Tynan's Anger

If you can find a clip that is more reflective of Adam Sandler's career than last night's Daily Show interview, I'd like to see it.

Sandler, showing up in clothes even I would hesitate to wear outside and obviously quite drunk, went through all the highs and lows of his career in about 6 minutes. For starters, he was much more willing to talk about his package than his new film, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, and The Daily Show was the perfect forum to discuss the twisted politics of the film (Jon Stewart had a hard time hiding how pissed off he). Sandler's genitals have been a constant source of fascination to himself for years. One thing I noted about Sandler is that when he's drunk, he tends to act more like a character in his movies. He was loud, obnoxious, immature, and conceited. These are the kinds of attitudes that define the terms adolescent and sophomoric, and you can see in these six minutes why 13-16 year old boys of the last 15 years (myself ashamedly included) have added hundreds of millions to his bankroll. Yet, somehow, through all the dickishness, he manages to throw in a couple of brilliant lines and deliveries that make you realize what kind of talent he's actually hiding, and hope that some day he'll be able to bring it out more consistently. His bit about how his mom influenced his ego was a brilliant little piece of social commentary, and I was laughing quite loudly at 6 am when I heard his closing comment about coming next time with a Chai shirt. Perhaps most significantly, this Daily Show interview went without a single mention of Big Daddy, which I'm just about positive must be a first.

I've been waiting for about half my life for Sandler to highlight the strengths of his SNL work and the depth he showed in films like Punch Drunk Love and Spanglish. Pending a Bill Murray-like transformation, I don't see it happening. All early accounts indicate that You Don't Mess With the Zohan will be as Waterboy-esque as ever, but I'm seeing it this afternoon anyway in hopes that the Arab-Israeli jokes are as of now untouched enough for some fresh material to come out, and they could have found a lot worse writers to handle it than Judd Apatow and Robert Smigel. Basically, if the humor is at least 35% West Bank Story as opposed to typical Sandler material, I will be satisfied.

Labels: adam sandler, daily show, jon stewart, you don't mess with the zohan