Grandma's Boy

Grandma's Boy (Director: Nicholaus Goossen)







This is Goossen's feature debut. It was written by TV vet Barry Wernick and stars Allen Covert and Nick Swardson (Malibu's Most Wanted).

Adam Sandler can't be accused of nepotism can he? Well...yeah he can. Frequent minor co-stars Covert, Peter Dante, Jonathan Loughran, and SNL castmates Rob Schneider and Kevin Nealon have been given a hell of a lot more work than they ever would have without him and his Happy Madison production company. This time, Sandler doesn't make an appearance and lets his friends be the stars.

When video game tester Alex (Covert) and his roommate Josh (Loughran) get kicked out of their apartment for not paying rent (landlord played by Schneider), Alex has to find other living quarters. After a disasterous night living with his co-worker Jeff (Swardson) and his parents' house, he moves in with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two friends (Shirley Knight and Shirley Jones). This leads to him not being able to sleep well or, because of constant TV hogging, be able to finish his levels on a major upcoming release designed by "prodigy" weirdo J.P. (Joel Moore). Problematic since his company (run by Nealon) has hired efficiency expert Samantha (the highly fetching Linda Cardellini, who may have the biggest jump between overall quality of films released within a month of each other with this and Brokeback Mountain) to watch over everything. He also spends a large amount of time smoking pot with always-high Dante (Dante, yes he plays, I guess, himself). Oh, and none of what I just told you matters much.

An early entry into Guilty Pleasure of 2006, as this starts off a little shaky and has no meaningful plot. But the zaniness of Sandler's mid-90s cult hits Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are present in force here, except there's even less of a story. But man, did I find myself laughing a lot more than I thought I ever would. It's just a crazy movie, and stealing the show is Swardson, where almost every time he's onscreen he lights the movie up.

Don't get me wrong, this movie violates almost every technical rule about storytelling, it just doesn't matter. It's fun.