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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2011
Sandler’s proudly lowbrow ‘Jack and Jill’
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n Judd Apatow’s “Funny People,” Adam Sandler played a middle-age comedian whose career was built on a series of popular but absurdly low-brow movies. The movies are trotted out in faux trailers: “Redux,” in which he plays a 6month-old baby; “My Best Friend Is a Robot,” with Owen Wilson as the robot; and, most memorably, “Mer-man,” where Sandler plays a masculine mermaid. If you slid “Jack and Jill” into that lineup, no one would even blink. The film, in which Sandler plays both sides of male-female identical twins, feels like a joke trailer stretched into a feature film. That isn’t necessarily contrary to the aims of “Jack and Jill,” a gleefully stupid movie much more in line with Sandler’s earlier comedies than his later, more adventurous movies. It’s directed by Sandler’s longtime filmmaking partner Dennis Dugan, who directed one of those early Sandler movies (“Happy Gilmore”) as well as more recent failures such as last year’s “Grown Ups” and the much more interesting and funny “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.” In “Jack and Jill,” Sandler plays Jack Sadelstein, a TV commercial producer, married to Erin (Katie Holmes) with two children (Rohan Chand, Elodie Tougne). Thanksgiving brings an unwelcome visit from his twin sister Jill (Sandler). Sandler plays Jill as he might have for a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, and Jill is less a real character than a walking punch line. She has a thick Bronx accent, a masculine physique and is completely out of touch. Sandler plays her more like an older Jewish mother than a 43-year-old. Jack is aggressively mean to his sister, whose visit, much to his chagrin, keeps being extended. Jill proves useful, though, because she’s surprisingly fetching to a handful of men, most notably Al Pacino. That’s convenient for Jack, whose trying to get Pacino to act in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad. Pacino, who plays himself in a surprisingly large part, is, one fears, going the Robert De Niro route here, using his esteemed reputation to parody himself. With ga-ga eyes, he chases relentlessly after Jill, who is largely unimpressed. It must be said: Pacino is good in the film and gets most of the laughs. His total commitment to character applies even in a movie such as this, where he’s lovesick for a Sandler in drag. Comedy has always been part of Pacino’s range. Still, when Pacino finally cuts the hip-hop-style commercial and afterward tells Jack, “Burn this,” I’m inclined to agree. For fans of Sandler’s sillier movies, “Jack and Jill” (which Sandler co-wrote with Steve Koren, from a story by Ben Zook) will likely provide something satisfyingly adolescent and cartoonish. There are all the kinds of things you’d expect: fart jokes, poor filmmaking (a scene at a Lakers game, obviously shot on a green screen, is unusually shoddy); and cameos from the usual crowd (David Spade, Tim Meadows, Norm MacDonald) and a few less predictable ones (Johnny Depp, John McEnroe, Regis Philbin, Shaquille O’Neal). But the unapologetically idiotic “Jack and Jill” comes off like the last 15 years of comedy didn’t happen. Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and many others have made comedy smarter and wittier, while being just as irreverent. Comedy moved on from the mid1990s, and it’s time Sandler did, too. “Jack and Jill” even gives fart jokes a bad name. —AP
Masked revelers parade at the start of the carnival in the western German city of Cologne yesterday. Carnival goers mainly in the Rhine region traditionally celebrate the launch of the festivities at 11 minutes past 11 o’clock. —AFP
‘Warrior’ director’s secret agenda he kept from studio G
avin O’Connor had a secret agenda for “Warrior.” The writer-director knew that Lionsgate liked the film. “They said they wanted to make the movie at my first sit-down,” O’Connor said at a Q&A following a presentation of the film at TheWrap’s Awards Season Screening Series Wednesday night at the Landmark Theater. But here’s what the studio didn’t know: “I didn’t want to use movie stars for the two roles.” Instead, he had his eye on a couple of little-known actors from overseas. Lionsgate knowing that would have raised a problem, O’Connor said. The studio’s “whole business model does not apply to this movie because you can’t sell it overseas” without stars, he told the capacity crowd. But there’s a bit of irony to the ending of O’Connor’s tale. As it turned out, the littleknown actors he snuck under the fence were
Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton-now among the most in-demand stars in Hollywood. And O’Connor had a big name in his pocket-his neighbor Nick Nolte was his choice for a supporting role. Nolte also joined the post-screening discussion, hosted by TheWrap’s Brent Lang. “Warrior” is about two estranged brothers, Tommy and Brendan Conlon, who end up reuniting while pummeling each other in a mixed martial arts competition. Nolte plays their father, a recovering alcoholic and former boxer. Despite the violent content, it’s a tender movie that started with O’Connor’s idea about two brothers on a collision course. “I wanted one brother to die-to die at the hands of his brother-so he can be reborn,” O’Connor said. “It’s biblical, and it’s Greek.” O’Connor provided a glance into the making of the movie- and into casting Hardy. He said
that he knew he wanted Hardy for the part, but that Hardy told him he’s not good at auditioning. The director told Hardy, “there’s no way I can get you in this movie without auditioning.” So he suggested the actor come to his house, where they could rehearse the audition and make sure it worked out. “He showed up on a Sunday night,” O’Connor said. “At midnight, there was a knock at my door and he lived with me for five days. He did! He never left. And it was actually great because I got to know him.” Nolte chortled. “Tom Hardy can audition,” he said. “Believe me, he can audition.” Nolte said he played a similar trick on Paul Mazursky, his director in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” Mazursky visited the actor at his home, where Nolte insisted that the two read the script. Out loud. — (TheWrap.com)
Cheap Trick plans Chicago eatery, museum T
he band Cheap Trick plans to open a rock ‘n’ roll-themed eatery and museum in a Chicago neighborhood that was once home to the city’s most famous and influential blues and R&B record labels. Dave Frey, Cheap Trick’s manager, told Reuters on Thursday the band hopes to be an anchor tenant in an entertainment district being created on the stretch of South Michigan Avenue, where Chess, Brunswick and Vee-Jay Records were headquartered during their heyday and musicians from Aretha Franklin to Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones recorded. Frey said the band’s proposed project-ten-
tatively called Cheap Trick Chicago-would include a radio station, a performance space and an instrument museum, as well as a restaurant. Additional details will be released once financing is completed, Frey said. The neighborhood, located between the city’s massive McCormick Place convention center and its busy downtown, boasts a number of formerly opulent but now vacant auto showrooms from the golden age of U.S. car making. Local official Bob Fioretti has long believed the district, which saw some condominium conversions before the real estate market declined, would be better suited for nightclubs
and other commercial uses. Although often referred to as the city’s Motor Row District, the area is best known as the center of Chicago’s influential recording industry during the 1950s and 1960s. Legends including Franklin, Berry, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Etta James, Koko Taylor and Buddy Guy all recorded at area studios, and bands like the Stones and the Yardbirds made pilgrimages here when they visited the city. Cheap Trick was founded in the early 1970s in Rockford, Illinois, about 60 miles west of Chicago. Its biggest hits include “Surrender” and “I Want You to Want Me.” —Reuters