Word: waterboy
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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With the exception of There's Something About Mary, the highest grossing films of 1998 have been action thrillers. Even The Waterboy has drawn big crowds by advertising Adam Sandler's gruesome football hits. There is nothing shocking about this statistic. High budget action movies have ruled the box office for the last decade...
What is shocking is how bad the majority of these films are. Armageddon, Deep Impact and Godzilla cleared over $100 million each at the box office. Godzilla, which took in over $130 million according to Rolling Stone magazine, is the worst film that I have ever seen. Even The Waterboy is less than mediocre, as Adam Sandler's zany nonsequitur humor takes a back seat to highly physical comedy. Too many directors seem to have forgotten George Lucas' advice, that "special effects without a story is a pretty boring thing...
...Waterboy...
...movies tend to remind us of being in sixth grade again," says Frank Coraci, director of The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy--and, like Sandler-film screenwriter Tim Herlihy, a pal of the star's since they were all at New York University a decade ago. That's exactly right. The films are full of preadolescent aggression, exaggerated for laughs. In Billy Madison, Sandler gets his kicks by leaving a bag of flaming feces at a neighbor's door, saying the F word in a roomful of first-graders, mocking a stuttering boy. As a clumsy hockey player in Happy...
...Waterboy opened to a critical drubbing and the highest three-day box office of any nonsummer movie in history. It seems Sandler's films need neither credible plot, big-name co-stars nor production values. He just needs new ideas. Perhaps this week's headlines can help...