Jack and Jill (2011)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Jack Sadelstein, a successful advertising executive in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife and kids, dreads one event each year: the Thanksgiving visit of his twin sister Jill. Jill's neediness and passive-aggressiveness is maddening to Jack, turning his normally tranquil life upside down.
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29 films that influenced Jack and Jill
What critics say influenced Jack and Jill
There’s a scene in JACK AND JILL where Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler) takes his family to the movies to see “Some Like It Hot.” It’s a nod to the classic cross-dressing comedy in which Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon spend much of the film dressed as women.
Chewing the scenery the way an escaped pit bull chews the mailman's carotid (which, come to think of it, actually makes this a more subtle performance than the one in "88 Minutes"), Pacino falls for the unconventional Jill, resulting in some multi-layered drag shenanigans as Sandler-as-Jack impersonates Sandler-as-Jill, a development foreshadowed by the twins' viewing of "Some Like It Hot."
When it is funny, it's because it is done in a convincing way (think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie), or in a way where the joke is that the supporting characters don't realize how unrealistic it looks (think Some Like It Hot).
Sandler the actor has never looked this apathetic, and the paycheck collecting is so obvious that the movie can’t even manage to sustain its own world, most blisteringly exposed by the ridiculous cameo appearance by cross-dressing classic Some Like it Hot.
It’s generally funniest when a male actor plays a man disguising himself as a woman for an important plot purpose à la Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.
This is a major reason the in-no-way-funny Tootsie and Some Like it Hot are remembered as classics.
After all - as Dustin Hoffman did so memorably with Tootsie - there's still a point to be made about the roles available to women in film and television, right?
Alas, "Jack and Jill" is more " Norbit " than "Tootsie" or "Mrs.
When it is funny, it's because it is done in a convincing way (think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie), or in a way where the joke is that the supporting characters don't realize how unrealistic it looks (think Some Like It Hot).
It’s generally funniest when a male actor plays a man disguising himself as a woman for an important plot purpose à la Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.
This is a major reason the in-no-way-funny Tootsie and Some Like it Hot are remembered as classics.
Picture "Tootsie" if everyone in the cast had a head injury.
The grand star plays ''Al Pacino'' ? to be sure, a cockeyed version ? and when we first meet him, this Al is on stage in a production of Shakespeare's Richard III, mad as hell because the ringing of some idiot's mobile phone in the audience has distracted him.
A YouTube video of the man breaking character in a stage production of Richard III in order to castigate an audience member who didn’t silence his or her cell phone (shades of Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman ?) is genuinely inspired, while other moments are more familiar I’m Still Here territory.
And Adam Sandler spends half the movie made up as a woman, yet another connection to be fostered between him and Jerry Lewis, who appeared in full drag in many of his greatest films, like The Ladies Man and Hardly Working.
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I guess that's fitting, since this, like so many Sandler movies of late, feels like a "Saturday Night Live" concept stretched out further than Katherine Helmond's face in "Brazil."
And Adam Sandler spends half the movie made up as a woman, yet another connection to be fostered between him and Jerry Lewis, who appeared in full drag in many of his greatest films, like The Ladies Man and Hardly Working.
In addition to the aforementioned Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams starrers, the underappreciated likes of 1992's "Ladybugs," 2002's " Sorority Boys ," and 2006's " She's the Man " have all been formidable entries within the gender-bending subgenre.
This isn't to say that I would want to watch him doing that for 90 minutes, as anyone who saw "Dirty Work" can attest," but the sight of him acting even lazier than the surrounding movie is certainly something to watch.
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In addition to the aforementioned Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams starrers, the underappreciated likes of 1992's "Ladybugs," 2002's " Sorority Boys ," and 2006's " She's the Man " have all been formidable entries within the gender-bending subgenre.
Audience members with long memories will remember a sketch in Wayne’s World, in which corporate stooges Carvey and Mike Myers, pretended to send up intrusive advertising, while simultaneously giving Pepsi and Pizza Hut cameos.