Sunday night we decided to watch the movie Click. Brianna wanted to see it when it came out last year, because they showed commercials for it on Nickelodeon, but we didn't get around to seeing it in the theater. But here it was On Demand, for three bucks. I didn't know how age-appropriate an Adam Sandler movie was, but if they advertised on Nickelodeon it can't be too bad. So we watched it. It's Adam Sandler. It's a light-hearted comedy. Ha Ha! What fun! What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently they forgot to mention that midway through the movie, they drop the light-hearted comedy in favor of hardcore depression.
If you don't know the plot, the story is that Adam Sandler plays Michael Newman, an architect who keeps opening the garage door every time he wants to change the channel. So he goes to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get a universal remote. (I guess the rest would be considered spoilers, but if you haven't seen it, read on anyway or my story won't make any sense.) In the mysterious "Beyond" section, crazy-haired Morty (played by crazy-assed Christopher Walken) shows him a truly "Universal Remote" that lets him control the universe. It brings up a DVD-style menu that he can use to navigate through different chapters of his life, and the "making of" sections shows, well, the making of Michael Newman. It's not pretty.
Morty lets Michael keep the remote, because he seems like a good guy and good guys need a break once in a while. Micheal uses the remote to fast forward through sicknesses, fights, boring conversations...all the stuff you wish you could skip. He can also rewind, but only to rewatch his life; he can't change what's already happened.
One of the features of the remote is that it remembers what he skipped, so the next time he fights with his wife, for example, it automatically skips the fight without him pressing anything. Eventually it keeps skipping forward in time uncontrollably. His dog dies, his marriage fails, his kids grow up without him and his dad (Henry Winkler) passes away without him even remembering. After Michael finds out that his dad died, he rewinds back to the last time he saw him. His aging father came in to see him at work, but he was too busy to talk. His father offered to finally show him the secret to a magic trick he'd done since he was little. Man, so many pronouns. Anyway, Michael brushes him off, and says he always knew how the stupid trick was done, and completely dejected, his father says, "You always knew how it was done?" The father hangs his head and turns away, and says "I love you, son." This is about the time Brianna started crying. And it just went downhill from there. Even after the happy ending, she was still crying because she missed her Papa, who's still down in South Carolina. The poor kid. One minute she's laughing at the dog humping a giant stuffed animal, and the next she's bawling her eyes out because Operaman never got to tell the Fonz he loved him.
She went to bed in tears. She left a note on my bedroom door that said "I feel a little better about the sad movie." Geez, I hope she isn't scarred for life. Well, I thought it was okay anyway. It was a little more dramatic than I was expecting, but it had a happy ending. Happy!
The next day I was watching a few episodes of Arrested Development while Brianna was in the room and sort of forgot that Henry Winkler played the lawyer. I said, "Hey, It's the grandfather from Click!" And she started at it again. I never thought an Adam Sandler movie could make an eight-year-old sad. I don't know, if it had been Tom Hanks instead of Adam Sandler, I probably would have been crying like a little girl, too. And if the little mousy guy from Evening Shade was his dad instead of Fonzie...and poor Mr. Jangles...and...Jenny...sniffle...damn you, Tom Hanks!
Okay, change of pace. Here's the adorable little bear card I made for Brianna. Awww. But what's this? His cringe-worthy bear pun-laced message is missing! You know what to do. On my command, unleash hell. Or puns. Same thing.
And...go.
