Cinematic Throwbacks: February 1995/2005

1995:

Billy Madison is one of the stupidest comedies ever made. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Adam Sandler was on Saturday Night Live during my favorite era of the show, when it launched some of the biggest movie comedy stars of the next decade. Sandler was always a little weirder, a little more random, and that style translated to the movies right away. 

After a few good supporting appearances, Billy Madison was his 1st starring role. And I could easily make the case that it remains his purely funniest movie.

What a glorious time it was for the idiot comedy. Dumb and Dumber had just come out a few months earlier, and Tommy Boy was on the horizon. 

Billy is the stupid, lazy son of a wealthy hotel chain owner, and presumed heir. But to actually get the company, he has to go back to school and pass grades 1-12. Yeah, he was so dumb he couldn't pass 1st grade on his own. 

The premise alone is fertile ground for comedy, but what makes this movie so damn funny to this day is the way Sandler and his writers throw in every random gag they can think of, whether it really ties into anything plot-related at all. 

I always find it hard to do these blogs for comedies, cause how do you get across how funny something is without just basically repeating quotes? But this movie stays hilarious. And the randomness of the jokes doesn't mean they aren't smartly done. There's a ton of setup and payoff here. 

Sandler himself is really funny, but the movie is gold because of how many laughs come from everybody else in this. His SNL pals Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald show up a couple of times to fire off funny lines, but the movie even makes the villain (Bradley Whitford) funny. And Bridgette Wilson gets in a few too as the 1st of Sandler's many way too hot love interests.

This wasn't the biggest of Sandler's movies. Those would come later. And some of them are better. But for pure pound for pound laughs, nothing beats this debut. 

2005:

Keanu Reeves' inimitable now nearly 40 year career has had its share of no doubt, more or less agreed upon classics (Matrix, Speed, Point Break  John Wick). 

But he's got one that I for sure feel ranks right up there with those other genre classics: Constantine

Constantine arrived during that mid-2000s comic book movie era where some of the key franchises had launched, but the genre hadn't had its big takeover yet.

Firmly in the DC canon (the character later turned up in a TV series and Legends of Tomorrow), Constantine is a grouchy, chain smoking exorcist, tasked with sending demons back to hell who attempt to cross over into our world. 

The premise is that God and the devil each have beings in the real world, attempting to influence people to either do good or evil. The film is loaded with world building exposition that is really cool.

Rachel Weisz is great as a detective whose investigation of her twin sister's apparent suicide brings her into contact with Constantine. This might be her peak. She damn sure never looked better. 

Reeves is actually a really great fit for his role, and gives one of his best performances. His John Wick persona owes a lot to this film. 

I loved how cheekily subversive this is. It shows god as kind of aloof and uncaring, an angel is the evil mastermind, and when we do meet Lucifer (Peter Stormare in one great scene), he's kind of reasonable. The film is very cynical. 

It's a cool premise, and would have seemed to be set up for a franchise. So what happened? Well, the film was a hit, but not THAT big a hit. And I guess with Batman and Superman movies launching (or trying to) new franchises in the next couple years, I guess Constantine just wasn't a priority. But supposedly, Reeves wants to make another one of these, and it's in the works. 

Other non-deep dive flicks...

1985:

-The Breakfast Club: The quintessential John Hughes movie. 

-Vision Quest: Cheesy sports movie about a high school wrestler. 1st movie appearance by Madonna. 

1995:

-The Quick and the Dead: A flop at the time, this Sam Raimi directed western led by Sharon Stone and featuring a pre-stardom Leonardo DiCaprio has become a big cult film. 

-The Brady Bunch Movie: This was a weirdly big deal when it came out. The Bradys acting like their 70s selves in a 90s setting was pretty amusing. 

-Just Cause: Cool thriller with Sean Connery trying to save a guy from death row. 

-Jerky Boys: The Movie: Remember the Jerky Boys? I do. I had a few of their prank call albums. Their movie, though, was very bad. 

-Shallow Grave: The breakthrough film from Danny Boyle.  

-The Walking Dead: No, not the TV show. This was a war movie about black soldiers in Vietnam. 

2005:

-Hitch: The romcom died out in the 2000s, but this was one of the last really big ones, starring Will Smith in "fuck it let me just be super charming" mode. 

-Cursed: A Wes Craven/Kevin Williamson werewolf movie should have been an easy success, but this had a famously disastrous production and came out pretty blah. Crazy weird early 2000s cast though, with Christina Ricci in the lead, and with Shannon Elizabeth, Mya, and a pre-stardom Jesse Eisenberg among it. 

-Man of the House: Tommy Lee Jones protecting a bunch of cheerleaders. I know I saw it cause it had hot actresses playing hot cheerleaders. I'm not made of stone. 

2015:

-Kingsman: The Secret Service: Matthew Vaughn's very popular spy movie parody/homage, with some R-rated seasoning. This part really holds up (and introduced us to Sofia Boutella) but the subsequent franchise entries have disappointed. 

-The Duff: A super underrated high school comedy (and one of the last of its kind to hit theaters). Mae Whitman killed in this. 

-Focus: A pretty good conman film, with excellent performances by Will Smith and.Margot Robbie. 

-Fifty Shades of Grey: The first installment of the utterly boring and laughable trilogy. 

-Jupiter Ascending: One of the decade's real fiascos, an incoherent sci-fi extravaganza from the Wachowskis. 

-Seventh Son: Some medieval nonsense with Jeff Bridges. 

-Hot Tub Time Machine 2: Legitimately one of the worst sequels of all time. 

Coming in March...

Another pretty quiet month, led by the 30th anniversaries of Tommy Boy and Outbreak.