Maybe I like it so much because I anticipated it to be unfunny and really suck and it totally surprised me. My expectations were as low as you could imagine, so this movie really knocked my socks off.
I didn't expect the humor to be as adult as it was and I really liked that. Personally, I think this is one of Sandler's funnier movies. He's been really dishing out some crap lately.
I love this movie. It's Christmas tradition in our household to watch this.
http://www.purevolume.com/BigEasy98460
I enjoyed this film, especially the songs. It totally subverts the musical, seasonal and cartoon genre's all in one go. The "Technical foul" song was hilarious!!
shareMe too! I was just thinking how it really doesn't feel like Xmas time. Then I remembered I have to watch 8 crazy nights! Up top!
shareI like it too. It seems it was in the same vein as a good South Park episode, and yet it only got 5/10 on IMDB while all of Parker/Stone's movies and cartoons get higher grades.
i love love laaahve whitey & eleanor. i think they could have left out things such as deer pooping to a joke & the likes. i think that is why so many people think it's so tasteless. if they had toned down some of that element, it still would be a great movie. whitey & eleanor have to be two of the most endearing, adorable animated characters on the screen.
shareIf you laugh at this movie you are part of the problem
shareSeriously it's like one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time.
shareI guess I'm in the minority since I love this one. I haven't seen it in so long, but I found my copy of the soundtrack again and it brought me back.
Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing. -- Orson Welles
The hate for this movie is bandwagon Adam Sandler Bashing "ooo look at me I'm such a smarty pants Internet critic!" bull**** as far as I'm concerned. I don't really like the guy either (not even the more beloved ones from the 90's), but I'll give credit where credit is due even to folks I don't like, and I have to give credit to Sandler for this one. It was probably one of his BEST during that period of movies he was making at the height of his popularity. I don't know if there's another Sandler movie from back then that I'd actually want to rewatch or that's at all worthy of a rewatch other than this one.
Sure it has its absurd immature crude humor, that's just his thing, but what struck me is that it actually had a pretty good story that kind of took his past films (and current crop ATM) and turned them on his head. With those other movies, when Adam Sandler is doing something over the top or obnoxious or causing a ruckus, we're supposed to LIKE him. We're supposed to go "LOL he's the cool guy, everyone loves him!" But no, the movie itself acknowledges that Davey is the town douchebag that we're NOT supposed to like. Those drunken scenes at the beginning and the scenes where he's screwing with Whitey, the Good Guy character of the film, we're not really supposed to be laughing WITH Davey in those situations. Davey pretty much IS the antagonist of the film as the main character. And as the movie goes on he's going through a series of events to make him change from being a douchebag to not being a douchebag. Being forced to hang out with Whitey, the only person never to give up on him, makes him chill out with the self-destructive path he's on, something which is alluded to in that opening song ("I hate love, I hate you, I hate me." That line isn't there for no reason).
And I really don't understand how the backstory is throwing so many people for a loop; it makes perfect sense. Imagine you're a 12/13 year old kid just going through one of the most exciting days of his life, then all the sudden you get the bombshell dropped on you "Oh and BTW both your parents are dead, you're an orphan now." Oh yeah, he's supposed to grow up TOTALLY normal now, because NO ONE in history has ever turned to alcoholism to cope with loss, especially one as devastating as that. And add to the fact that it happened a time where everyone's like "Happiness and good cheer and family and peace on earth, weeeee!", for him that's just a dark reminder of what happened, that he doesn't have that anymore, so yeah he's going to be bitter about it. He's putting up the front of "LAWL LAWL, I don't care, you're all stoooooopid!" to hide his pain from everyone. That's how he's going to bury his feelings. It's only when he hits rock bottom and reads the Hannakuh card where his parents wish for him to continue being the boy he they loved that he finally breaks down and finally allows himself to begin healing.
Everyone else apparently wanted the same old same old Christmas special with the same old same old plucky likeable protagonist and the same old same old moralizing and lesson givings that we see in all of them, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that if you do it well, but it's crazy how ADAM SANDLER out of all people actually took it in a bolder, darker direction to do something different that really does work more often than it doesn't. It's certainly better than it should have ANY right to, but when you put your bias aside and just look at it as a movie, it's actually pretty damn solid. My IMDB rating for this is a 7/10, I sincerely do enjoy this film. No guilty pleasure here.