Bootleg Sandler
Will I respect myself in the morning?
Unclear. But I felt sleazy as hell as I purposely made eye contact with the stooped Chinese woman who was selling bootleg DVDs at a pizza place in Queens. This on the heels of a spectacular FBI roundup of 13 bootleggers, the punchline to a long-gestating sweep through New York.
Those 13 may be behind bars, but there’s still inventory floating around out there. The Chinese pizza connection was a veritable one-woman Blockbuster, carrying all the latest summer titles — X-Men, Da Vinci Code. Also like the folks at Blockbuster, she didn’t seem to have any personal interest in or knowledge of the movies she sold. I noticed her because her body language was that falsely ingratiating kind found in pleading-eyed scavengers who try to sell single-stem roses to diners before a restaurant kicks them out. But the table of teenagers near me squealed with glee when the woman splayed her plastic-wrapped wares like slabs of an oversized Tarot deck; I was curious.
Years ago, the MPAA took me along on a stakeout of a Bronx video store that was serving as a front for bootleggers. So now, I briefly thought of calling my old contact (who, notwithstanding, had long since left the MPAA) and alerting him to the skulduggery of this old woman — although she was “old” only in the sense that actresses over 40 were once considered fodder for granny roles. She was possibly in her 50s, but she shuffled as if she were in her dotage, perhaps because life had beaten her down. Or perhaps she’d lost the will to live after seeing Click, the moronic, depressing new Adam Sandler movie that I bought from her for five bucks, rationalizing to myself that it was in the service of “research” for this blog.
Whoever filmed Click off a movie screen with a camcorder was sitting to the left of the theater, coughed like a banshee, hit the mute button twice by mistake, and squeaked his chair with alacrity throughout the movie. As for those pesky end credits, he didn’t bother filming them. They’re not part of the movie, are they?
If you care about film, you don’t want to see one off a bootleg copy. But then, if you care about film, you don’t want to see Click.
No one has accused Sandler of having range. His claim to fame is still his man-boy singing of silly songs in a silly voice. As most sentient beings will agree, a little Sandler goes a long way. But that doesn’t stop him in Click — SPOILER ALERT!!!! — from performing an excruciatingly sorry-ass death scene in which he flails about, gasping, in a hospital gown and a puddle of water. His character, who has fast-forwarded through his life to avoid the hassle of experiencing any of it, suddenly sees the error of his ways and tries, with his dying breath, to gain absolution from the family he betrayed.
Hamlet he ain’t.
But the week wasn’t a total loss. Here’s the view from my neighbor Nick’s terrace:
Very nice piece. Last year I was approached by an enterprising gentleman selling copies of The Cave. This occurred just as I was leaving a press screening of … well, The Cave. Now that’s quick turnaround.