Introduction 7/31/26

Howdy everyone! It's great to be back! I gotta say, I missed getting to share my days with everyone. I've gotten some much needed rest from blogging for more than 50 days straight, and I feel pretty great.

You know, I feel like my last blog was pretty serious which I think was of an appropriate time and place. I did take all that I wrote very serious after all! But I've been thinking, as of late I've been a little more in a silly mood. So what better way to get silly than to talk about a comedian notorious for terrible movies!

I'm sure you all know Adam Sandler! A-list celebrity for more than 30 years now. There not many people that make movies as consistently as him. Since his film debut in 1989, Adam Sandler has seen immense success, first gaining notoriety from SNL in the early 90s, then starring in a host of comedy movies throughout the mid-late 90s until eventually founding his own production company, all while he gained additional success through stand-up.

Adam Sandler performing on Saturday Night Live

No matter who you are, everyone has an opinion of Adam Sandler. Some love him and dub him a comedy genius. Others think he is not funny at all, and all he can do is be loud and annoying. I must say that before I began this journey, I definitely fit in the latter camp. I had maybe seen fewer than 10 of his movies and the only one I even liked was Happy Gilmore. I thought that he was just a one trick pony whose style of comedy was able to be successful once, but never again.

So in early 2022, I was hanging out with Kosuke, and for some reason we got on the topic of Adam Sandler. It's not like this was an incredibly rare occurrence for us, we are known connoisseurs of bad movies after all. I got curious about what his first movie was, and then I saw the poster and synopsis for Going Overboard. "Kosuke, we have to watch this!"

We invited over our good friend Ashe as we watched his very first movie while realizing that we were still in the first 2 weeks of the year. We looked up how many movies he had, and it seemed like there was the perfect amount for us to watch one every week for a year.

It started as a joke, as many good ideas do, but despite this seeming like an incredibly painful experience to so many, it actually sounded fun to me. Ashe and I worked to make the list of appropriate movies, and, without even realizing it in the moment, the journey of the year was underway.

We stayed remarkably consistent for the entire year. People would come in and out based on movies they wanted to watch. I created a Letterboxd account to chart the movies as I watched after immense pressure from Ashe, and thankfully it has given me an incredible catalogue to the date of when we watched the movies. And we did it! We watched every one of his movies released up to that point in just 1 year.

As I watched more and more of his movies, something began to change in me. I was starting to actually like him. And not just like him, but respect him as an actor. Granted, there are a lot of bad movies in his catalogue, probably even most of them, but still while knowing that fact, I couldn't help but find him endearing. As I watched his movies in order of release, I got to see him grow up. I got to know his quirks. I felt like I finally understood him. 

And that is one of the biggest reasons that this journey stuck with me. It wasn't about forcing myself through the misery, it was about overcoming my preconceived notions and finding joy in what he created, even if that creation is some of the worst garbage I've seen in my life.

It may be surprising to many how important watching every Adam Sandler movie is to me. In some ways it's a part of my identity. 2022 was an incredibly transformative year for me. I interned at the Washington State Senate, I graduated college, I realized what unemployment is like, and Kosuke started grad school. And somehow through all of the massive life changes one thing stayed consistent: the next Adam Sandler movie was right around the corner.

Sandler with his usual crew in Grown Ups

Even afterwards, the journey continues to last in my memories because of the fun I had, and because it was such a massive undertaking. I think it says a lot about me that when people ask for a fun fact about me, I can say that I have watched them all (You may notice from both my blogs so far I have completionist tendencies).  And because this is such an important part of me, I find it only fitting that this is my 2nd blog!

So here's what we're gonna do! We are going to go through one Adam Sandler movie a day and I'm going to reflect on each: What my opinions are, what has stuck with me 4 years later, and what I think its importance is to the Adam Sandler canon. So we aren't just doing simple reviews! My goal is to tell a story day by day of my journey watching all his movies, and maybe, just maybe, you'll understand a little bit of why this was so important in my life. I want to let you know that my goal here is not to describe what happens in the movie unless it is relevant to my opinions of it. I think everyone if they are interested should watch these movies for themselves so they can form their own opinions of it.

What qualifies as an Adam Sandler movie you may ask? Well luckily Adam Sandler is top billing in nearly every movie he's in, so those clearly count. There are a few that he co-stars alongside another actor, and those count too. That leaves us with 4 movies in a gray zone where he's not exactly the lead, but he plays a major enough role that I counted it. These are Airheads, Men, Women, and Children, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and Jay Kelly. In Airheads, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, and Jay Kelly he's definitely a major character so I feel confident enough in counting those. And Men, Women, and Children, is like 6 different stories strung together, and he's the lead in one of them, so I'll count it too. I think I draw the line if he's a side character. So, sorry for everyone that is so angry I'm not counting Coneheads, Mixed Nuts, , or Zookeeper. Maybe you could consider him a side character in You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, but his grubby little hands are all over that movie so screw it, it counts. Lastly, I'm not counting documentaries or stand-up specials. It's all about my man's acting career!

Now that we have that out of the way, I believe it is now time! We will begin tomorrow with Adam Sandler's first ever film appearance, and I have to tell you, it's a doozy!