played by the McGrath twins. Perhaps it's unfair to judge them harshly. They are kids.

With all the flaws, there is still something not only entertaining but endearing about this film. You like Julian. You're rooting for Sunny. You want to see it work out. If the film was that bad, you wouldn't give a shit. Perhaps that's the saving grace. The one redeeming element. You want Sonny to have this sudden successful evolution. This life-changing, maturity-forcing break. It's one of the last good films for Sandler. After this he seemed to devolve even further, although he ironically went on to deliver the best performance of his career in Punch Drunk Love (of course with the best direction of his career). Real-life fatherhood seemed to change Sandler. He continued to linger on that whole not horrible film, but not really that great trend for a few more films (50 First Dates, Click, Mr. Deeds). But then it really went south. Luckily, some of these not-so-bad films are preserved. At least we can file this one under Guilty Pleasures. 

Deep Impact

Mimi Leder, 1998

Can I Stream It?

(REWATCHED)

3/5

A comet is on a collision course with earth. If destroyed, a group of astronauts will have saved the world. If not successfully destroyed, it could be the end of life as we know it.

History hasn't been so kind to Deep Impact, and perhaps that's not right. Perhaps it hasn't gotten it's fair shake. In the world of mostly-bad big budget Hollywood blockbusters, Deep Impact is one of the better end-of-the world pictures. Pitted against Armageddon in the summer of 1998, Leder's doomsday film is worlds above Michael Bay's uninspired Aerosmith-fueled crap-fest. And by no means is this film perfect. Neil Degrasse Tyson probably throws his iPad at the screen when it's on HBO. The idea of landing a spaceship on an giant asteroid and igniting a nuclear bomb in the core of it is a bit over the top. There's some obviously bad performances (Leelee Sobieski & Elijah Wood being two of them). But if you can suspend disbelief, there is some meat on the bones. The build up of the story is done well, and never really falls off the tracks. The ongoing story threads: the government trying to minimize the destruction, the media reporting it, the general population processing the reality of what's going on, the astronauts on their mission to save the world - they all move through the film without really petering out. The idea of a lottery system in place for an emergency evacuation is actually impressively detailed and has a certain moral component to it. Jenny Lerner's conflict with her father marrying a younger woman touches on the micro part of the story. Morgan Freeman isn't bad as the first President of the United States with a tattoo. The special effects are quite solid, they even feel quite ahead of their time. Robert Duvall is good in anything you put him in. There's some accidental comedy too, like the guy reading the newspaper in Washington Square Park at a time when it makes absolutely NO sense to be reading one. There's something seductive about Deep Impact, even if it is just a guilty pleasure that has you waiting to see the big climax. But an argument can be made that there's more it than that. Such as the beautiful score playing through the end credits.