12/16-Eight Crazy Nights (2002)

I had wanted to watch Hannukah movies for each of the nights of Hannukah, but unfortunately, there's really only two out there, and this Adam Sandler vehicle is one of them (spoiler, the other will be watched tomorrow).  I must say, it's a little disappointing.  Considering there are so many Christmas movies (so many of which are either trash, rehashes, or sentimental bullshit), you'd think there'd be at least as many Hannukah movies are there are nights of celebration, but alas, no.  We'll have to tide ourselves over with this movie.

Davey Stone (Adam Sandler) is your run of the mill, deadbeat drunk, who hates the holiday season, living in a town that loves Christmas and also greatly supports its Jewish population.  But you know what?  Why should I tell you about when he sings a song that conveniently explains everything you need to know about him at this point.  Oh yeah, it's a musical.

You can say what you will about the content and lyrics in these songs, as well as the quality of the movie as a whole, but damn the songs are catchy.  One particular song, which I'll get to later, I actually remembered when I decided to watch this again, the last time being when it came out, over a decade ago.  That's pretty impressive staying power, at least back of your mind staying power.  I mean, sure these are no Disney musical classics, little kids aren't going to sing them until their parents want to stab their ears, and college a capella groups aren't going to sing a medley of them for cheap nostalgia points, but honestly, they're more memorable than the songs from Muppet Christmas Carol, which as a whole is much better than this movie.

Music tangent aside, Davey's antics get him arrested and in lieu of jail time, a town personality named Whitey offers to mentor Davey through youth basketball refereeing as a form of community service.  Whitey, being something of a naive idealist believes he can change Davey back to the boy he once was.

This is Whitey, by the way.  He's like 4 feet tall and
one foot is way bigger than the other, like 10 sizes bigger.

Davey, of course, remains being an asshole despite Whitey's best efforts.  We do see little twinkles of potential goodness, mainly through a scene where he helps a boy gain some confidence in his basketball skills, though it's hard to say if that comes from actually having good intentions sometimes, his love of basketball, or the fact that he totally wants to shtup (Yiddish seemed appropriate) the kid's mom.

After Davey's trailer is burned down, Whitey takes him in and we finally start to see some more change in Davey's demeanor.  He's nicer and more helpful, and just simply less of a dick.  That is until his past is brought up and he has something of a jerk breakdown, only to redeem himself in the finale for a happy ending.  Oops, spoiled, oh well.  I mean, all these movies end happily, so it's really not a big deal.  Whatever, I'm sorry.

My big issue with this movie is the humor is targeted to a very specific demographic, which is basically 12 year olds.  There's enough openly mature content that it's clearly not intended to be true kids' movie, but most of the jokes are so crass and unmotivated that only a middle schooler would laugh at it.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again (that line is so cliche), I love toilet humor, when it's preferably clever, but really as long as it's even a little bit motivated.  At one point in the movie, Whitey gets covered in shit, like human feces, then frozen alive, and some deer come and lick him free.  The lick human shit off of him, then they're shown to be smiling, with the shit all up in their teeth!  Hilarious!  It's just really not very funny; it's just pretty gross.

Here's a different seen where they poop themselves from laughing.
That's right, there are multiple poop/deer scenes.

Earlier I mentioned a song that stuck with me for a long time, and I must admit, it is a pretty dumb song, but I can't help loving it.  It's basically the final song, so if you want to still be "surprised" by the ending, don't watch this.  Also don't be mad at me if you can't get it out of your head.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 4 out of 10 hugs