But Jacob, you ask, what’s the difference between being Kevin James, double-budget YouTube content creator of the titular Sound Guy series and close friend of Adam Sandler, and being myself? How can I transcend my current occupation, celeb-status, and friendship status with Adam Sandler? How can I enter such a dimension? These are all excellent questions, dear reader. So buckle up and let’s cruise through some of these tracks to see if they invoke any or all of these realitites.

The original Paul Blart: Mall Cop soundtrack was an encapsulation of pure, unfiltered, late-aughts Sandler energy. It impressed itself into the brains of any of those lucky enough to grow up listening to it. In order to be properly transported to a specific Adam Sandler location I’ll need to adhere to a few rules, to further speed through the dimension-hopping process. If I gather all of the required food, décor, and technology available in a 2007/2009 Dodge Challenger, I can essentially recreate a Sandler pocket dimension. This will place me on the fast track to the proper vibe space with Adam Sandler and open a portal to his 2009 Dodge.

I went back through my childhood home, gathering the necessary items and equipment to sonically travel back in time. This includes era-appropriate listening devices. The iPod shuffle you say? Nay, dear reader. Superb guess but alas, I was the kid who transferred all my mp3s over to my PlayStation Portable device. For this, I had to contact my sweet grandmother I sold my Star Wars special edition PSP to. She still had it. Mission success folks.  

Next, I dug up some old SONY branded on-ear headphones that one would get from an aughts CD player. I went through old clothing I wore that still fit me and trekked on out to my mother’s Dodge Challenger. Though this particular Dodge was of a newer model, I adorned it with my childhood beach towels and pictures of 2009 Blart-themed birthday parties to combat the anachronism. I also lugged in some aughts-era candy – think Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Bug Juice, Skittles Crazy Cores, etc. – and entered the backseat.

As I queued up “Parade of Champions” by Philippe Briand and Gabriel Saban on my PSP, the Sandler portal enveloped me. Adam Sandler had been summoned to the vehicle, but upon further inspection, it was I who had been summoned to the Sandman. The photos I had brought with me had blurred into photos of Adam and his closest pals; Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Farley, and of course Kevin James. He glanced into the rear-view mirror as if expecting me to request the next track.

I went with Rasheeda’s “My Bubble Gum” and it blasted through the 2009 sound system. Sandler glanced down at his Motorola Razr, perhaps alluding that this used to be the ringtone for their group chats. I offered a Capri-Sun. He thanked me and recalled tales of the times on-set with his pals. His eyes shifted back to a particular photo of himself and Kevin James as he explained how he let James select a few tracks for the film. “Weekend in New England” by Barry Manilow underscored the moment.

After a half-hour of listening to this shorter-than-usual score, I felt the kinship between Sandler and I increase tenfold. The event had struck a chord with us both as our eyes sparkled. We were on the same wavelength. As those wavelengths flattened out, I realized my time with him was coming to an end. See, the score has these somber undertones one could only interpret through a Sandler-specific aughts dimension. I glimpsed at the mirror and realized that I had now morphed. I had morphed into the Kevin James. I closed my eyes and stepped out of the Dodge into 2020.

Sure, it might sound like a lot of steps to achieve this result, but for a brief moment, we become Kevin James. We become that close pal of Sandler through the meditation on ELO, REO Speedwagon, or whatever other acronym-ed band he could jam into the score for us to listen to on our PlayStation Portables. We feel the Sandler-produced parasocial bonds reverberate through the plastic of the headphones. Through creative and insightful listening techniques of the Paul Blart: Mall Cop soundtrack, we become one of the Grown Ups .

Sandler may have left the session but Paul Blart: Mall Cop is now available on Netflix.

And yes hello, welcome to my series of Paul Blarticles.

The post How the Paul Blart: Mall Cop Soundtrack Transports You to an Aughts Dimension to Vibe with Adam Sandler in his 2009 Dodge Challenger appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The one good thing about selling all this stuff is that people also tend to buy a lot more movies! Every night we receive multiple boxes of Elf, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone and tons of other holiday classics. No boxes of Die Hard though, and Die Hard is a Christmas classic. I will fight those who say otherwise. Knowing that people are taking these movies into their homes not only gives me a little injection of much needed holiday cheer, it makes me wonder why movie going has become such a steadfast tradition for many families across different communities throughout the holidays.

I often hear of people who only go to movies once a year on Christmas. That sounds like a mild form of torture to me, but is an exciting tradition for many. Then there are people like yours truly who have multiple holiday traditions when it comes to movies. My brother and I watch Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights (the singalong version, duh) every year on the first night of Hanukkah. If that weren’t enough, every year that my family can get together we catch a movie on Christmas in the theater. Others binge on their favorite film series, the Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings franchises being popular favorites. My wife looks back fondly on watching Marley and Me and sobbing all through the ending. My friend’s grandma has given him every new Fast and Furious movie over the years for Christmas. This time of year after all, is about family.

So why all the movies? Kids are off from school, parents may get a brief reprieve from work, and college students make their semi-annual pilgrimage back to wherever it is they came from. What else are we going to do? When Uncle Don wont shut up about becoming a branch manager and Aunt Kaity keeps going on about her newest diet that you know won’t last, it can be a challenge to make it through the holidays with your sanity intact. Gathering all that family in one place is not always a pleasant task. It is no wonder many of us pop in A Christmas Story, load up on the ‘nog and float through the holidays in an inebriated bliss.

A more cynical man would be happy with that explanation, but my semi-soul crushing job hasn’t fully obliterated my yuletide spirit just yet! Christmas is about coming together and gathering around the fire with family and sharing our most precious resource: time. Even if it is just sitting on our butt and watching a screen, the fact that we do it together during the holidays makes it an important time. Everyone isn’t off in their own world, on their own screen, absorbed in whatever normally seems so important. The exception being anyone who gets a VR headset for Christmas. Shame them and call them dumb because they look dumb.

Writer David Foster Wallace once said that the television was becoming the new fire place in our homes. While he meant that in a negative sense, I think that gathering around for holiday movie viewing is a positive force. It helps defend the idea of a common living room, which seems to be one of the last bastions of real family time. So gather your loved ones together and watch some movies over the break. Continue the traditions you have and start new ones with people who are important to you. Worst-case scenario, you just have to watch a crappy Adam Sandler movie every year…

Watch and Talk is a column about movies. They are not necessarily reviewed, but simply talked about. Watch and Talk looks at the cultural aspects and impacts of all manner of films.

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Netflix rating: 2.2 stars
Personal rating: 2.9 stars
Rated R
Starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson

Full-disclosure: I watched this movie at one in the morning, and when you watch a movie at one in the morning you’re in it for the entertainment. This is not a good movie for entertainment. If you’re look for artsy camerawork and an intriguing plot line, this movie is definitely for you. However, if you’re looking for something compelling and genuinely attention-grabbing, you may want to scroll on by.

Adam Sandler plays Barry Egan, the main protagonist who’s really just trying to figure out how to cope with his life. Between being constantly harassed by his sisters, getting screwed over by a con business, and suffering from what is at the least severely low self-esteem coupled with fits of rage, Barry has a hard time feeling good about himself and feeling good about life. This all changes when he meets Lena (Emily Watson). Lena is able to do what no one else in Barry’s life has done: show him that life can be worth happiness and excitement.

Don’t get me wrong, this was an extremely cute movie. It was sweet, charming, heartfelt, and every other feel-good adjective you can slap on to an Adam Sandler rom-com. What turned me off from it was the fact that it was so…boring. I didn’t really care what happened to Barry and Lena, especially when it came to their relationship. I knew they were going to end up together; there was no tension.

Another odd thing about Punch Drunk Love is that it’s so obvious this movie was somebody’s baby. Someone held this movie in their arms, looked at it lovingly, and put all their hopes and dreams as a filmmaker into it. That kind of passion is great, but it makes for an odd movie. The cinematography was almost distracting, in that it took emphasis away from the plot and the characters and instead put the emphasis on how amazing certain shots look from certain angles. Technically and artistically, a lot can be gleaned from this film, but at the cost of an actually compelling plot.

One quick thing I will note was that I was a little confused about the way mental illness was handled in the film. For the most part, Barry’s irregularities are shamed by every single character, including himself. The only one who is able to fully accept him is (surprise, surprise) Lena. The weird thing is that by the end of the movie, Barry seems to have overcome his rage and self-loathing all because he’s realized the most important thing in his life is Lena. He never actually gets help for his anger or feelings of low self-worth; his problems are conveniently solved by – yepp, you guessed it – true love. The intention is innocent enough, but in my eyes we really don’t need more myths about mental illness flying around, least of all the ones that proclaim love will solve everything.

While this is far from one of the worst movies I’ve ever watched, it’s also not the greatest. I do believe it’s possible to have an artistically beautiful film as well as a compelling and well-developed story (looking at you, Moonrise Kingdom). Punch-Drunk Love simply didn’t achieve that, although it made a hell of an effort. So if you like Adam Sandler, artsy camerawork, and/or watching Phillip Seymour Hoffman screw over innocent civilians, look it up, click play, and sit back and enjoy. If not, there’s always Moonrise Kingdom.

The post 2-Star Review: Punch-Drunk Love appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The Bulls are Barrymore, a team that has no identity and has to constantly be reminded by Adam Sandler, or in this case head coach Tom Thibodeau, of who they are: a title contender.

Up to this point however, coach Thibs hasn’t been as successful as he’d like to be. In the past the Bulls have been the hard-nosed defensive team that wore teams down and fought until the end.

That killer instinct has faded many times this season as they are giving up 99.1 points to opponents and the only consistency we’ve seen from them as a unit is their inconsistency. One night they’re beating the feared Golden State Warriors on the road in double overtime and the next they’re falling apart against a lowly, Kobe-less Lakers squad.

Some may argue it’s the injuries as the Bulls have gone through stints, some short some long, missing guys like Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, Mike Dunleavy, Jimmy Butler and the list goes on. In fact, they’ve only had their starting five together for 20 games this season.

Yet, even when healthy the Bulls seem to lack the killer instinct and toughness that had propelled them through playoff runs as underdogs in the past. Nazr Mohammed disagrees however and thinks grittiness is still there, “We got us a dog. We got us a couple of dogs…There’s nothing in particular that we need. It’s more of us not having focus and desperation, along with the understanding of what it really takes to win a championship.”

We have seen Tony Snell step up as of late and Derrick Rose continues to show more and more flashes of his glory days. Noah has been on the ups and Pau Gasol continues to have what may be the best year of his career. First time all-star Jimmy Butler has been a treat to watch besides a slump in January and Aaron Brooks is the latest piece of evidence that proves any decent point guard can succeed in Thibs’ system.

So fine, maybe they do have some “dogs” but what’s scary is that Mohammed mentioned the Bulls not having focus. With only 28 games left in the season the Bulls must get focused immediately if they’re serious about bringing a title back to the Windy City.

Finishing the first half on a four game winning streak with a huge win against division rival Cleveland, who had stolen the first two of the season series prior to that Bulls 113-98 victory, was a very necessary step in the right direction.

Now well rested after the all-star break and seemingly healthy the Bulls will have to put it all together in the final months. They start the last stretch on Friday at Detroit before heading home for a big seven game home stand.

The pieces are in place to succeed. If they really want this all they need to do is focus.

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