kevinjamesisagiantpeach

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The Zookeeper- Ryan & Susie in Conversation

Susie: So Ryan, what do you remember about the Zookeeper two weeks later? What immediately jumps out to you about it?

Ryan: “Show her your puddin’ cup!” jumps out at me.

S: How did I forget about that part? I was thinking about the sad gorilla cake. My number one thing about that movie was that heinous gorilla costume. It was on my top five list of topics “bad gorilla costume” and Kevin James just sitting in the gorilla pen talking to the gorilla. Am I remembering wrong or was that half of the movie?

R: There was a lot of time spent in the gorilla pen. I feel like we have hit both extremes of animal movies. We hit the animal movie where they were making the animals do too many things that ended up being too much and too creepy, like dancing and singing and CGI wiggling… stuff...

S: Wearing pants

R: Yes! Wearing pants and stuff. So, we hit that extreme and then in The Zookeeper, we sort of hit the extreme where animals were just acting like boring people. 

S: Like standing around A LOT, like a ton of animal loitering. The zoo would close, the animals would loiter. They’d confer about Kevin James, decide to take action but their action was to circle around Kevin James.

R: Yeah. You know what is funny? There were no animal-related hijinx, other than the gorilla going to TGI Friday’s which is also really boring. 

S: It’s truly boring but when I tell you there are so many clips of it on Youtube. People love that scene where he is the van listening to the Apple Bottom Jeans song with the gorilla. I was searching…I have to say there are parts of The Zookeeper that I like. I have to say that Rosario Dawson was a champ throughout this film. I don’t feel like we have seen, to date, sort of Kevin James love interest that has been as game as she has for the ridiculous hijinks and pratfalls. She made the most sense so far.

R: Yeah. She was good, actually, and I think because they worked together and sort of had a friendship through work, when they got together, you weren’t like, “Oh, how did that happen?” 

S: Like Paul Blart and the hair extensions woman.

R: Yeah. No. That was weird. That was not appropriate. 

S: So forced and then Salma Hayek who seemed to genuinely hate his character in Here Comes the Boom. Or not even hate but sort of..but yea, revile. She definitely wasn’t a fan.

R: Definitely not respect. I do not know why she ended up jumping on that train, but I have a feeling it was nothing to do with his personality. 

S: It was because he saved just the music teacher’s job. At the end of the movie, the shocking part is… not to talk about Here Comes the Boom again, but I could, forever… it’s not saving the school’s budget, it’s just saving a teacher. In the same way, that in the Zookeeper he stops selling cars to save the gorilla? Is that right? The gorilla, there’s nothing even happening with the gorilla? That was sort of a red herring?The one guy bullied the gorilla but nothing ever came of it?

R: Well, the one guy bullied the gorilla, which I feel like could have been solved by reporting that guy to their boss. 

S: Instead of just kicking him

R: Yeah, he just sort of killed that guy, I guess. I don’t know. 

S: He got murdered

R: Yeah, that guy got murdered. But [Griffon] knew about it before then. I feel like if [Griffon said something along the lines of, “I suspect [Shane] is abusing the gorilla. I think we should put a camera in there.” That probably would have solved that problem. I feel like he never went to Step A before he went to killing that guy. 

S: And also, it’s like the zoo wanted to punish the gorilla, when again, it’s an animal, it’s a wild animal, not even a domesticated animal. So they were like… he kinda,  I don’t even think he bit the guy, so he doesn’t get a nice cage anymore, we put him in  a shitty cage. This is not a moral thing that the zoo is doing. So that is my other question, why is no one ever at the zoo? Did they spend all the money on wedding extras and TGIFridays extras. But that zoo feels closed all of the time. No one is there but the employees and that’s why the animals loiter so much.

R: That’s true. There is definitely a financial crisis happening with that zoo. 

S: And we never figured out what city it was in, we conjectured San Francisco

R:  Didn’t we eventually think they were in Boston? 

S: Oh yea, we Googled it

R: We eventually find out it’s in Boston, and that is also the final song of the movie is [by the band] Boston. 

S: I think it’s so weird to have a movie set in Boston and then not have anything Boston related at all. They could have been anywhere. They might have been anywhere. Probably filmed in Quebec.

R:  I do wonder if people from Boston would recognize that zoo somehow, if it’s iconic enough that if you actually had been to the zoo in Boston, you would be like, “Oh, I know exactly where that is.” 

S: I don’t even feel like we even see that much of it The pudding cup scene that you mentioned where he pisses all over the place. I feel like we’re in the pen a lot, the aforementioned gorilla pen we’re in all the time, we see the eagles, we see Rosario Dawson’s lab but I would be hard pressed to tell you more of that zzo. I can’t even placed in the geography of the zoo where the engagement party was.

R:  It also seemed like that zoo was just one very small area. It felt like everything was very clos to everything else

S: Basically the animals were stacked somehow.

R:  This was a strange movie. I feel like we were supposed to think that Paul Blart was very committed and saving the animals-- 

S: Paul Blart? I love that this is basically Paul Blart, reconfigured, reconstituted

R:  What is his name in the movie, again? It begins with a “G.” He’s got a strange name. 

S: Gordon? I don’t remember

R: No, it’s not Gordon. I’ll look it up. I think it is definitely worth knowing his name because it is so odd. 

S: I feel like I can never hold on to the names of Kevin James’s characters because it’s always shades of Kevin James. I’ve started talking about Kevin James in casual conversation at this point. Where I say things like “I think Kevin James is really happy with his life.” And different aspects of his acting.

R:  I feel like he does have his shit together. *frantically typing and having computer trouble*

S: In the bloopers in the credits where he just, I guess it was in between takes, he just turns to the camera and says all of America hates me right now. I think its funny to think about, Adam Sandler is so mad that people don’t like his movies. Kevin James knows and doesn’t give a fuck. And it reminds me of when Tyler Perry was on Black AF and he’s talking about how people hate his movies and he’s like guess what, I sell a lot of tickets and I’m making movies that are true to my heart. If people don’t like that then fuck that because this is what I’m doing. And that’s why they’re all over the place because Kevin James is a complicated man.

R: Well, I think, like Tyler Perry-- I am actually glad you brought up his name because now I am enjoying this connection-- I feel like you can either relate to it or you can’t. If you can relate to Tyler Perry’s movies, then they’re funny. You’re like, “Yes. I get that. I enjoy this. This feels real to me.” I feel like Kevin James is a little bit like that, too. It’s easy to watch it and go, “Who would ever watch this?” But then when you actually think about  it, it’s like-- no-- this is probably funny if you find something relatable in this situation. 

R: I guess the running joke is that Kevin James is a squat, fat guy who is extremely dorky and awkward and falls in love with every woman he meets and in every movie, he is doomed to be that person, and if that is what you feel like in your life, it is probably funny to watch it. 

S: He’s a millionaire so it’s the total bright side of that. Sure he might be all these things but he’s married to a beautiful woman and has this family and life that seems pretty fulfilling and what we have learned from his shorts is he is a legitimately good actor. He could just be a good actor which I could not get over. Why don’t we see more of this? Why doesn’t this show up in his movies? Is it because the writing is so bizarre?

R: I think the writing is one of the main culprits. We watch these movies and hit those points when Kevin James is funny. The fact that we’ve seen it is proof that [the problem] is not his ability to land a joke. It’s more the script. The script is just too flat in a lot of these movies. In Zookeeper, the script was-- it was hard to grab on to why you care what is happening.

S: Yes

R: His name is Griffin, by the way. 

S: Oh, o yea, it’s like a last name first name

R: It’s probably because it’s an animal name. 

S: I feel the Zookeeper suffers from what most of the movies he’s in suffers from which is tonal confusion. At first we’re like ok we have this guy who loves his job, total Kevin James thing, loves rules, total Kevin James thing, and is hopelessly in love with a woman who is not going to love him back to the same degree, total Kevin James thing. But then all of a sudden of all these red pill MRA shit themes start coming in. And we’re like who is this? This is not my Kevin James. And the thing is that those parts of the film feel icky. Like that part of the film feels so much more Grown Ups than anything else we’ve seen him in. Where I’m like David Spade would someone totally do this. Like you could see this showing up on his Twitter feed like “make a woman feel bad about herself”

R: I think that is one of the things that I find most troubling about Kevin James movies. I don’t want Kevin James movies to be low key sexist or high key sexist. It’s hard to tell where on the spectrum these movies fall.

S: Because of the tonal confusion

R: Yes because of the tonal confusion. It’s a weird combination of he’s putting these women on a pedestal and sometimes he’s forming genuine relationships that you can appreciate with these women. They are always strong. They are not really vapid in these movies. These are smart capable women. These characters in the are interesting people who you are like, yes, I respect this person. And then I think where it falls apart is the way he actually gets women. That’s when it starts to become creepy. So, if you learn how to manipulate women, you can just get them?  

S: There’s no seeing him stick the landing. There’s no reason that the relationship goes from kind of contentious to they’re making fun of each other and there’s no real chemistry like in Here Comes the Boom, the connection between him and Salma Hayek, I’m honestly can’t remember if they actually got together or not but I know the movie was trying to take us by the hand. And I’m like we don’t need this. This can just be about his super intense friendship with Henry Winkler, Henry Winkler’s unorthodox home life and then finding himself through MMA fighting. I don’t need this romantic relationship shoe horned in. Almost in the same way as Paul Blart, the end game in Paul Blart did not need to be a woman and then it wasn’t in the second one but they kinda wanted us to want it to be. That whole plot thread with him, the hotel manager, and the security guard, what was that? I know this isn’t Zookeeper and we keep getting off subject but I think this is relevant,

R: I’m just saying, Paul Blart had a threesome with those people. I’m throwing it out there. 

S: Oh 1000%

S: He’s negging them! It makes sense that he would end up with them. I predicted this. I knew this would happen. I orchestrated the whole thing. Are we then supposed to believe that Griffin also became awakened to this sort of pick up artist technique?

R:  He didn’t use it on Rosario Dawson. They actually did the opposite. They had a rip roaring good time at that wedding and that’s why they got together. I think that is why this is the most painless Kevin James romantic interest matchup because when they get together you’re like, Yeah, I get that. You got invited to this wedding as a friend. You had an awesome time. You both acted ridiculous, probably destroyed this wedding, but enjoyed yourselves, and after that, you decided to be more than friends. That is actually an understandable sequence of events. 

R: The negging thing-- I think we were supposed to be made to understand that it worked on Leslie Bibb because she is a shallow gold digger and those are the only types of guys that she goes out with, specifically. 

S: Ok which is a perfect transtition to why is Joe Rogan in this movie? Are they BFFs why is Joe Rogan in these fucking movies?

R: I would say I think he just likes playing a douchebag in Kevin James movies, but I don’t know. It’s hard to say. 

S: I am not under the impression that he is part of the Adam Sandler cabal so we have determined that Kevin James puts his brothers and his friends in all of his films.

R: And his wife. 

S: And his wife. So he is the light side to Adam Sandler’s dark side. Does that then mean, that Joe Rogan is part of the Kevin James posse? Cause I really feel like we are coming onto something here.

R: Well, they must be friends, somehow. 

S: We don’t see the reoccurrence of actors in these movies unless they’re friends. Because once you’re in a Zookeeper or Here Comes the Boom, you only need to be in one of these. You can just sort of live off residuals. Unless there is a different draw, you don’t really need to be in another.

R: Here is a Joe Rogan tweet from October 11, 2012, promoting Here Comes the Boom: 

https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/256578871380549633?s=20

S: So this is definitely a branding thing

R:  I wonder if it started with Here Comes the Boom, where Joe Rogan was in that movie because it was an Ultimate Fighter Movie, I guess. 

S: Yes

R: And then maybe they did become friends because of that and decided to do more movies after that? 

S: And then Joe Rogan’s podcast only took off later like he didn’t become the podcast guy until maybe 2015.

R: So, yeah, I guess that would kind of make sense is they would come up in their careers together through Kevin James movies, in part. 

S: That’s so interesting though because that puts Kevin James in the power position in his friendship with Joe Rogan.

R: Yes. I actually did find an article. If you Google, “Kevin James Joe Rogan Friendship.” 

S: As I do, every night before I go to bed but go ahead and tell me.

R: I don’t know what sherdog.com is. I don’t know what it is. It’s the global authority on mixed martial arts website. 

S: I’m so glad this is going to be on your web history, your browser history. John’s going to be like “Ryan, are you ok?’

R: So, this is an article from October 11, 2012, entitled “Kevin James’ Friendship with Bas Rutten, Joe Rogan, Inspired Here Comes the Boom”

S: So they were already friends then went and wrote a movie?

R: Supposedly, they interviewed Kevin James. Oh, look-- you can listen to the full interview. 

Interesting

R: So, they went on Sherdog Radio Network’s Beatdown Show

S: I love these words

R: And then they asked him where he got the idea for an MMA comedy and he said It really came from Joe Rogan and I talking. I’ve always wanted to try to incorporate some mixed martial arts into a movie, and Joe and I were talking about how we could make it a comedy. It seems difficult to do without making it goofy and jokey … . The challenge was just kind of getting a blend of real comedy and real moments and also infusing that with realistic MMA.”

S: So that makes so much more sense why Here Comes the Boom was so confusing. They were trying to do a lot. I think this whole project is going to lead me to listening to a ton of Kevin James interviews to just try to figure out what was the kernel that this bizarre movie started as and how the fuck did it end up where it is. And I’m going to definitely look up what lead to the Zookeeper because if this is what led to Here Comes the Boom that means the Zookeeper was Kevin James was a at a zoo and thought what if the animals could talk and give me love advice.

R: It sounds like he and Joe Rogan are friends just because they are both comedians. 

S: So Joe Rogan is big at the Comedy Store and I wonder if Kevin James used to do stand up there? Cause Joe Rogan one of THE people on the LA comedy scene. I feel like we’re going to end up writing a book about Kevin James someday.

R: I would be fine with that. Could you imagine if we actually got the opportunity to interview Kevin James? 

S: I would love that. I feel like… and I’m going to take a big swing right now…he is the connective tissue that holds Hollywood together. But for real, we’re finding out that he low key has just been…and long term fans would think I’m ridiculous for saying this, I feel like he’s been kinda flying under the radar in a way that I’m unaware of. But think about how few actors get to act as long as he’s been acting. He’s been around since the early 2000s that’s like longevity stuff and it seems like he’s always trying stuff.

R: I actually wish that I had known about Here Comes the Boom before I watched Here Comes the Boom. I would love to know the conversation that sparked the Zookeeper. I wish that I was there for the making of before I saw the final product. I think if I knew more about the material beforehand, I would have a different relationship with the movie. 

S: No that definitely makes sense because the thing we’re always questioning is intention. Like ok, so what exactly were we supposed to get out that scene? Or why would they have the characters do that? And I feel like from the little bit that I know about how the formulation of these things happened. They’re just trying stuff. Like we’re seeing what would now be relegated to a Youtube skit or a web series but they got to make a full Hollywood movie. Similar to Kevin Smith, being like I talked about the concept for Tusk on my podcast and then I went and made it. And it seems like Kevin James and his friends are doing that all the time. Like we were sitting around in our rich man’s houses and decided to make this film. By then he was flush with King of Queens money and Adam Sandler money so why not try some shit? And the studios keep signing off on it so he must be good money right? Or was that a Happy Madison Production?

R:  I think that was a Happy Madison Production???? [EDIT: Yes, it is a Happy Madison Production.]

S: Cause that’s the other part if your best friend is going to cosign on your projects very little is risked

R: Let me see. At one point, I thought this was supposed to be a kid’s movie that their parents could watch with them. 

S: Like a family film but so much of it centers around materialism and the compromise that happens when you’re with the wrong person. Even the hokey animal stuff like “show her your pudding cup” and “mark your territory”, I don’t even know how funny kids would think that was.

R: I mean, I’m trying to think back to when I was a kid, if I would have thought it was funny that he was peeing on a tree in front of actual children. 

S: I think I would have felt uncomfortable because I would be like “an adult’s not supposed to do that” like stranger danger stuff.

R: One thing that struck me in the movie is how suggestible Griffin is. You could tell Griffin to do anything and he would just do it. I guess his character was like that because otherwise you wouldn’t have any jokes in the movie. So, like, he is peeing at this party. I feel like in a lot of other movies, they would create some scenario or misunderstanding that would make that happen, but in this movie, he just decided to pee at this party.   

S: And the maitre d is way too understanding about it. Instead of ejecting him from the party, he’s like “hey you know have bathrooms right?” And Kevin James is like “yea” and then the subject is never revisited. And I’m sort of like that is not how that would have happened, the police would have been called. And like imagine being those other diners? So like you’re not going to kick him out? You’re just going to talk to him? Okkk

R: It also didn’t give him a private place to do that. I feel like in another movie, they would have given him a place to do that out of view and then he would have been caught, but he was just out in the open, peeing.

S: He was in the center of the restaurant, pissing in a planter. It was so, that’s the other part, that makes these movies so unbelievable. Kevin James as the main character is almost never the one acting most outrageously. Like he’s acting outrageously but so is everyone else here so it make it feel like it’s taking place in a crazy world. In the same way and I keep thinking about and I don’t know why this keeps coming up for me, the moment in Grown Ups where they’re at the water park. I’m having an issue phasing in and out of these movies at this point because they all have the same problems. But when they’re at the water park and everyone’s acting bananas. Where they have that weird scene where they sneaking onto the water slide the wrong way, and they keep going on the water slide and Steve Buscemi is there for no reason and Kevin James steals that kids milk and no one is behaving properly. So are we to believe that this is just a world where no one behaves properly or is the main characters behavior setting everyone else off like a domino effect?

R: I feel like it also diminishes some of the humor of what’s happening. I feel like if everyone thinks it’s normal to pee in a restaurant, where’s the joke? 

S:I completely agree. With no juxtaposition, without a straight man, where’s the joke? It’s just like everyone acting like an asshole and I just think I’m glad I’m not there. Once the lose of decorum is normalized, it’s no longer funny. It’s just like oh, we’re in a gross out world.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Hubie Halloween is Midsommar worship

A fortuitous fate befell me this weekend. After watching Hubie Halloween and being deeply (unsurprisingly) underwhelmed, I wasn’t sure what to say about it. There were less inexplicable sexist, racist, and lazy jokes than a normal Adam Sandler movie. The plot actually made much more sense than say, a Grown Ups movie. But then, a friend texted about the experience she was having watching Midsommar for the first time and I was struck by what had been in front of me the whole time. Hubie Halloween and Midsommar are parallel experiences of one another. 

I want to state upfront that there is no intended disrespect for Ari Aster’s horror film. Where Hubie Halloween leans into horror tropes Midsommar subverts them. (Spoiler warning: from here on I will be discussing spoilers for both Midsommar and Hubie Halloween)

Both movies are a fish out of water tale. Where Florence Pugh’s character Dani has experienced the loss of her entire family, Hubie has moved into the role of man of the house for his mother following his father’s death. He has developed an elaborate ritual around Halloween not unlike the rituals of Pelle’s commune. Julie Bowen plays the love interest and savior of Hubie. She seems blind to why everyone else finds Hubie tiring and frustrating. Pelle looks after Dani with the same doting and affection. While Hubie and Dani emerge triumphant at the end of their journeys, the climax is not without sacrifice and ritualistic death. Midsommar has the same number of comedic beats as Hubie Halloween. The dark humor of the elderly man clapping in Christian’s face when he’s tripping and scared is not unlike Hubie’s mothers array of suggestive t-shirts, out of pace with the trajectory and gravity of the ensuing action. I’m sure that I will continue to see influences and parallels between two holiday time family favorites but for the time being, I think it’s safe to say that Hubie Halloween is a bald homage to Midsommar.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

This is how The Zookeeper could have ended if that gorilla costume wasn’t so raggedy.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Grown Ups- Susie

I’ve been thinking about the movie Grown Ups since Ryan and I watched it last week. (Ryan did a fantastic job of cataloging all of the endless peculiarities in her post.) At the end of a month of watching Kevin James films, this was our first foray out of the comedic vehicles starring the big man himself. Initially, my take away from Grown Ups was that I felt icky and uncomfortable and I couldn’t pinpoint why. Any time I had an errant thought this week, my mind would trip back to Grown Ups and I would mull over, yet again, my confusion to why this movie was made or why it had such a large box office yield. Then, this morning, while Swiffering my apartment floors, I realized, Grown Ups is a movie threaded through so completely with shame.

 Shame is the unbilled cast member and starring role in a film about mid-life dissatisfaction and regrets of six men. In this essay, I aim to illustrate how shame is a plot killer and mood ruiner. Additionally, Adam Sandler should have gained an Oscar (nomination AT LEAST) for Uncut Gems, a movie I am constantly on record as loving because he removed the shame from an unlikable protagonist and made him captivating.

On the face of it, Grown Ups seems to be a boring slog of a movie about how Lenny Fader (Adam Sandler) is professionally successful and married to Selma Hayek (also professionally successful as a clothing designer). The wrinkle comes in when Lenny’s junior high basketball coach dies and all of the six friends on the team attend the funeral then inexplicably go to a lake house that none of them have been to since they won the basketball championship thirty years earlier. The men know nothing of each other’s live and at the end, there is a big reveal where they all disclose that during the duration of the weekend, they have falsely elevated their status in life, hidden aspects of their personalities and in the case of Lenny, straight out lied about everything.

Now there’s a saying in AA (and I would assume other 12 Steps), that “you’re only sick as your secrets”. For the uninitiated, the adage simply boils down to: shame and embarrassment will eat you up inside and keep you addicted. The reason I bring this up is that Lenny is ashamed of his wealth, his family, and his lifestyle that being a Hollywood (?) agent has afforded him. His tendency to obscure his truth leads to a feeling of dissociation over the film because every time Lenny denies that something we have JUST seen happen has happened, the viewer has to reflexively think about whether the denial is the joke or did the event never really take place. I can only speak for myself but at points, Grown Ups behaved like it was trying to convince me I’ve lost control of my faculties. Kevin James’s place in all of this is that his characters life is the most on the table for everyone to see the crack and fissures. His big reveal at the end was that he had lost his job. Not an entirely shocking revelation BUT the genuine emotion that Kevin James brings in one of the final scenes (not the basketball game, I HATED that) but on the shore of the lake when Lenny says he will set up Kevin James character with a car dealership, there are tears of gratitude in his eyes! I believe that when Kevin James is acting, his feelings are surface level and bleed through. I wish I could say the same for Lenny Fader.

Finally, Uncut Gems was significant for this reason. Adam Sandler’s character leads a big life gambling, dealing in the Diamond District in New York, and having an extra-marital affair. Adam Sandler plays an addict named Howard Ratner and it’s magnificent. Reviews derail the film for being full of unlikable people and anxiety producing plot points but that’s what makes it gripping. The criticism that has been levied against Uncut Gems has also been applied to Grown Ups but what I appreciate about Uncut Gems is the same thing that spoke to me in those tears in Kevin James’s eyes, it’s honest. Life has ramifications and when you take big swings, sometimes you get duffed the fuck out and that’s the cycle that Howie Ratner plays out for us again and again. Adam Sandler please keep making dark comedy films, this is where you flourish.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Grownups - Ryan

Well, we watched Grownups. As with Here Comes the Boom, I have come away with two key takeaways:

I owe Kevin James an apology.

Adam Sandler owes Kevin James a bigger apology. 

First, my apology to Kevin James. Kevin James, I am sorry. I was too hard on Here Comes the Boom, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. It is only after watching Grownups that I realize that I did not appreciate you enough.

Now, Grownups. I do not know what all of the talented actors and comedians in Grownups were paid to pretend Adam Sandler’s wet dream alter ego is likeable act in this movie but it was not enough. I repeat: Maya Rudolph was not paid enough to be in this movie.

Image Source: Yourprops.com

I do not have the energy to enumerate the ways that this long, boring exercise in toxic masculinity and self-delusion failed itself. The plot was aggressively tedious, the jokes were hacky, and the characters were alienating . All of the women in this movie were made to wear absurd outfits and fetishize a lifeguard. David Spade’s character fucked a dog. Rob Schneider’s character was named “Rob.” If I got into everything that I found offensive about this film, I would never be done.

It was also strangely cruel to Kevin James. His character, Eric Lamonsoff, is denser than his Earth weight in this movie, destroying an above ground pool, incapacitating a motor boat and injuring a bird, and has an affliction that causes him to urinate frequently and in public and the script does not give him the option of managing it with medication. He is also unemployed and married to a woman (Sally, played by Maria Bello) who, although supportive and loving, has chosen to breastfeed their youngest child until he is four years old, and although Eric clearly disagrees with this decision, he appears powerless to stop it until he steals a strange child’s milk at a waterpark. Eric Lamonsoff leads such a strange and sad life, which on one hand is sort of the point of Grownups and on the other hand feels like Adam Sandler is hazing Kevin James. 

I think part of what was unsettling about Grownups is that it takes us far away from the essence of Kevin James, who frequently plays a lovable but goofy blue-collar family man and wins the hearts of audiences through self-deprecating humour and physical comedy. He reminds us both to laugh at and appreciate ourselves for our foibles. Kevin James at his best reminds us to love who we are, not who we wish we were. Grownups just reminds me of why I largely stopped watching Adam Sandler films made after 2005. (I actually thought 50 First Dates was pretty okay.)  

Edit 9/14/20: An earlier version of this post identified Adam Sandler's character as his wet dream alter ego but I do not have confirmation that Adam Sandler's wet dreams include Selma Hayak and/or routinely humiliating everyone around him.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Here Comes the Boom- Susie

The notes I wrote on Here Comes the Boom, our first non-Paul Blart Kevin James vehicle devolve into madness almost immediately. I believe that I stopped taking notes after the first ten minutes of the film. They are as follows:

Driving a motorcycle Prize winning wrestler Kevin James fan fic Principal- terrible teacher “Use the fact that you’re slippery now”

Where musings on Paul Blart had emerged naturally for me, Kevin James in Here Comes the Boom confounded me. I would be hard pressed to tell you the name of the main character (I, in fact, do not know it) but I know what the film was aiming for us to believe about him. That this guy is a cool character and that the audience should support his dispassionate musings and quips. We are introduced to our antihero oversleeping, driving a motorcycle to his job as a teacher, being locked of the school, and being forced to crawl through the window of his classroom. Although I don’t believe an examination of masculinity was the purpose of this movie, I think it unwittingly occurred. There are so many ways to be a man but Here Comes the Boom seems to be seeking the sole solution to male mystique.

We get dualities of the masculine. Henry Winkler in the role of the music teacher has impregnated his wife in middle age (masculine) but is sensitive, wears sweater vests, and seems retiring in disposition (feminine). Let it be said that Henry Winkler has great comedic timing and was the only character who had jokes that landed with me. He possessed a lightness and silliness that you expect from Kevin James but that never materialized. Nico, Kevin James’s trainer, would be the ubermensch of the film if he was not confusingly and illogically displaced by Kevin James. Nico is a former UFC fighter who was injured before he could go pro (masculine) but seems to exclusively teach work out classes marketed to women like spin, yoga, and something called “Disco Dance Fighting” (feminine). Lastly, Kevin James’s brother is a tradesman that maybe(?) paints homes, is always seen in coveralls, and is overall schlubby (masculine) but is depressed due to life dissatisfaction, beholden to his wife and family, and leads a routine existence (feminine).

This is where Kevin James comes in to serve a ham-fisted, confused (at best), toxic (at worst) example of manliness. He doesn’t care about his job, he harasses and annoys his female co-worker, school nurse Salma Hayek, he does not listen to the professional opinion that he should not become a UFC fighter at age 45 with little to no training and for all of this, he is handsomely rewarded. The character is written pig-headed and unlikable, having a habit of giving up when faced with even minor adversity. At the end of the film, I didn’t feel triumph that Henry Winkler’s tenure was saved from budget cuts, I simply felt relieved that the film was over and I didn’t have to spend any more time with its main character. I don’t doubt for a second that it’s hard to be a man. Seems to me that there have always been bizarre expectations and parameters put on those performing masculinity but I have to doubt that the solution is trotting out Joe Rogan for validation and calling it a day. Oh, did I not mention that Joe Rogan shows up in this movie about a half a dozen times with little explanation other than as a testosterone fueled signifier? Give me a misguided, soft-hearted Paul Blart 1 over this guy any day.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Hoo boy Kevin James in a beard as a cop (?) rife for terrible character and plot possibilities

we’re about to witness an actively malevolent adam sandler movie. One where he’s actively trying to make a bad movie, allegedly opposed to his other bad movies... this is gonna be hell. all hands on deck brace for impact.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Here Comes the Boom - Ryan

I walked away from Here Comes the Boom with two key takeaways:

1. The movie was made using an Instagram filter (Slumber?)

2. Kevin James was miscast in this role.

I am actually not trying to shit-talk Kevin James. It is just a stark, inescapable fact that, just like his character Scott Voss, should never ever have been permitted to enter the UFC, Kevin James should never have been anywhere near this movie. This is not a value judgment.

 The truth becomes clear when Bas Rutten’s character, Niko, tells Scott Voss the story of his tragic and life-and-career-altering neck injury when Scott confronts him about refusing to accept an invitation to fight in a UFC match (which could earn him up to $50,000.00). Both Niko and Scott should have reached the conclusion that if Niko-- who at the time of his injury was much younger, stronger and better trained than Scott Voss-- got so seriously injured that he can never fight again, Scott Voss’s out-of-shape, ill-conceived, middle-aged initiation to the UFC would almost certainly be a death sentence and the correct answer was “no.” Obviously, that is not what happened. Otherwise, the movie would have ended with Henry Winkler’s  Marty Streb being fired and Kevin James going to physical therapy to try to fix that shoulder.

In this film, Kevin James plays a character so old and sad that he is basically just waiting for retirement. I do not know why we are expected to believe (a) that he has any chance against any professional fighter, no matter what sports he played in high school or (b) that he fits into his high school wrestling uniform.

Here Comes the Boom seems to be aiming for Hardball but instead lands somewhere in between Big Daddy and Million Dollar Baby. When I was in middle school, I had a math teacher who told a cautionary tale to all of his students about credit card debt. When he was eighteen, he used a credit card to purchase a motorcycle that took him years to pay off. It was a great example to use for a class of young students to illustrate how his impulsive purchase at a young age followed him into adulthood, even though at the time it did not feel like he was spending any money at all. I had the vague impression that Scott Voss was supposed to be somewhat similar to this type of teacher: relatable, battle-scarred, cool, motorcycle-owning-and-riding, but those dots never connected for me. Scott Voss was too bad at his job. He was too world-weary. He too quickly gave up on teaching that citizenship class. (Who helped them get their citizenship? Was it Malia? Did she get paid for that work?) And he reformed too quickly. There was less of a transformation than an abrupt 180. And Kevin James just did not sell it.

In short, I do not know why Kevin James co-wrote and acted in Here Comes the Boom. His vision-- which I think must have been crystal clear to him-- is obscure from my vantage point. There is a message in this film, out of reach, obscured by darkness (or sepia tones), possibly in a friend’s cluttered basement. Maybe one day I will understand that message, but I will never understand why this film stars Kevin James.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 - Ryan

I am not disappointed in Kevin James for Paul Blart 2, or even the writers, makeup artists, director, or cinematographer. I think the person I am the most disappointed in is myself. If films are a reflection of their audiences, then Paul Blart 2 is a reflection of me, and I do not like what I see. 

The most painful part of watching Paul Blart 2 (other than, as Susie pointed out, that Raini Rodriguez, playing high school senior Maya Blart, spends the movie dressed and made up like her character’s dead grandmother) is that it is not funny. There were a lot of moments where I thought to myself, “Huh. This is almost funny. Maybe it will become funny in another fifteen seconds.” It was disheartening. I think part of the problem might have been that the writers thought the central idea for the movie-- that security guards would hold a convention to talk about their professional achievements-- was inherently funny enough that the rest would follow. Or maybe they were just sick of writing Paul Blart. I do not want to put words in anyone’s mouth.

I also suspect that a lot of the characters who would have made the movie funnier/fun/enjoyable did not get enough screen time. We spend a lot of time watching Paul Blart in scenes that were more uncomfortable than funny, like when he called the police when his daughter went missing for 10 minutes, when he was accusing Daniella Alonso’s character of hitting on him, when Eduardo Verastegui’s character seemed like he was hitting on Paul Blart, or-- horrifyingly-- when he spent time convincing a strange woman in a bar to allow the security guard making her uncomfortable continue to harass her. We see a lot less of Paul Blart getting into shenanigans with the other security guards, being hilarious on a segway or causing wacky misunderstandings through his rigid observation of security rules and procedures than we see of Paul Blart wearing loud Hawaiian shirts and being mean to his daughter. 

The movie also answers none of the questions raised by the first movie. None of the characters, other than Paul Blart and Maya Blart, return in Paul Blart 2, and all of the emotional energy spent understanding Paul Blart in the first movie feels wasted. It makes it difficult to reinvest that energy into Paul Blart 2, and it does not help that the motives of the criminal heist team who capture Maya Blart and her friend/love interest, Lane (how old is he? their friendship makes me feel unsafe) are incredibly unclear. (Why do they need Maya Blart? Paul Blart seems to have very little interest in the Van Gogh everyone keeps throwing on the floor.) 

The reward of watching Paul Blart 2 is in the last two minutes of the movie, when Maya is finally dressed in clothes that did not come from a Boscov’s work-wear section, and a credible love interest is introduced for Paul Blart (on a police horse!), but in many ways it is too little, too late. To watch Paul Blart 2 is to experience death by 1,000 cuts, and the relief of the last two scenes is only a band-aid. 

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Paul Blart: Mall Cop - Ryan

I watched Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and have found that I have come up with more questions than answers, and so I have come up with some questions for Paul Blart. (I realize Paul Blart is not real, but I hope that Kevin James and the movie’s producers can answer in his stead.) So, here we go! 20 Questions for Paul Blart: 

1. Do you think that you appreciate your mother enough? I noticed that you expect her to make you specialized meals on a dime. Although I know she loves to make you happy, and like many mothers, is gratified that you enjoy her food, it seems that you do not appreciate the time and effort it takes to put together a meal on short notice. 

2. Why is your daughter so focused on your relationship prospects? She is at an age when she might be thinking about her own friendships or even love interests among her peers. Are you concerned that she is spending so much energy on you and not forming her own relationships at such an important age? 

3. Where is your ex-wife? Does she never call to check in on her daughter, even on her birthday or a holiday? It is such a painful reality. What made you tell your daughter that your wife abandoned you both, assuming Maya was too young to remember this happening. Alternatively, was your daughter actually old enough to understand what was happening when she was abandoned by your ex-wife? Were there extenuating circumstances? Are you indoctrinating your daughter in anti-immigrant sentiments? 

4. You seem to have a lot of passion for security. Do you feel stunted by your apathetic coworkers? 

5. Is Amy the first coworker you have fetishized? Is this a common occurance? 

6. You attribute many of your problems in your life to hypoglycemia, including your drinking issues. Is it possible that you are in denial about something much deeper? 

7. Did Veck ever answer your question about why he took work at your mall, or did that pass with no explanation? Did he give you a backstory? 

8. Has Stuart ever been reported for workplace harrassment? He probably should be. 

9. Are you in love with or in lust with Vijay? 

10. When Vijay gives you his daughter’s phone, are you hoping for a key to his place?

11. Do you and Pahud keep in touch? 

12. Were you the only guard on duty during closing time at the mall? If so, why? 

13. Why do you think Veck and the crew come in with guns to take hostages and to steal credit card info? Isn’t credit card information relatively easy to steal without guns? 

14. Why did Veck’s crew stop what they were doing to look for you and stop you in the mall? Wouldn’t it have been better to ignore you and finish the heist quickly before you had time to incapacitate them? 

15. Are all of the cops in West Orange, NJ Italian? 

16. Why didn’t you bring your food with you? Isn’t it dangerous for your daughter to wander around an empty mall and mall parking lot looking for you, even with no heist? 

17. Is Sergeant Howard always tired? 

18. Were you worried that you were going to smack Vixen’s head against one of the store displays when you were carrying her? Was Vixen? 

19. Did you intentionally hang up on Commander James Kent because you resented him, even before he showed his true colors? 

20. You and Amy seem to have no real connection, and her only interactions with you seem to have been unpleasant for her. Did she marry you out of obligation? Do you think she just wanted children so badly that she married you in order to be a stepmother to Maya? 

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Introduction - Ryan

Susie has pointed out that the movie watching journey began for us with a series of animal films, viewed with a critical eye and exhaustively analyzed. I am grateful that we have the opportunity to continue to immerse ourselves in film, and I am particularly grateful that I get to do so with Susie, who has a lot of sharp insights. Frankly, I would be lying if I said that I thought that my posts will not be heavily influenced by her ideas. 

I think what has struck us both the most in our movie-watching journey is the shocking realization that a lot of movies intended to be “fun, family movies” are neither fun nor family-friendly. 

Many are meandering, condescending, confused or bizarre. That said, I hope to begin this Kevin James movie journey with open eyes and an open heart, and of course with the humbling realization that it is always easier to critique than it is to create. Without further ado, here is my introduction to the Kevin James movie universe. 

When I was a teenager, the King of Queens made an impression on me. Leah Remini’s character was the primary breadwinner (although they both worked), and I enjoyed seeing a two-income household on television. Doug (played by Kevin James) and his wife, Carrie (played by Leah Remini) lived without children with Carrie’s father, Arthur Spooner (played by Jerry Stiller). Carrie hates her job, buys too many clothes, gains and loses weight. They have too little privacy. They have champagne taste on a beer budget. The show felt real. I felt like I understood their financial concerns, their pettiness, their selfishness, and I could never bring myself to shake up my view of Kevin James as the husky but lovable IPS driver and devoted husband to his mean and arguably too-hot-to-be-married-to-Kevin-James wife in the suburb of Queens, and so I never watched any of the films that he has starred in.

I think I am finally ready to accept that Kevin James has moved on as an actor from his stilted sitcom role to bigger and better things. As an adult, I can finally accept that I have grown up and so has Kevin James. I am ready to take a deep breath, hum the King of Queens theme song one last time, and begin this journey.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2- Susie

What a difference six years makes…

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 caused me to question what I ever saw in Paul Blart. He returns as a selfish, myopic man with none of the transparency and vulnerability that I appreciated in the first film. My abrupt about-face was not entirely the fault of Paul Blart. The circumstances that he was thrust into were fairly heinous. The movie opens with a voice over and clips from the first film’s ending. Paul is married to the woman from the hair extension kiosk and joyful. Six days later, he is presented with divorce papers by a process server and told that his wife of less than a week can’t stand him. 

A major loss for a man who had been abandoned by a spouse and when his daughter who is now an 18 year old attempts to comfort him, he runs to his bedroom to cry. Him doing this is played for laughs? At this point, I had a sinking feeling about how the rest of the sequel would play out. Still in voiceover, Paul tells us that his mother was hit and killed by a milk truck and we have to witness it in playback. Again, Paul running to his room to cry is played for laughs. I’m not positing that tragedy and comedy don’t intersect but that I don’t see anything extraordinary about Paul’s reaction to grief. The Grief Recovery Handbook would say what he is experiencing is pretty normal.

Now the movie skips ahead six months, Paul has been invited to a security guard conference in Las Vegas. Not to sound like a cynic but this reeks of the Happy Gilmore penchant for filming in fun and beautiful locations so Adam Sandler and his friends get the studio to foot the bill of a getaway. Neither the conference nor Las Vegas factor heavily into the plot AT ALL. Paul Blart is pursued by a beautiful, successful hotel manager whom he rebukes at every turn. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is a faded carbon copy of its predecessor. Detailing the various, confounding plot points would not serve anyone any good. If anything, the movie feels like an ode to what happens when a person has too many losses stacked up on one another without completing grief recovery. I wonder if Paul was to draw out his loss time line which loss would factor heavily in the deep emptiness that he feels. The dissolution of his first marriage? The implosion of his second marriage? The traumatic and sudden death of his mother? His daughter leaving for school in CA across the country, which in turn, is likely to feel like yet another abandonment? I will end with I believe this movie is so convoluted and scattered because Paul Blart is a man who has been broken and abandoned by society writ large. And I will hypothesize that this is how someone would come to be radicalized by Youtube conspiracy theories about 5G towers. When a person believes in nothing (least of all their ability to be loved), they will believe anything.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Paul Blart: Mall Cop- Susie

I arrived at Paul Blart: Mall Cop with a few preconceived notions gleaned through podcasts like The Worst Idea of All Time and ‘Til Death Do Us Part, both podcasts I find endlessly funny. I was ready to be put-off by the character and the plot. Surprisingly, I was sympathetic to Paul Blart. When speaking to my therapist she agreed that Paul is a vulnerable character. 

Initially in watching the Greek tragedy that is Paul Blart’s life, his existence feels as if it is nary influenced by other responsible, knowledgeable adults. The movie opens with Paul Blart traversing the state police obstacle course with an ease that is rarely seen in men of his build. He arrives at the finish line to fall inches away into a “hypoglycemia attack”. In the Blartsphere, low blood sugar and narcolepsy are treated as interchangeable. The timeline then jumps to Paul being an institution of the West Orange mall as a security guard. In quick succession, we see Paul disrespected by his family and his co-workers then we (the viewers) are told in a clumsy info dump that his wife married him for a green card, promptly abandoning Paul (who believed he was in love) and their progeny after gaining citizenship.

There are a number of instances where even one beneficial person could have stepped in and had a huge influence on Paul’s. In order to treat his health ailment of “hypoglycemia-sleep attacks”, Paul pounds back Pixie sticks and at one point, in desperation, eats a filth encrusted lollipop off of the floor. What a different movie this would be if Paul had just visited a doctor, had some tests, and got his levels right. What really stood out to me above all is the bald yearning that emanates off of the character Paul Blart. He’s just looking for a place in the world where he can do a good job and find companionship. He wants to fit in, be accepted, and belong. This does not seem like such an alien concept to me? I wonder if as a woman, I am socially conditioned to be more forgiving of Paul Blart’s shortcomings and failures and see his potential? I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the Kevin James characters are going to fall into this category of failing upwards.

[kevinjamesisagiantpeach]

Introduction-Susie

To provide context for my desire to pursue this project, Ryan and I have been watching talking animal movies since the onset of the COVID quarantine. Almost exclusively children films, we have run through animated, CGI, live action augmented with CGI, every type of plot contrivance, cluttered narrative with animal co-stars one could imagine.

The one thing that I was always impressed by was Ryan’s takes on the films, which arguably were sometimes just a gussied up cash grab aimed at children and their exhausted parents, but she finds a tidbit in them that fascinates me. (With the exception of Big Foot’s Party Weekend which was just bad for all of us with no exceptions.)  After we had run the gamut of anthropomorphized quadrupeds, I can’t remember if it was myself or Ryan who suggested Kevin James movies next but it seemed a ripe opportunity to delve into the Kevin James-o-verse.

Before we started our first installment, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but of course, we did some preparatory writing about Kevin James. Mine is as follows:

I have to say that most of my knowledge of Kevin James is secondary. I’ve listened to podcasts like The Worst Idea of All Times and Til Death Do Us Blart. But I believe I would be hard-pressed to name a Kevin James film I had watched at all, not even snippets. My experiences with him are more incidental than intentional and that colors to my impression of him. Kevin James seems to have a deep sadness in him (and I am probably projecting) but I think that’s what makes him unique. He is a cipher for which we (the viewer) can pass our feelings through and although he is an incredibly wealthy man, he seems to exclusively play the everyday any guy.

Things I’m looking forward to in this journey: Getting to know more about the psyche of Kevin James. How does he interact with the Happy Madison/Adam Sandler crew? What is his back story? Why does he exclusively play downtrodden, tragic figures?

Ideally, through learning more about Kevin James, I will learn more about myself.