The Wedding Singer (1998, Frank Coraci)

January 6th, 2010 · No Comments

Adam Sandler stars in Frank Coraci's The Wedding Singer.

I actually kind of like The Wedding Singer; it's blandly inoffensive, has a solid 1980s soundtrack and kind of plays like how "Everybody Hates Chris" would have played if it had sucked instead of being the best sitcom since "Arrested Development." On that subject, the problem with The Wedding Singer is it makes easy eighties jokes instead of reverential ones.

Anyway, it's easily the worst directed film I've seen since... I'm trying to think, maybe She's All That, which I saw a long, long time ago. Because Frank Coraci isn't even a lousy director like Simon West is a bad director or whoever, he's a bad director who seems to think he's shooting for a lousy sitcom, something like that Kirk Cameron show the WB launched with.

Oddly, on the Kirk Cameron note, The Wedding Singer's "politics" are somewhat interesting. It's very pro-marriage, and anti-materialistic, mocking yuppies at every opportunity.

I've only seen Drew Barrymore in one movie since The Wedding Singer came out (I saw it in the theater)--Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, oh, wait, I saw Ever After on DVD--but I wasn't expecting her performance in this one to be so terrible. It's completely incompetent. It's like she's reading audition lines for a Clorox commercial. Not a Snuggle commercial because the bear's a better actor than her in this one.

Sandler's bad too, since he seems to be doing an accent.

Allen Covert and Christine Taylor are both good. Steve Buscemi's cameo is amazing.

CREDITS

Directed by Frank Coraci; written by Tim Herlihy; director of photography, Tim Suhrstedt; edited by Tom Lewis; music by Teddy Castellucci; production designer, Perry Andelin Blake; produced by Robert Simonds and Jack Giarraputo; released by New Line Cinema.

Starring Adam Sandler (Robbie), Drew Barrymore (Julia), Christine Taylor (Holly), Allen Covert (Sammy), Matthew Glave (Glenn), Ellen Albertini Dow (Rosie), Angela Featherstone (Linda), Alexis Arquette (George) with Steve Buscemi (Dave Veltri) and Jon Lovitz (Jimmie Moore).

Tagged: Frank Coraci· New Line Cinema· Tim Herlihy· ★

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