“Hotel Transylvania” is a hilarious must-see movie from start to finish. With an all star cast consisting of Adam Sandler as Dracula, Andy Samberg as Jonathan, Selena Gomez as Mavis, Kevin James as Frankenstein, Steve Buscemi as Wayne the werewolf, David Spade as Griffin the Invisible Man, and CeeLo Green as Murray the mummy, the movie is an absolute treat for all ages.

Mild Spoilers Ahead!

The movie defies “monster” expectations by having humans be the villains and the “monsters” be the victims. The story revolves around Count Dracula building a hotel to be a safe haven for monsters (and his infant daughter, Mavis) in 1895. Dracula’s wife was killed by humans, so he is adamant that nothing will happen to their precious daughter.

The movie jumps forward to the present and is now Mavis’s 118^th birthday. Despite her age, Mavis is, for all intents and purposes, a teenager. As typical teenagers who have overprotective parents, Mavis is eager to explore the outside world, particularly the human world. After Dracula allows her to go to the nearby village, which he has constructed and filled with zombies impersonating humans, Mavis decides that humans are terrible and she never wants to leave the safety of the hotel again. Dracula is now content with the knowledge that humans will never harm Mavis…or at least he is until a human named Jonathan stumbles into the hotel.

Jonathan is the typical young backpacker who wants to see the world while living out of his backpack. He is spontaneous and carefree, which instantly attracts Mavis, who is unaware he is a human. Dracula disguises Jonathan as a monster so his hotel’s reputation will not be harmed by the fact that a human was able to invade their territory. Jonathan takes the monsters on a wild ride to rediscovering the concept of fun and freedom, and ultimately challenges every misconception they have about humans.

Perhaps what makes this movie so great, besides the all-star cast, is the believable and relatable storyline of a father trying to protect his daughter because he loves her so much, while the daughter wants nothing more than to be free. The movie clearly portrays what a parent will do for their child in the name of love, and it shows the sometimes painful side of letting your child make their own mistakes. The movie also challenges against making judgments about others who you do not understand, which is a very important lesson for kids to learn.

“Hotel Transylvania” is a heartwarming, hilarious story that instills important life lessons into kids, which makes this movie an absolute must-see.

Rating: 4.5/5

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Over the course of a film career spanning more than thirty years, Adam Sandler has developed into quite the comic obscurant. On the one hand, Sandler has signed his name to half a dozen sophisticated, relatively subtle, indie comedies, such as “Spanglish”, “Punch Drunk Love” and “Funny People,” even delving into the realm of politically charged drama with 2007′s “Reign Over Me.” On the other hand, though, Sandler must also be held responsible for some of the most asinine, sophomoric, underdeveloped schlock-fests that have ever entered the suspiciously sticky DVD players of pimply, teenage, glue sniffers. Having established the development of these two aesthetic extremes in Sandler’s extensive catalogue, it is only fair to point out that 90% of his movies sit comfortably in a middle-of-the-range space between “artful” and “vomitous.”

And yet, no-one would dare accuse Happy Madison Production’s newest offering, “That’s My Boy,” (directed by Sean Anders) of cinematic fence-sitting.

The plot of the movie, without giving away the twist– and it is a doozy– is this: mathematically gifted, 12 year old delinquent, Donny Berger is involved in a sexual liaison with his 22 year old teacher, Mary McGarricle, the products of which are a son, Han Solo, and a brief period of gainful notoriety. Skip ahead twenty years or so, and Donny (Adam Sandler) is estranged from the renamed, and very successful, Todd (Andy Samberg) and living in obscurity with an enormous debt owed to the IRA. To ease his financial troubles, Donny brokers a deal with a talk-show host to organize a reunion between himself, his son and his imprisoned ex-lover (Susan “what was she thinking?” Sarandon.) Seeing a notice in the paper advertising Todd’s impending wedding to WASPish socialite Jaime (tragically underused Leighton Meester), Berger decides to reconnect with his son in the hopes of tricking him into the show. The rest of the movie is 114 minutes of sperm jokes, violent diarrhea, and rampant racism, sexism and a host of other “-ism”s that might, if listed in full, have prolonged Ferris Bueller’s seminal shower by a good 20 minutes.

But, leaving aside the smaller problems of the movie– not that Sandler’s inability to follow-through with a single potent punchline in a film that markets itself as a goofball comedy is by any means a small problem — “That’s My Boy” has one, major flaw that doomed the movie even in its most fledgling stages of development. And that is this: statutory rape is not hilarious.

The thing is, irreverence and the tackling of taboos through humour can be well done. In recent times, Hollywood has produced a number of extremely funny and often beautifully made, dark comedies that tackle sensitive, socio-historical issues head on. Standout examples of semi-recent subversive laugh-a-minute films include, Morris’ “Four Lions”, a riotous indie film about Muslim-English suicide bombers, Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds,” a movie that dared to poke fun at the Third Reich, and, most topically, Reitman’s “Juno,” which revolves around the subject of teen pregnancy.

Yet, there remains a vast difference between any one of the movies above and ‘That’s My Boy”– quite apart from the fact that those films are hilarious, and the only funny thing about the Sandler movie is that anyone with functioning eyes and ears paid to see it– because, where the other movies have the good sense to not make fun of the central kernel of struggle within the movie, the characters of “That’s My Boy” barge into the dark world of sexual abuse and bumble about in there without the weakest flashlight of self-awareness. To put it another way, “Four Lions” makes jokes about acts of faith, but not faith, “Inglorious Basterds” mocks Hitler but not the holocaust, “Juno” plays with the physical state of pregnancy in high-school, but not the emotional toll of growing up fast. By contrast, “That’s My Boy” does not discriminate between pressure points within the incredibly traumatic subject of statutory rape and its consequences, and makes the entire underage teacher-student relationship — the inciting incident that creates the tension for the whole film– into a big, colossally unfunny, joke.

Somewhere, very, very deep down inside the soul of this uncharismatic well of one-liner ejaculate, there is something that needs to be said. Indeed, Sandler manages to pull off a few, incredibly sparse, genuinely touching incidences between himself and Samberg in which there is a momentary glimpse into the unique perspective of a tragically young dad trying valiantly to bring up a son while going through his own, rocky, coming of age journey. Those flashpoints of honesty between parent and child, in conjunction with a series of scene stealing performances by the utterly charming Vanilla Ice– who should have “[flown] like a harpoon daily and nightly” away from this movie–, may almost have redeemed the rest of the film. Unfortunately, they are, more often than not, quickly smothered by shots of obese prostitutes firing pool-balls from their hoo-has at mentally challenged yokels.

Previously, I had assumed that Sandler continued to produce this kind of movie, the kind of movie firmly entrenched within the “vomitous” camp of his stylistic spectrum, because he has no respect for his audience beyond the money they persist in offloading into his already overflowing pockets. Now, post-”That’s My Boy,” I know this to be the case, and, perversely, this knowledge makes me feel both better about this specific movie and about Sandler’s movie making career as a whole. Ah, yes indeed, free market capitalism is alive and well.

Grade: 1/5

Image Courtesy of  That’s My Boy

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Adam Sandler’s latest film, Jack and Jill, is set to hit theaters November 11 of this year, and it is already causing a stir with his first ever role in drag. It seemed for awhile that Adam Sandler was branching out with his more serious roles in Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me and Funny People. However, he has started accepting roles that are more in keeping with his comedic background. Jack and Jill is a comedy that is more similar to the films that made him famous when he first started acting in the early 90s.

Jack and his sister, Jill, both played by Adam Sandler, are twin siblings. Jack lives in Los Angeles with his wife and kids, and once a year Jill comes to stay for Thanksgiving. Jack is not very fond of her, since she is often embarrassing and quite passive-aggressive. This year, Jill manages to manipulate her brother into letting her stay for the entire holiday season.

In addition to the conflict between siblings, there is also a romantic sub-plot played by Al Pacino, as himself. The fact that Jill is actually just Sandler has a number of people wondering if there is any physical contact between Pacino and Jill, and if so, just how much.

Famous comedians dressing up in drag is a common occurrence among comedians, but this is the first time Sandler is starring in a film in which he plays a woman for any length of time. What makes this film a little different from most in this genre is that Jill is really supposed to be a woman. She is not just Jack in drag, she is her own character. Technically, another actor entirely could have played Jill, but the decision to have Sandler play both roles is intended to add to the humor of the film.

Sandler has starred in dozens of films, and usually the ones that make him the most money get the worst critical reviews. He has been nominated for a number of Razzies, which are basically the Oscars for the worst films of the year, instead of the best. In Sandler’s case, his films that get nominated for Razzies are usually the highest grossing, such as I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Big Daddy, and The Waterboy.

If he keeps up with this trend, he has little to worry about when it comes to money, especially since there has been talk of Jack and Jill being nominated for next year’s Razzie award for worst film of the year. Whether or not this film manages to wow audiences, it should be interesting to see how Sandler does playing both lead roles.

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