by Ellen Fitzgerald with some assistance from Dave Schmitt
Ok, so last Friday night Dave and I got all spiffed up for opening night of The Longest Yard to pay homage to member of the KankaNation Hall of Fame, Gary Godsey. Ok the second part of that is true, but not the first. We actually went to the cheap ($6), small, old theater by my house that also plays Indian films where, in the spirit of the degenerated venue we were going to, brought our own popcorn and soda. It was still a good time! So anyway, I actually have never seen the original film so I can’t make a comparison. (It was actually on the SPIKE channel the night before but I didn’t want to watch it because I didn’t want to know the story line.) I know that the Sports Guy trashed it, but Burt Reynolds said earlier that day on Live! With Regis and Kelly (unfortunately Regis did not ask Burt about working with ND alumn Gary Godsey which I thought he might) said that he thought it was funnier than the first. Regardless, I thought it was GREAT. It was funny, plus it had some great sports action scenes; plus, how can a movie about football, especially one that has Gary Godsey in it, be bad? The only part that I had a tough time with was believing that Adam Sandler was a pro quarterback. The huge numbers of sports related cameos was unbelievable. Totally out of control. I think there were more wrestlers (Stone Cold, Goldberg, and I believe WCW’s The Giant), former football players (Michael Irvin, BC scumbag alum Bill Romanowski), and ESPN and other media personalities in it than regular actors. Actually the only “real” actors that come to mine were Sandler, Reynolds, Chris Rock, Nelly (if you consider him an actor, although he was a very convincing running back. . .he made me want to call Charlie Weis and have him recruit him), and Courtney Cox. It was a virtual “Where’s Waldo” of sports stars. Actually Dave and I pretty much played “Where’s Gary” though out the football scenes. Every time we would see his number or him running by we would get all fired up. While I liked the entire movie, I think that my two favorite parts were:
Favorite Part #1
As Sandler is being led to the warden’s office in the prison, the guard with him tells him that he played college ball at Miami. In response to that Sandler says something to the effect of “I bet a lot of your teammates are locked up here then, huh.?”
Favorite Part #2
Sandler and Rock are lamenting the fact that they can’t get any of the convicts to join their team and decide to come up with a plan. Rock goes to Sandler, “Hey how did they get you to go to FSU?” Sandler responds, “Well, they recruited me.” After a silent moment, Rock says, “I’ll go get the strippers!”
I love how they really grasped football reality!
There was only one super cheesy, necessary in a sports movie line. Very typical. Sandler has an epiphany that he should throw the game and gets his ass off the bench and tells his team the stock “you were there for me, I’ll be there for you” line.
But besides that it was definitely worth the discounted price at the sketchy theater and even a full price at a real theater. I mean, would you want me to tell Gary next time we are in the Backer that you didn’t see it (after I show him my butt, of course)?
