Released: 01/06/06

Viewed: 2:20 pm 01/12/06

Starring: Allen Covert, Linda Cardellini, Doris Roberts, Peter Dante, Joel Moore, Kevin Nealon, Nick Swardson

Directed by: Nicholas Goossen

Twentieth Century Fox Official Site of the movie

Happy Madison has a glorious history of dumbing it down and making every attempt to appeal to the 12-year-old boy in all of us. This is no secret, but what do you do when your target audience grows up? Simple, you make those under achiever's wet dream of a movie a reality. You make Grandma's Boy. It's a pot smoking, video game playing, and boob sucking good time. Except that your Grandma is there. Whose idea was that by the way? I blame all the pot.

Before I go on I need to point out that I have a history with this movie stretching back about 4 months. I had free passes to see it, but was booted from the screening when they learned I did this strip. No press allowed. I'm hardly press. But even if I was, could the producers of this film have a better weapon then me? A critic who actually looks forwards to your releases. A critic that owns your releases. A critic that actually knew the full name of your star (and co-writer Alan Covert) before the movie was announced. Could Gene Shalat

Look around Sandler I'm you're best freakin' friend out here. But I'm not even mad about getting the boot. Those rules are in place for a reason, and I would have paid to see this anyway.

With that awkwardness out of the way I can honestly say that the movie was damn funny.

Covert who has been a supporting stud in every Sandler movie since the beginning of time, finally gets his chance to shine as Alex, a video game tester forced to move in with his grandmother after putting to much trust in his hazed roommate. Coverts awesome. I've always thought he's had a lot of appeal on screen, even in the films where he's barely around at all. In House he's likeable, funny, and relatable. Everything a slacker hero needs to be.

He stands out as the leader in the film I think because he's easily the most normal guy on screen. From his best friend who calls his parents his "roommates", to his boss, played in the deadpan classic that Keavin Nealon has perfected, there's not a normal person on screen.

The on that has the most room to play has got to be Joel Moore who plays the socially awkward obsessive creator of the videogame their all working on. Moore is intensely annoying and even though those are qualities you want in your villain, he warranted an unnatural hate. He adopts this robot schizophrenia (I have no idea how else to describe it) that while watching was beyond stupid, but it was one of those thing where I was mimicking it later that day.

Boy, like any good potential cult classic, has tons of little laughs that get under your skin make you love them. There were at least a dozen moments I reflected on and laughed at later in the week. Please keep in mind that this is my bread and butter. It's why I go to the movies, so this may not apply to you, but if you're ready to laugh, It's there.

As with most geek comedies there is a love interest that is WAY out of the league of the star. Here it's Linda Cardellini (ER, Freaks and Geeks) who is 12 kinds of hot. She's able to play it straight among this crazy cast, but when it's time for her freak flag to fly she waves it high. I'll never hear Push it by Salt n' Peppa again without thinking of her.

I was disappointed with the way the "Grandma" part of Grandma's Boy was dealt with. It was of course necessary for setting up the plot, and the moments were technically funny, but as the movie bounced back and forth between the dual lives, the pacing would speed up and slow down with tremendous force. I found myself excited to see what would happen to Alex the video game tester, but then disappointed when he would go home to interact with the old folks.

That back and forth dynamic never worked until the two worlds collided. Then it gets pretty damn crazy.

7 out of 10 I'm really in love with a lot of things in this movie, but I say with hesitation because I know it's "stupid" humor. It's not going to change your life; it's just going to make you laugh. I can say that most people will not enjoy it, in large because they don't want to. If you go in expecting it to suck, then it will most likely suck. But it's still funny. .

DVD worthy?: Yeah, I keep thinking about going back to see it, but tell myself to just wait, and use that money to buy the DVD. Of course I may be a minority in feeling this. Grandma's Boy is definitely not for everyone. Most people would probably be better off using that money to buy weed. That actually might make the movie universally enjoyable so ? rock on.

If you liked this movie check out: Half Baked

Half Baked is the God of Stoner movies, and is somehow just as funny when you're sober. It tells the story of 3 friends who have to raise money to get a buddy out of jail. So they sell weed, and get wrapped up in the underworld of drugs. It's actually much funnier than that description, I promise. So good in fact that I would put it in my top 25 Crappy Movies of all time.

But it doesn't need my praise. Those that know about it? know how awesome it is.

Trailer Hitch: Big Momma's House 2/Bench Warmer's redux

Ok, I'd talked about every trailer Grandma's Boy had to offer so I had nothing original to say, but seeing trailers as much as I see them, you start to pick up on certain things you didn't notice the first few times.

Big Momma's House 2 of course stars Martin Lawrence. I love him to death, can't wait to see it. In the extended trailer for the movie I noticed that we only see Lawrence out of the "momma" outfit once, and for a total of about 2 seconds. That's weird isn't it, I mean a little? Here's your star, and in the promo's he's 99% covered up. Makes me wonder what the big draw of the movie is, the star or the character.

The Benchwarmer's trailer I've seen at least 5 times now, and around number 3 I noticed a robot. Swear to god, there's a freakin' robot in this movie. They never play it up in the trailer, but he's rolling around back there. I'm endlessly fascinated by this, and can't wait to see what capacity the robot plays in the movie. Oh, man it's going to be a wreck.

Today's voting incentive revolves around my company at the movies that day. It was pretty empty. 4-6 people total including with two old guys in the back. I kept wondering what the hell they were doing there. This seemed most likely.

Non movie related stuff:

So after the big link from Dinosaur Comics I've felt more and more that spreading the love is the best thing to do. A lot of people have helped me out, why shouldn't I do the same. So I'm going to try and give more shout outs to specific comics, or even individual strips that I think are great. Won't always be big comics, won't always be small, just stuff that is cool.

Now, Yirmumah doesn't need our traffic, in fact that's why we advertise with them, but DJ did do a trip last week that struck me as a very clever idea. He turned 30, and decided to box of the strip and do a portrait for each year of his life. It's one of those ideas I wish I had thought of first.

I have one other thing to mention. We've actually started advertising space on the main site at Digital Pimp. We got contacted by an interested party, and had been meaning to set it up anyway, so it seemed like the thing to do.

Our first advertiser is Twisted Kaiju Theater which is a great toy/photo based comic in the tradition of Toy Fare and Alien Loves Predator. Lots of fun, so have a look see, and let them know that advertising at Digital Pimp wasn't a waste of cash.

If anyone is interested in advertising with us, shoot me or Phil an e-mail and we'll send you the options and prices. We are starting out with the prices pretty low. Sort of a way to just test the waters. You can get space for as little as 3 dollars a week and 10 dollars for a month. More details to come!