Will Adam Sandler finally win his Oscar?

August 15, 2017 11:55 AM

The first teaser trailer for Noah Baumbach's new movie, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) has just been released prior to its appearance at the New York Film Festival in late September.

The movie received a four minute standing ovation at its release at the Cannes film festival, where it also won the coveted Palm Dog for best canine performance in a film by Bruno the poodle. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, who just turned 80 on August 8th, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel, Ben Stiller, and Adam Sandler, who has been gaining considerable notice for his performance in the film. No, really.

But for all the buzz, neither Sandler nor the movie itself may win any awards as it comes attached to some controversy. The Meyerowitz Stories, along with Joon-ho Bong's Okja, are produced by Netflix, which has had many theater owners and some creators in an uproar over their day-to-date release policy, where a movie is released to theaters, streaming, and iTunes all on the same day.

Netflix defends the policy, but there is a belief this will cost the film its chance for Oscars. Sorry Adam!

As a bonus, links to the rest of the films on the NYFF schedule:
Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying Opens the fest
Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck (trailer)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Before We Vanish (Intl trailer)
Robin Campillo's 120 Beats Per Minute (120 battements par minute) (Intl trailer)
Clair Denis' Un beau soleil intérieur/Bright Sunshine In (clips/interviews)
Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name (Intl trailer)
Sang-soo Hong's The Day After (Intl trailer) and On the Beach at Night Alone (clip)
Agnes Varda & JR's Faces Places/Visages villages (Intl trailer)
Alain Gomis' Félicité (trailer)
Sean Baker's The Florida Project (trailer)
Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael’s Ghosts/Les fantômes d’Ismaël (Intl trailer)
Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird
Philippe Garrel's Lover for a Day/L’Amant d’un jour (trailer)
Serge Bozon's Mrs. Hyde/Madame Hyde
Dee Rees' Mudbound
Aki Kaurismäki's The Other Side of Hope/Toivon tuolla puolen (trailer)
Chloé Zhao's The Rider (clip)
Agnieszka Holland & Kasia Adamik's Spoor/Pokot (trailer)
Ruben Östlund's, Palme d'Or winning, The Square (trailer)
Joachim Trier's Thelma (trailer)
Valeska Grisebach's Western (trailer)
Lucrecia Martel's Zama (trailer)

posted by gusottertrout (28 comments total)

I always loved Adam because he looks quite a bit like my older brother. Happy to hear he's made something worthwhile - I'll definitely watch it.
posted by alon at 12:17 PM on August 15, 2017

I feel really conflicted about this because I love Noah Baumbach but watching this means I'd have to break my lifelong streak of never having seen an Adam Sandler movie.
posted by darksong at 12:28 PM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Adam Sandler deserves a lifetime achievement Oscar for all the laughter he's brought to the movies - low comedy gets no respect for the service it provides humanity.
posted by fairmettle at 12:36 PM on August 15, 2017 [8 favorites]

Sandler has it in him to offer performances like he does in Punch Drunk Love and Funny People. You can see some flashes of genuine moments from him in many of his better comedies, but I think the knowledge that he can phone it in and still make money has sort of hobbled him as an actor. I would love to see more of the Punch Drunk Love Adam Sandler though. One of my favorite films and favorite performances.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:41 PM on August 15, 2017 [23 favorites]

Adam Sandler can be very, very good, as in Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People. He's doesn't make a lot of money for being very, very good, though, and, as far as I can tell, so he mostly does garbage and makes a lot of money for it.

I wish he were more concerned with excellence than with money. I wish he didn't have a coterie of mediocrities around him that make fortunes off his work, like Rob Schneider and Kevin James.

It would be weird to be in a better world where Sandler was considered one of our better, more daring actors. I imagine that's a world where Clinton is president.
posted by maxsparber at 12:57 PM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

What might be between him and a Sandlerssance of sorts is that his movies might be the easiest, lowest common denominator comedies, but it seems everyone has great fun making them, like a nice vacation with a paycheck. Considering good comedies aren't exactly a good way to charm their way into critics and awards (just yesterday Apatow complained about that) and might get fewer screens anyway, I'd also think twice before giving up something fun and profitable trying to chase what isn't there.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:03 PM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

lifetime achievement Oscar for all the laughter

I still giggle from time to time about Opera-Man
posted by turkeybrain at 1:19 PM on August 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

I've always kind of wondered if Adam Sandler is really good in those serious movies he's in, or if he just seems good compared to all the funny-voice "comedies" he churns out. 'Cause, man, it would be awfully easy to seem Oscar-worthy compared to some of that stuff. Ditto Jim Carrey.

This conundrum doesn't apply to The Wedding Singer, though. He's great in that.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:23 PM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

He was legit good in Punch Drunk Love. And The Wedding Singer.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:37 PM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I can see the Variety full-page ad already:

   FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

   Can my pals and I just have a check for $10,000,000 instead?

   -Adam Sandler
posted by Guy Smiley at 2:12 PM on August 15, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'd also think twice before giving up something fun and profitable trying to chase what isn't there

If he starts making fun movies again, I am right there with you.
posted by maxsparber at 2:25 PM on August 15, 2017

You know how some actors or directors get an Oscar not really for the actual film or performance nominated that year, but as a sort of sop from the Academy since they have produced lots of good work but have been passed over in the past? Like when Scorsese won Best Director for the Departed (instead of Mean Streets, or Taxi Driver, or Raging Bull, or Goodfellas, etc.).

There should be the opposite, where someone like Sandler who has flooded the world with contemptuous garbage for so many years, vomiting intelligence-annihilating dreck on a regular basis, is never allowed to win an Oscar even if he gives a magnificent performance.

I stand athwart any inkling of a "Sandlerissance" yelling "Stop!"
posted by Falconetti at 2:39 PM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow, Falconetti, what a brave stance...
posted by Pendragon at 3:17 PM on August 15, 2017

This looks like fun. I'm not a huge Sandler fan, but I will defend Happy Gilmore and 50 First Dates to the death. They are stupid, but they are fucking charming.
posted by Mchelly at 3:27 PM on August 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

As charming as Adam Sandler can be, The Ridiculous Six put me off my feed a bit.
posted by pxe2000 at 3:41 PM on August 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are more bad Adam Sandler movies than good ones, as far as the Codger household is concerned. But we will give this a watch.
posted by Artful Codger at 3:50 PM on August 15, 2017

As charming as Adam Sandler can be, The Ridiculous Six put me off my feed a bit.

Seriously. He's a racist jackass.
posted by suelac at 4:27 PM on August 15, 2017 [5 favorites]

I love that Agnes Varda is still making films at the age of 89. She's just awesome.
posted by octothorpe at 7:17 PM on August 15, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yeah, although I know I sort of buried it in the Sandler, I do hope people check out the trailers for the other movies that'll be showing at NYFF since most of them look pretty interesting.

Varda and JR's movie looks charming, Haynes' Wonderstruck seems like new territory for him, Holland's Spoor looks kinda nuts, in a good way, as do Kurosawa's Before We Vanish and Treir's Thelma. I haven't seen a Sean Baker film before, but The Florida Project's trailer is promising, but Martel's Zama might be the one I'm most intrigued by since she's always good and also seems to be branching out in a new direction judging by the trailer.

Those are just the movies that jumped out as most unexpected, with the others seeming to be more clearly connected to the directors' past work, which is no bad thing for most of them. So it seems like it'll be a solid line up, even if perhaps lacking one absolute "must see" title so far.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:40 PM on August 15, 2017

Whoah...Richard Linklater has made a sequel to The Last Detail? Very interesting.

(And really looking forward to the "How can they make a sequel to The Last Exorcism, wasn't the first one about the *last* exorcism, lol" comedians chiming in.)
posted by doctornecessiter at 6:20 AM on August 16, 2017

I may be the only one, but I for one really liked Spanglish, and thought Sandler was excellent in it. (Punch-Drunk Love too, but that's been mentioned.)

On the other hand, Noah Baumbach movies always make me depressed. And the Noah Baumbach/Wes Anderson movies are my least favorite Wes Anderson movies. The Squid & the Whale put me in a funk for like a week.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:00 AM on August 16, 2017

Whoah...Richard Linklater has made a sequel to The Last Detail? Very interesting.

Huh, I didn't know about about that connection. They filmed it around here in Pittsburgh, a friend of mine is an extra but I didn't know what it was about. I can see Linklater being a Hal Ashby fan.
posted by octothorpe at 8:50 AM on August 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm good with the Sandler/Baumbach combination.
posted by rhizome at 12:28 PM on August 16, 2017

It doesn't really matter if your team has played shitty football for 30 straight years, if they win games, they get in the playoffs, if they're better than the other team on Superbowl Sunday, they get the trophy.

If you give an Oscar worthy performance, you get an Oscar.
posted by VTX at 3:19 PM on August 16, 2017 [2 favorites]

If you give an Oscar worthy performance, you get an Oscar.

Well, no. It's not a stretch at all to imagine every person nominated has given an Oscar-worthy performance that year. Further, doing so absolutely doesn't guarantee nomination. There's a lot of politicking involved.
posted by uberchet at 1:12 PM on August 17, 2017 [1 favorite]

There are a lot of "we forgot to give you an award for decades so we'll give you one now" kind of instances with the Oscars. I mean no one really thought that Newman's award for The Color of Money was really for that movie.
posted by octothorpe at 1:24 PM on August 17, 2017

See also Pacino for Scent of a Woman. Honestly, I'd put Penn's nod for Mystic River in that set, too.
posted by uberchet at 2:56 PM on August 17, 2017

The Supporting Oscars have been about 80 percent "Best New Star", "Best Career Without An Oscar", or "Oh Look We Can Give An Oscar To A Nonwhite Person" since Marisa Tomei at least.
posted by Etrigan at 5:07 PM on August 17, 2017