Adam Sandler

The secret of Adam Sandler's success is still obscure in "Big Daddy," a lackluster but sweet-natured comedy in which the comic phenomenon plays a would-be foster father. The setup is funny, and Sandler is ably supported by one of the cutest moppets to hit screens since Jonathan Lipnicki stole "Jerry Maguire," but why this unexceptional performer is the comic sensation of the year remains a mystery.Sandler plays Sonny Koufax, a law-school graduate who is leading the life of a committed slacker.

Perennial Razzie favorite Adam Sandler had another banner year when it comes to bad movies, landing 11 nominations in the race for the worst of Hollywood 2011. The comedian's record-destroying total included his work in or for three films: "Jack and Jill,"which he starred-in, wrote and produced; "Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star," which he co-wrote and produced; and "Just Go With It,"in which he co-starred with Jennifer Aniston. One of those nominations includes Worst Actress, for the cross-dressing comedy "Jack & Jill.

Gary Cooper created his most classically chivalrous character as Longfellow Deeds, the big-hearted small-town hero who inherits a fortune and tries to use it for the greater good in Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Planting slobby Adam Sandler in that same role makes you wonder what other marvels of miscasting Hollywood could achieve if the rest of Capra's canon were revamped. Reuniting Tom Green and Drew Barrymore for the Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert roles in It Happened One Night?

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra ** ( 2 STARS) $54.7 million $54.7 million 1 week Rated: PG-13 Running time: 118 minutes What it's about: Team leader Duke (Channing Tatum, above) and his elite force must save the world from metal hungry robots. Our take: G.I. Joe may not be beefier, but it's cheesier and less aggravating than "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the summer '09 headbanger it most resembles. Julie & Julia *** ( 3 STARS) $9.8 million $86.1 million 3 weeks Rated: PG-13 Running time: 123 minutes What it's about: Meryl Streep (above)

As film formulas go, Adam Sandler's is proving especially hard to swallow. For the first half of the movie, be offensive. Be juvenile. Be crass. But then get all right-minded and realize how hurtful your behavior has been, and suddenly become something of a secular saint. This allows for everybody to become all happy and gushy and righteous in the end, with all previous offenses against humanity (not to mention taste) forgiven. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal Pictures) Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel.

Click continues the fascinating process of watching Adam Sandler mature onscreen. The frat-boy humor remains, but as in 2004's 50 First Dates, it's leavened by honest heart, compelling inventiveness and the acknowledgment that not everything in life exists to be snickered at. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a successful architect whose drive and ambition leave no time for his family. They also leave him with no time to master his household's plethora of remotes, that bewildering pile of advanced technology that is the bane of family rooms everywhere.

Orioles@Brewers 8 p.m. [MASN2] Radhames Liz, who has pitched well for the Orioles since being called up from the minors this month, gets his fourth start. Veteran Jeff Suppan is scheduled to start for the Brewers, who have won four straight. Movie The Longest Yard 8 p.m. [TNT] This is the remake, in which Adam Sandler is in the Burt Reynolds role as the inmate quarterback, although Reynolds is in the 2005 remake as the coach. It's tough to follow a classic.

Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds took part in a media conference yesterday to promote the remake of The Longest Yard, the 1974 film that is considered one of the best sports movies. Reynolds starred in the original, about a football game between inmates and guards at a Southern prison. Personally, I'm waiting for Smokey and the Bandit: The Twilight Years. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue opened his State of the NFL address yesterday with the rhetorical question, "Why are we in Jacksonville?

SUN SCORE *1/2 Whaddya know, there's a heart beating beneath all the dumb crudeness that is Adam Sandler's film career. Not that it makes all that much difference: His humor is still determinedly dumb and almost proudly offensive, and the crudity of it is enough to make anyone, even the most open-minded, blanch. In short, the movie's probably not going to attract much in the way of converts to the Sandler fold, while his fans will think it's just swell. Still, the animated Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights - the tale of a rotten guy dedicated to making everyone's life as miserable as his own, until a little guy with abundant holiday spirit gets the better of him - at least evinces detectable signs of humanity.

"Airheads" is a likably breezy film that should prove successful with its target audience and even bring more than a few smiles to the face of someone much older.Three frustrated L.A. rockers, desperate to get air time for their demo tape, inadvertently take over a rock radio station because they happen to be carrying water pistols that resemble Uzis. What kind of guy still plays with water pistols? Guys like Chazz (Brendan Fraser), Rex (Steve Buscemi) and Pip (Adam Sandler), who aren't too bright.

Funny People ** 1/2 $22.6 million $22.6 million 1 week Rated: R Running time: 146 minutes What it's about: Adam Sandler (above) plays a comic much like himself who contracts leukemia and confronts the emptiness of his life. Our take: It has a smattering of hearty laughs and a never-better Sandler, but it's as weepy and interminable as "Terms of Endearment." Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince *** 1/2 $17.9 million $ 255.6 million 3.5 weeks Rated: PG Running time: 153 minutes What it's about: Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe, above)

When Judd Apatow put his producer-promoter's hat on to publicize Jake Kasdan's very funny (and underrated) parody of biopics, Walk Hard, he said that it was "fun to make fun of movies that reek of the filmmakers' belief that they were going to win the Oscar." Damned if he hasn't made that kind of movie himself. Apatow's Funny People tells the story of an Adam Sandler-like comic megastar, George Simmons (played by Sandler). With the help of a tyro stand-up and comedy writer, Ira Wright (Seth Rogen)

Orioles@Brewers 8 p.m. [MASN2] Radhames Liz, who has pitched well for the Orioles since being called up from the minors this month, gets his fourth start. Veteran Jeff Suppan is scheduled to start for the Brewers, who have won four straight. Movie The Longest Yard 8 p.m. [TNT] This is the remake, in which Adam Sandler is in the Burt Reynolds role as the inmate quarterback, although Reynolds is in the 2005 remake as the coach. It's tough to follow a classic.

The attempt to establish a movie as a "Hanukkah perennial" brings up bad memories of Jewish-American farces - Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights or Adam Goldberg's The Hebrew Hammer. But the Senator Theatre has a better idea. Starting Tuesday, Hanukkah's first night, Baltimore's premier movie palace will present a collector's print of Fiddler on the Roof in four-track stereo, complete with a celebrity menorah-lighting before each evening show throughout the holiday. (An added attraction for movie lovers: This print was struck with the luxurious old Technicolor process known as dye imbibition.

As film formulas go, Adam Sandler's is proving especially hard to swallow. For the first half of the movie, be offensive. Be juvenile. Be crass. But then get all right-minded and realize how hurtful your behavior has been, and suddenly become something of a secular saint. This allows for everybody to become all happy and gushy and righteous in the end, with all previous offenses against humanity (not to mention taste) forgiven. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal Pictures) Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel.

A half-dozen instants of stunning empathy and insight redeem everything in Reign Over Me that is undigested or sentimental. It's a courageous, moving, organically funny picture about the slow-healing sadness that occurs when private grief gets interspersed with public events. It's about the need to thrash things out. Picture a man still crazed by the loss of his wife and daughters on Sept. 11 who watches TV news for the first time in years, then switches to a classic movie station showing You Were Never Lovelier.

Adam Sandler's hair looks like a living thing in "The Wedding Singer," but his wiggy mop is somehow appropriate to this goofy send-up of '80s excess and "Material Girl" romance.Comedian Sandler is not only not annoying (a major breakthrough) but is actually charming as Robbie, who sings pop tunes at weddings and has been obsessed with getting married since his parents divorced when he was a kid.The year is 1985, and true to the era, Robbie's band includes a Boy George lookalike whose entire repertoire, on the rare occasions when he sings solo, consists of Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?"

"The Waterboy" attains the level of most of Adam Sandler's movies, which is to say, not very high. But that will be enough if audiences check their brains at the door to enjoy this amiable, silly and human story of a mama-smothered young man and his rise to fame and acceptance.Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, a social misfit whose one mission is to provide good water to the college football team he works for in the Louisiana bayou. He's a relentless perfectionist, boiling the stuff to guarantee its purity, even offering spring water as an alternative.

Click continues the fascinating process of watching Adam Sandler mature onscreen. The frat-boy humor remains, but as in 2004's 50 First Dates, it's leavened by honest heart, compelling inventiveness and the acknowledgment that not everything in life exists to be snickered at. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a successful architect whose drive and ambition leave no time for his family. They also leave him with no time to master his household's plethora of remotes, that bewildering pile of advanced technology that is the bane of family rooms everywhere.

ST. LOUIS - This city got a small but real taste of Hollywood in 2000 when one of its favorite sons, rapper Nelly, snagged a key role in the little indie flick Snipes. At the St. Louis premiere, Nelly rolled up in a blue Bentley and strolled down the red carpet escorting his mother, Rhonda Mack. Other red carpet arrivals included several St. Louis Rams, including Marshall Faulk, and the Snipes cast and crew. Turns out, you ain't seen nothing yet. Last week, the red carpet was rolled out again for the local premiere of The Longest Yard.