Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Grown Ups (2010) - Sandler & Co. look turgid in film with solely commercial appeal

3/05/2021

Grown Ups (2010) - Sandler & Co. look turgid in film with solely commercial appeal

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Five middle-aged male comedians in a water slide screaming make up this poster for Dennis Dugan's Grown Ups

Five childhood friends meet again as adults, when their high school basketball coach 'the Buzzer' passes away, and they decide to have a weekend vacation around the 4th of July.

Grown Ups is written by co-writer/co-producer/co-star Adam Sandler (Reign over Me (2007)) and Fred Wolf (Joe Dirt (2001)) and directed by Dennis Dugan (Problem Child (1990)).

In spite of the prominent funny-men (minus David Spade (Entourage (2015))) and comedienne Maya Rudolph (Sisters (2015)), Grown Ups is surprisingly unfunny. Bad jokes are mixed with vulgar or simplistic slapstick. Everyone: Maria Bello (Abduction (2011)), Salma Hayek (Traffic (2000)), Tim Meadows (Aliens in the Attic (2009)) and Steve Buscemi (Rampart (2011)) included, - look a little bit dumber for appearing in this immature, - immature in the bad way, - strained low-brow burp.

Grown Ups is a dopey product, and it seems a blatantly cynical (or is it merely dumb?) paycheck job. The characters laugh more than plenty in Grown Ups, but as audiences there's not much to grin at concerning these non-characters' outing.

Dennis Dugan: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007) - James and Sandler marry in Dugan's crude, wrongfully maligned buddy-comedy

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $

Box office: 271.4 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 3.39 times its cost)

[Grown Ups premiered 24 June (Australia, Iceland) and runs 102 minutes. Sandler earned 25 mil. $ from the film. Shooting took place in Los Angeles and Massachusetts, including Boston, from May - August 2009. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Toy Story 3, to a 40.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#4-#4) and grossed 162 mil. $ (59.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 18.2 mil. $ (6.7 %) and the UK with 12.1 mil. $ (4.5 %). Sandler bought his four male co-stars new Maserati sports cars to celebrate the film's success. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Dugan returned to direct almost the entire cast for sequel Grown Ups 2 (2013), also a hit. Dugan returned first with Just Go With It (2011). Sandler also returned in Just Go With It (2011); Kevin James (Pixels (2015)) in The Dilemma (2011); and Chris Rock (Panther (1995)) in Two Days in New York (2012). Grown Ups is rotten at 11 % with a 3.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Grown Ups?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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3/05/2021

Grown Ups (2010) - Sandler & Co. look turgid in film with solely commercial appeal

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