Forgettable Spam

Rating: 3/10 (10 July 2006)

I fully admit that I had very low, biased expectations coming into this. I've never liked Barrymore. She's had the world of movies in her hand since birth, with a famous lineage and many friends in high places -- and what does she do with that power?
Well, she has no respect for herself or her audience, nor for the art or mechanics of movie-making. By age 14 she was already out of control with drug use. I would argue she popularized the very notion in our society that we have to 'sympathize with' and 'pity' the spoiled, wayward, self-abusing elitists, because they shape so much of our culture cinematically (who can forget "E.T."?).
Having written that, I have to comment that she's the only reason for watching this. Even though this is Sandler's movie, she's the only one here with either an innate or learned sense of what it means to live within movie roles. She controls the picture, though the narrative was intended to lay the control elsewhere. Sandler cannot and never will escape his TV-skit/shtick. That goes double for Schneider.
As for what this is, it's mildly clever in how it resolves itself through constructed representations of the world surrounding movies -- that is, through diaries, murals, watercolors, home movies, etc. Think of it as the inverse of "Groundhog Day", leaning heavily on "Memento".
I've seen far worse movies...more offensive ones than this, too. But this one will never be great. Contrast this with a smart self-referential vision and construction such as "Eternal Sunshine...", and this fades into complete irrelevance.