Our favorite (or least favorite — bad memories are powerful too) movies are inevitably so damn fresh in our minds that it’s a hideous shock to realize oh shit, that was released nearly 20 years ago I’m so close to death oh hell ….
Case in point: Billy Madison. Now, in no way is this my favorite movie, or even close to being near the list of my favorite movies. I watch it on cable if it’s on at 2am, though.
Remember how Adam Sandler and his comedy stylings were considered the harbringer of the end of Western civilization? I do. Quaint, really. If critics had known Meet the Spartans or Vampires Suck was around the corner, they would have realized their folly.
Of course, they’ve had time to. I bring this up because that movie came out in 1995, and it’s now 2011. 16 years. Children have been born, grown up, had sex, and gotten drunk in that time. And now Adam Sandler is playing Andy Samberg’s dad. This is how we see the world decay.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two have signed onto I Hate You Dad, where they will play father and son. Daddy Sandler moves into Baby Samberg’s house on the eve of his wedding, and promptly begins battling with the bride. It doesn’t yet have a director.
Now, Samberg and Sandler aren’t actually that far apart in age. A mere 12 years separates them, making it an almost medical impossibility for Sandler to have fathered little Andy. (Almost. It’s gross. Don’t think about how confusing that age was.) But the point is that Sandler is certainly perceived (and certainly perceives himself, since this is a Happy Madison production) as old enough to have fathered him. When I read this story, I actually thought they probably had 17+ years between them, so sure, why not.
Which just makes me, at a mere 28 years old, feel strange and cold all over. Remember when Sandler was the wacky up-and-comer who did the Bruce Springsteen impressions, and then left to do movies? (He revealed just recently to Conan that he’d been fired, but at the time we thought “Oooh, Mr. Big Shot!”) And now he’s the dad to the new goofy up-and-comer, who has a similar repertoire of impressions, musical talent, and sobbing.
How that time has passed away, dark under the cover of night, as if it had never been.