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Memo to Sandler Et Al. : Stop Remaking Good Movies

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Dear Adam,  

I understand your predicament. You finally made a movie that Roger Ebert liked (Punch Drunk Love) and nobody went to see it. Hell, even the fat man saw it for free. It must be horrible to put your heart and soul into a quality piece of work only to be abandoned by your millions of snickering male 14 year old fans. I’m guessing your co-collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson is pumping lots of good time Boogie Nights style nudity into his next movie as we speak.  

Nevertheless, let’s take a moment to assess your career. In all likelihood you’re worth well over a hundred million dollars thanks to about four funny voices, your rudimentary guitar and singing skills, thousands of masturbation references, a good relationship with Steve Buscemi and John Turturro, and a free lifetime membership to Hooters. Life’s been pretty good to you. You’re so successful that somehow Rob Schneider has a movie career and I’d be shocked if we don’t one day see a “The Best of Adam Sandler on Remote Control” DVD at a Blockbuster near even radical militia members somewhere out in the forests of Montana. Is it too much to ask that you at least come up with a half baked idea for your next movie?

 Wasn’t it bad enough that you already crapped all over Frank Capra’s Mr. Deed’s Goes to Town, do you really have to re-make The Longest Yard too? I know what your saying. Tim Burton got to re-make Planet of the Apes, it was maybe a hair better than Battlefield Earth, and still some moron is giving him startup dough to try and re-do the perfectly brilliant Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Gus Van Zant re-puked out Pyscho shot for shot for reasons even the Dalai Lama can’t fathom and presumably he still gets to be a big shot director. There isn’t an original idea in Hollywood. I get it, but is it too much to ask that you spend your time and clout getting something worthwhile to the local Cineplex like Deuce Bigalow 2: The Pursuit of Cash!

 (At this point stunned writer moseys over to IMDB to figure out how to properly spell Bigalow and is infinitely shocked and more than a little saddened to see that Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo is in production as we speak. Executive Producer: Adam Sandler. Mo Money! Mo Money! Mo Money!) 

Even your old office mate the nation’s top stand-up comic alive Chris Rock isn’t above a little man whoring. Chris released a remake of Heaven Can Wait called Down to Earth a couple of years ago that was so bad I couldn’t sit through it at 3 AM in the middle of a blustery winter night while suffering from insomnia. His rationale at the time was that he’d seen the Warren Beatty version and was shocked that he’d never heard of such a good movie. Dude, check yourself, your ignorance of film history does not merit making me long for Susan Powter infomercials to help me get through the night. If you can’t make a movie better than a Girl’s Gone Wild commercial go back to the drawing board and see what Marion Berry is up to so you can go back on tour and swear some more. Sure it sucks that you can’t get a R rated movie financed but face it some people just aren’t funny when they work clean and you’re one of them. I know Eddie Murphy’s your hero but the King of the Family Entertainment Sell Out title has been taken and Steve Martin’s not going to let you cut in front of him while waiting in line.  

Here’s the rule folks. Don’t remake good movies. Take a cue from George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, the movies worth re-doing are the one’s that had a decent premise but sucked the first time around like Ocean’s Eleven. Case closed. I don’t care if you think you have a new angle. I don’t care if the original was in Black and White. I don’t care if you think tossing in a scene of Vince Vaughan whacking it will thrill and shock the world. If it’s been done good once leave it alone! 

Hey, I’m not going to sit here and say The Longest Yard was the greatest piece of cinematic genius in the history of the world, but it was a damn good movie. The football scenes were killer. Burt had hair. Burt banged Bernadette Peters, who had a gob load of hair, while in chains.  The cons’ Mean Machine uniforms were so cool Axl Rose used to wear them when he wasn’t fat and didn’t suck. God help me, my life is tough enough without having to see how Adam Sandler is going to re-invent those killer Black Transvestite Cheerleaders.   

Adam you’ve already made a classic football movie, The Cajun Guy er Water Boy. You’ve made a golf movie about a hockey player. Isn’t there a lacrosse story somewhere inside of you yearning to get out? I flatly admit that I have no life. I flatly admit that I’m so bored and lonely that I’ll go out and see whatever piece of filth you puke out after breakfast tomorrow morning. Is it too much to ask that your next horrible movie effort be more original than that episode of Gilligan’s Island where the castaways are seconds away from being rescued before Gilligan accidently screws the pooch to hilarious effect?

 P.S. Dear Howard Stern — Rock and Roll High School was all about the Ramones. I don’t care how much you look like the dear departed Joey. Leave it alone! 

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