50 First Dates

First, let's forget about the facile comparison between this movie and Groundhog Day. Anything with Bill Murray in it is just to annoying to be taken seriously. Second, this is nothing like Groundhog Day, anyway. It's much better. And don't for an instant listen to the idiots who are comparing this movie to Memento, still the most overrated, vapid, pointless, gimmicky, dull, worthless movie ever to be hyped into the public psyche. But I digress. Drew Barrymore is undoubtedly the most adorable woman in movies today. She's beautiful, bubbly, child-like and yet sexy. In short, she's perfect. If Meg Ryan is getting too old to do all the Meg Ryan movies, no worries. Drew is there, ready, willing and able to become America's cinema darling. And she's cuter than Meg. But what about Sandler? Isn't he a crude, obnoxious, fart-joking, hooligan who isn't as funny as the thinks he is? See, you're still thinking about the OLD Adam Sandler. This is the new Adam. He's funny, sensitive, vulnerable, and yes, adorable. In short, he's matured as an actor, making the pairing of Adam and Drew the best romantic comedy pairing since the aforementioned Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. The story is fairly simple. Drew has a problem with her short term memory, and Adam loves her but has to convince her to fall in love with him all over again every day. But the story isn't in the telling, it's in the watching. Drew and Adam flutter around each other like butterflies, dazzling in the sun, as the delicate journey from being strangers to becoming lovers is repainted every day. And yes, there are fart-jokes and vomit-gags enough to make any Sandler fan happy. One thing that makes this movie so enjoyable is the amazing soundtrack. I can put the DVD on and simply listen while I surf, and the music alone is delightful. But what really makes the movie is the way it starts where you would expect it to, a typical Sandler movie, and then floats beautifully higher and higher into the realm of cinema gold. It isn't until about midway through the movie that you realize you've got more on your hands than you expected, and by the end of the movie, if you aren't crying you should ask for a refund on that therapy you've been taking, because you haven't learned to express your emotions at all. Maybe half a dozen times a year I find a movie that enters the list of my favorites, and I can pull them off the shelf and love them all over again for years to come. I keep those DVD's on a separate shelf from the rest of my collection. It's a small shelf, in a different room from the rest of my collection. 50 First Dates is on the small shelf.

Let me start this review by admitting that Adam Sandler is at the bottom of my 'funny people'-list. The guy just doesn't do anything for me. I don't think he's funny at all. I think Drew Barrymore is absolutely hilarious though and she carries every single movie she makes. The first ten minutes of the movie are awful. Every cliché in the books passes us and Adam Sandler is simply horrible. After the first ten minutes something changes though. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I learned to appreciate the humor or maybe the movie got funnier, I don't know, but...what a great movie it is. I won't bore you with the story of the movie, but this is it in a nutshell: Henry (Adam Sandler) meets Lucy (Drew Barrymore) in a diner and the two really connect. The next day she doesn't remember him though and Henry finds out that due to a car accident, Lucy suffers from short memory loss. Meaning that everyday she wakes up under the impression that it's still the day of the car accident. She does the same thing every day, over and over again, not remembering what she did the day before. Henry believes Lucy is worth fighting for and every single day he manages to make Lucy fall in love with him. He hopes one day she will wake up and remember him. This of course never happens. He stays true to her though and the two get married and have a daughter. What surprised me about the movie is that it's definitely not just a comedy. Sure, it's funny at points and even hilarious sometimes (Like ten-second Tom for example), but...it's just very romantic. There's just something deep behind the whole idea of 'falling in love with someone over and over again'. This movie deals with that in the literal sense and there's just something beautiful about that. Conclusion: Drew Barrymore shines as always in this movie that goes a little deeper than your average romantic comedy. And Adam Sandler? He's not all that bad. I give this movie 8/10 stars. I loved it.

See, I am a married man. And watching this movie, at home on the sofa with my wife whom I love above anything and hopefully always will, almost brought me to tears and easily did her. This movie, no matter all the overdone/overacted characters and the fact that Adam Sandler is probably the worst person in the world the act crying, is simply the best description of love ever. To have the energy to every day win over the heart of the one you love, is what we all should do, though ever so often don't have the energy to. I believe that movie criticism often nitpicks too much on technical details or other such stuff of -actually- little importance. Show me a person who is not moved by this film and I show you a person who knows zip about real love. Real, I mean. I am not a religious person and this made me feel closer to what people often call God, whatever that is. Maybe I exaggerate, but I want to. And no work of art, of any genre, can be asked to do any more. On scale of 1 to 10, this goes to 11. (Can you see?!)

The key to whether you should watch this film is how much you can stomach Adam Sandler. If you think he's great you'll love this. If you can't stand him then you will probably not find much here to distract you from that. Personally, I've never been a fan of his. But I watched this because I quite liked the idea of this film. Let's face it - it's not often you get a movie about a woman (Drew Barrymore) who is involved in an accident which leaves her with a 24-hour memory span so that her would-be boyfriend has to make up ways to 'meet' and make her fall in love with him every day. So I watched it, and it was OK. A good few laughs plus some nice 'aaaah' moments and a pleasing soundtrack thrown in as well. Downsides? I could have done without some of the annoying sidekicks. Admittedly the two leads couldn't have sustained the whole film on their own, but for me there are a few too many 'quirky' hangers-on, playing - largely unsuccessfully - for laughs. The exceptions to this include the slightly more classy turns from Dan Ayckroyd as the doctor, Blake Clark as the girl's father, and the show-stealing walrus who is the star attraction at the zoo where Sandler's character works as a vet. So overall, 50 First Dates is not great, but it doesn't pretend to be. It's a nice, amusing, diverting, feel-good movie that will leave you with a smile on your face and - just possibly - make you despise the male lead a little less than you did before.

I might be a little bias, because I've seen this movie so many times. Regardless, this movie always lifts my spirits. Not only is it funny, but it has just the right amount of romance to pull at your heart string without ripping it out. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore are the perfect on screen couple. Their chemistry seems so real. Not to mention they both just look so darn cute next to each other. I'd recommend this movie to anyone.

Spoilers herein. I've come to appreciate this actress. Women can do things in that space between the film and us that male actors just cannot. Blame it on the feminine nature or cultural imperatives, depending on your views. But there is no denying that the art is quite different for women. Drew is not a particularly intelligent actress, nor one concerned with particularly noteworthy projects. But she knows movies, she knows herself and she knows how do a few things in service to the projects she chooses. And she does choose. These days she is a power in the business and can shape a project, even one initiated and controlled by Sandler. In this case, she works with a simple notion that has depth: movies are never about life, always about other movies. Date movies especially refer to a particular work of love that was invented by movies - and only exists there. So they are about memory. Each visit into a film is a new short term memory that we relate somehow to the frame of our larger lives. In other words, this is a movie about movies pretending to be a love story comedy. It starts with an incongruous James Bond parody, but not a parody to us, rather to another character in the movie. And not just one girl, but many, each representing a genre. Check it out. Then we have the performing animals. The constructions in the restaurant, the scenarios on the highway, the videos, the obsession of the brother with image, the art that is recreated every day. All courtesy, it seems, of Flower Productions, her company. The test audiences must not have liked all the stuff about the genius kids that was cut. Too bad. Also too bad about the product placement. A little too crass. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Henry Roth is a man afraid of commitment up until he meets the beautiful Lucy. They hit it off and Henry think he's finally found the girl of his dreams, until he discovers she has short-term memory loss and forgets him the very next day. At first, I just liked some of the usual humor: the use of spam to make me believe we were really in Hawaii. And also Rob Schneider, who is often the funniest person in Sandler's films. (He is still good here, though perhaps not at his best.) I was pleasantly surprised that amidst the stupid humor was an actual story about love and the growing bond of two people. There could have been a variety of "Groundhog Day" jokes. And indeed, there were some. But the character Sandler plays is actually quite sweet. Who knew?

This is an excellent movie, I enjoyed every bit of it. It has a cleverish dialogue, a good ascending of events, and a good ending. Long story short, this is a movie that should NOT die. Sure, it has some downs, for example the underwhelming thought-woulda- been-funny scenes (like the penguin's). The hispanic dude was really good though, he had this fine impact on the movie. Anyways, you gotta give this movie a shot, it is hilarious, and fantastic.