review: GRANDMA'S BOY

20th Century Fox  //  Buy from Amazon.com Can the world's oldest adolescent maintain his cool while living with his grandmother? Alex (Allen Covert) is a 35-year-old video-game fanatic who gave up a career in accounting to take a job testing games for Brainasium, the company behind the wildly popular game "Eternal Death Slayer." While Alex took a big pay cut to land his dream job, he's happy with his work and is making ends meet -- until he discovers that his roommate hasn't paid the rent for the last six months, using the money to finance repeated visits to a local massage parlor. After running out of friends who will let him sleep on their couch, Alex swallows his pride and moves in with his grandma Lily (Doris Roberts), who loves Alex and is happy to give him a place to stay in exchange for doing chores around the house. Lily shares her home with two friends, perpetually confused Bea (Shirley Knight) and sexually adventurous Grace (Shirley Jones), and between the three of them, there's always work to be done, keeping Alex busy nearly every night. While Alex tells his co-workers he's living with three attractive women who are running him ragged, they don't know the real story; in the meantime, Alex is trying to charm Brainasium's beautiful new executive, Samantha (Linda Cardellini), while butting heads with the firm's space-case CEO Cheezle (Kevin Nealon) and J.P. (Joel David Moore), a teenage game designer who is no longer in touch with reality. Essentially, this film is a bunch of Adam Sandler's buddies getting together to make a film without him. How do they fare? Surprisingly well! Truth be told, Sandler's buddies are always the best part of his films - he's usually the straight man, while the ensemble cast rounds out the weirdos, lunatics, and crazies. This time, they're front and centre, and "Grandma's Boy" delivers all of the sheer stupidity you would expect. I am truly amazed that this film was made, but I'm sure that's more a testament to Sandler's clout in Hollywood as opposed to some Hollywood exec reading the following scene and thinking, "Movie gold!" *loud fart* Stereotypical African tribesman: "My beef strong!" Stoner: "Your beef wrong!" (Truth be told, I fell off the couch from laughing so hard during that scene, but I appreciate stupid comedy.) This film seemed to be a throwback to 80s goof-off comedies, and I loved it. It's not for everyone, but if you like your comedy pointless and stupid, this is for you. Video Anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen presentation looked nice & solid to me. While there did appear to be a bit of grain at the beginning, that quickly disappeared, leaving behind a clean picture to sit back and enjoy. Audio Dolby 5.1 surround mix was solid - it's a talkie/comedy, so it's mostly a front-heavy mix. However, what you do hear is always clear & audible, so no complaints. Extras Audio Commentaries "Covert Whacks It" Featuette "Monkey" Featurette "Scenes That Went Up In Smoke" Montage Deleted/Extended Scenes Outtakes "Smoke This" Montage "Casting Session" Episode Music Video Music Video Making-of Featurette Trailer Closing Thoughts Truly stupidly hilarious film + tons of goofy extras = not for the cerebral, but fantastic for fans of fart-type comedy :: This review originally appeared on CalgaryMovies.com ::