"Spanglish" (2004)

I enjoyed this film a great deal. My memory tells me that the reviews for it from the Adam Sandler expert/fan collective were not good. I understand why this would be so.

At the risk of sounding like a retired, affluent and bored woman just being invited on an outing, I was delighted with this. Something about it was just good. It did not move like most movies move. I didn't understand things and they weren't readily explained to me. It reminded me of Runaway Bride because the dialogue - along with other great things - was very real. I enjoyed Adam Sandler's acting. I enjoyed Tea Leoni's acting. Not a one person in the film did a poor job. This film did for me what (I think) Rosanne did for the television-viewing public: it showed a dysfunctional family and made no apologies. Spanglish hardly ended on a happy note. It hardly tied up loose ends the way I expected it to. I loved every minute of it; every minute but one. (There was a very awkward "sex scene" ...... no comment.) One of my favorite lines is as follows: John (Sandler's character) was being pressured to do something at work that he did not want to, even though he is the boss, and so he said, "If you don't [let me have this] then I'm gonna light my hair on fire and punch myself in the face until you do." He stopped walking and made a face. He turned to face the man he was yelling at and said, "Yea, that was a really weird way to make my point."
Another of my favorite attributes of this was that Sandler was not the main character. In fact, I don't think we saw him until 20 or maybe 25 minutes into the film. Man, I can't even describe all the things I love about it. I think that, in doing that, I would take something away. I don't even know if I would watch it again. Hmmmmmm

It strikes me as somewhat sad that all I blog about these days are films but on the other hand I think this is OK because, if a film is worth blogging about, it aint that bad. I am on a quest, after too many years of watching too many films, to find the truly good ones, the ones that allow filmmaking to be classified as an art, and to leave the others behind. It truly becomes a saltwater waste of life. It's too easily sunk into.

While I'm here, let me say that Father of the Bride (1991) and its sequel (1995) are good films, too. Steve Martin surprized me and I learned a few things about him that I think are cool. He's more wirey than I remember and he looks like his ankles get more rotation than any other human's do. Now Martin Short on the other hand, he is impressing me evermore with his magnificence. I don't know what it is about him I just LOVE to watch him act. I love that he is Canadaian, too. He is one of those few people who can convince me that physical comedy is a real talent. There are others like Lee Evans, Jim Carrey and Rowan Atkinson who do the same. Short's character made me gape sometimes. I watched and listened with my eyes wide and my mouth open in a stupid smile because I was so mesmerized by how hilarious and flawless this man was.
The film itself was slightly more cheezy than my tastes prefer but I did survive. This was another of those not-what-I-expected and very-real-life films. Hmmm .. it's like a trend. What I found very cool was that I almost bought Diane Keaton and Steve Martin as a married couple. If I did not know better from real life, I would believe them fully. (This is hard to fake.) Good acting all around, again. B.D. Wong was in this movie and that was like the sprinkles on the icing of the cake. I know B.D. Wong best from Law & Order: SVU so in this role his prowess as an actor just skyrockets. Man! good times.