Grandma's Boy
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Grandma's Boy | |
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Promotional poster for Grandma's Boy |
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Directed by | Nicholaus Goossen |
Produced by | Allen Covert Adam Sandler |
Written by | Barry Wernick Allen Covert Nick Swardson |
Starring | Allen Covert Doris Roberts Linda Cardellini Shirley Jones Shirley Knight Heidi Hawking |
Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
Editing by | Tom Costain |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date(s) | January 6, 2006 |
Language | English |
IMDb profile |
Grandma's Boy is an American film produced by Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison in 2006. The film stars Allen Covert, who is also credited as a co-writer and co-producer.
Co-stars include Linda Cardellini, Nick Swardson, Shirley Jones, Joel Moore, and Shirley Knight, in addition to Sandler-film regulars Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and Kevin Nealon. Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond fame is featured as "Grandma Lilly." Rob Schneider, David Spade, and professional wrestler Kevin Nash have short cameo roles.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film begins with a view of Alex's home, which he shares with his roommate, Josh, that has a penchant for Filipino prostitutes ("massage therapists" in his roommate's words). After an upsetting fight in a boxing game between Alex, a 35-year-old game tester, and his roommate, landlord Yuri (Rob Schneider) arrives and informs Alex and Josh that their home smells like a "Cypress Hill concert" and that they are being evicted; regrettably, Josh has failed to pay the rent for six months, having instead spent it on his weakness stated above: Filipino hookers.
Having been jettisoned from his residence, Alex first drives over to his close friend Dante's after calling him several times with no answer. Alex is greeted by a completely nude Dante who is setting up his Christmas tree, oblivious to the fact that it is mid-July. Surprised by this revelation after Alex informs him, Dante welcomes Alex in. We next see the two in Dante's basement, sharing a joint while Alex laments about his current situation. Dante denies Alex's request for somewhere to stay, stating that his basement (where he distributes marijuana) is like his "office, as well as my home." Rejected but optimistic, Alex purchases some marijuana and quickly leaves.
Arriving at his cousin's wedding, Alex is seen discussing how to successfully defeat a boss on a video game to a group of young children. Impressed by his knowledge, the small crowd claps in appreciation while Alex's grandmother comes over to speak to him. She offers Alex a chance to live with her and her roommates until he can find more permanent living arrangements. However, Alex declines her offer and chooses to bunk instead with his co-worker Jeff, who still lives the life of a child at his parents home, complete with one-piece pajamas and a plastic racecar as a bed. While sleeping on an inflated air mattress shaped like a fish, Alex gets the urge to masturbate after seeing a scantily-clad Tomb Raider action figure Jeff kept in his room. As he is about to climax, Jeff's mother accidentally walks in on him in the bathroom and is unable to turn away before he ejaculates onto her.
We then see Jeff speaking to Alex outside about what he had just done. Jeff uneasily explains to Alex that he is still welcome to stay at his house. Alex refuses, citing that the following morning would bear an extremely "awkward breakfast" if he were to stay. Tired, Alex decides to spend the rest of the night slouched over his desk at his place of work, Brainasium, only to wake up to the sight of his new and attractive supervisor, Samantha. After exchanging small talk, Samantha takes her leave; at this point a love for Samantha by Alex is shown, albeit a quiet and barely established one. At around this time, Alex also reconsiders his grandmother's offer and moves in with her and her roommates. Embarrassed by his current situation, he tells his friends he is moving in with three "attractive young women," a pretense he tries to keep up for most of the rest of the film.
Meanwhile, Samantha, being the only attractive woman "in a sea of virgins," easily has the game development crew follow her commands to keep the project on schedule. Many of the video game firm’s employees are introduced at this time, most of them being low level testers that enjoy engaging in competitive matches on their favorite consoles.
After the deadline for the firm’s current project is successfully met, the firm’s boss treats Samantha and her workgroup (of which Alex and Jeff were a part) to a free dinner at a vegan restaurant. However, the group does not take to the restaurant’s offerings, and after a hostile exchange with their waiter (David Spade) decide to have hamburgers and then head to Alex’s house. Once there Alex discovers his grandmother and her roommates have mistaken his marijuana stash for their deceased roommate Sophie's tea leaves. Since they had already introduced a large dose of marijuana into their system by the time the group arrives (despite the fact that, in reality, cannabis has almost no water-soluability, and would have little effect), she and her friends were all intoxicated. After witnessing the antics of the elderly women, Alex inadvertently throws a party by inviting his drug dealer (and friend) Dante to come over, not realizing that Dante had a bevy of acquaintances in tow. Quite unexpectedly, Alex finds his grandmother to fit in quite well with the rest of the raucous crowd, along with her friends.
Throughout the course of the party, Alex and Samantha grow closer, and the next morning finds the two of them kissing as Alex drops her off at home. This occurs much to the dismay of JP, an arrogant, eccentric but brilliant game designer with an odd habit of acting like a robot and has a penchant for Matrixesque clothing that had also set his eyes on Samantha.
JP attempts to exact revenge upon Alex by faking emotional despondency at Alex’s house, which he uses as a ploy to steal a promising game that Alex had been developing as a side-project for over three years. Later, at a meeting with the firm’s boss, JP attempts to pass off the game as his own, causing Alex to fly into a rage and leave the company. However, Alex had introduced his grandmother to the game before, and she was thus able to challenge JP in a match to prove that it was really her grandson's game. Meanwhile Alex and Dante are under the influence of various types of marajuana. They get called by Jeff and they race to the office in a Jeep which the monkey is driving because Alex and Dante are extremely high. She beats him handily after some initial difficulties, and Alex’s game eventually goes on to be a big success, with JP being picked up by his mother after being fired from the company.
The film ends in Dante’s basement, with most of the characters present and having a festive time celebrating the release of Alex’s game. In a bizarre gesture, they give him an elephant as a gift (throughout the movie Dante has owned a Lion and a Karate Master Chimpanzee).
Grandma's Boy has created a cult following since its release, despite poor reviews by critics.
[edit] Soundtrack
- "Another Day" - The Twenty Twos
- "Helicopter" - Bloc Party
- "Meantime" - The Futureheads
- "Spinnin'" - Zion I
- "Little Girl" - The Daylights
- "Never Win" - Fischerspooner
- "Sittin' Sidewayz" - Paul Wall/Big Pokey
- "Alive and Amplified" - The Mooney Suzuki
- "Can't Kick the Habit" - Spin Doctors
- "Night On Fire" - VHS or Beta
- "Anyone" - Moving Units
- "Windowlicker" - Aphex Twin
- "STD Dance" - Ima Robot
- "Grandma's Boyee" - Kool Keith/Kutmasta Kurt
Note: The soundtrack includes tracks of dialogue from the movie between the musical tracks.
[edit] Other music
Music from the film not found on the soundtrack includes:
- "Dance to the Underground" - Radio 4
- "Natural Disaster" - Fischerspooner (JP's entrance)
- "A Fair Resort" - CDoass
- "Call the Cops" - Dr. Dooom
- "Hit Me Again" - Neon
- "Can I Buy U a Drink" - Kool Keith / Kutmasta Kurt
- "Push It" - Linda Cardellini (originally by Salt 'N Pepa)
- "Holla" - Mista Wizard / Guy Boogie
- "Headlines" - Neon Blonde
- "Technology" - Evil Nine
- "Apartment 223" - Dr. Dooom
- "Happy" - Fischerspooner
[edit] Trivia
- Near the end of the movie when Alex and JP's boss is testing the stolen copy of Demonic, he comments to JP that the "Bit mapping is very aggressive and very Miyamoto". Shigeru Myiamoto is a famous video game designer responsible for the creation of Donkey Kong, Mario, and other video game series.
- This film features the Intellivision video game Frog Bog. [1]
- After Alex is challenged to a game of "Frog Bog," he beats his challenger with a score of 420 (cannabis culture).
- At one point, Jeff refers to Alex as "Douche Bigalow", a pun on the character Deuce Bigalow. Rob Schneider, who played Bigalow in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, makes a cameo in the movie. All three films were produced by Adam Sandler's "Happy Madison" production company.
- There are also references to and posters for "Dance Dance Revolution (Ultramix 2)," "Resident Evil 4," "Metal Gear Solid," "Super Mario Bros.," "The Legend of Zelda", "Fight Night: Round 2," "Guilty Gear X2" "Halo" & "Halo 2" and other video games.
- The games "Lineage 2" and "City of Heroes" are also featured in some shots as having sequels in development.
- The game which Alex creates in the film, Demonik, was to be produced by Majesco. However, following the mediocre performance of the film and financial cutbacks of the company, the project has been cancelled.
- The boss mis-pronounces the name for ritualistic suicide (Hara Kiri), and the reason for it. JP also is shown to eat out of a super-stereotyped bento box, a Japanese lunch box/meal of sorts, filled with all asian foods. Both of these show some of the examples of the movie's satire of "japanophiles", otherwise known as American otaku.
- At one point, Samantha refers to Alex as "Nana's Boy," which was the film's original title.
- The beginning and the credits of the movie features the classic game Galaga.
- There is a lot of professional wrestling memorobilia through out the film, such as; Alex is holding a Eugene teddy bear, Randy Orton & Undertaker bobbleheads, and also Jeff's computer wallpaper is a picture of John Cena with the face of Jeff photoshopped over top. Also look for posters of Stacy Keibler and Trish Stratus in Jeff's workstation.
- Many of the posters around the office building are of fake games such as Ninja Blood Orgy, Canada Must Die!, Jumprope City, Gay Robots, and Unicorn Derby.
- Gay Robot's appearance bear similarities with a Gundam. This does not fit in with the film's prevailing American tastes, especially with regards toward the Xbox, a console that concentrates on American-made video games. However, some of the games mentioned above are highly-concentrated in Japan culture/area compared to America (Dance Dance Revolution, Metal Gear Solid, Lineage 2, Guilty Gear X2), so this is not that surprising.
- Alex and Jeff keep inflatable figures of South park characters in their cubicles.
- Joel Moore (J.P.) and Nick Swardson also appear together in Art School Confidential.
- At certain points in the movie, you can see a poster for a game called "Fadrian's Quest". The poster bears a striking resemblance to the box for the game "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude"
- Alex also has a poster in his office of NOFX's album cover to The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us!).
- The "tea" that Alex's boss and JP drink is actually an energy drink, Liftoff®, made by Herbalife© that is to be drank in 8 oz. of water.
- Gay Robot is also a skit on the latest Adam Sandler album, which features writer/co-star Nick Swardson, Director Nicholaus Goossen and "Josh" (Jonathan Loughran).
- J.P's background and appearance slightly mirrors that of famous game designer John Carmack who produced the famous hits Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and their sequels.
- Kaynes' orange Toyota Supra is the same Toyota Supra that Slap-Jack drives in 2 Fast 2 Furious