Cinema News: How Adam Sandler got so good

January 9, 2026 | View in browser

A man in a blue suit looks over his shoulder.

By Mark Olsen

Staff Writer

Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

A few of the movies that received abbreviated awards qualifying runs late last year are now getting their proper release. Directed by Gus Van Sant, "Dead Man's Wire" tells the true-life story of how a man in 1977 Indianapolis, Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård), took his mortgage banker (Dacre Montgomery) hostage after he felt he was swindled out of his money. It turned into a media circus that was broadcast on live TV.

In her review, Amy Nicholson compared the film to some of Van Sant's other true-crime adaptations, including "To Die For," "Milk" and "Elephant," noting, "But this time, Van Sant seems more interested in the period-piece décor and the aesthetics of early video footage (the cinematography is by Arnaud Potier) than he is in the bleak humor of Kiritsis' televised tirade cutting to a burger commercial. The result is a faintly comic curio that hurtles along without much impact."

Tim Grierson reviewed "No Other Choice," Park Chan Wook's adaptation of Donald Westlake's novel "The Ax" that transports the story to South Korea. After being laid off from his longtime job at a paper mill, Man-su (Lee Byung Hun) creates an elaborate scheme to murder his potential competitors for another job.

"Park's approach may be pleasingly shocking, but it isn't always novel," Grierson notes. " 'No Other Choice' bluntly depicts a contemporary workforce decimated by AI and cost-cutting, but its view of alienated labor and thwarted masculinity has roots in indelible works such as 'Parasite' and 'Breaking Bad.' And for all its dark comedy, the movie is most cutting when it moves away from the big set pieces and, instead, examines the small ways that employees lose their humanity to a capitalist system that's out to destroy them. Like the trees cut down and pulverized to make Man-su's beloved paper products, ultimately we're all being fed into the shredder."

I reviewed Mona Fastvold's "The Testament of Ann Lee," which stars Amanda Seyfried as the woman who led the nascent religious movement known as the Shakers from England to America in the 1700s. Song and movement were part of their spiritual practice, and so the movie is something of an unusual musical.

" 'The Testament of Ann Lee' is held together by the resonant and committed performance of Seyfried, who continues to prove herself an actor of astonishing depth," I wrote.

Lav Diaz will appear at the Nuart on Friday for a Q&A after his new "Magellan," starring Gael García Bernal. And Kristen Stewart will pop up around town for intros and Q&As of her feature directing debut, "The Chronology of Water," starring Imogen Poots.

Adam Sandler's dramatic arc

This week the Egyptian Theatre will put on a mini festival that charts the growth of Adam Sandler's more dramatic roles, under the title "Seriously Sandler." Over the years he has become a deeply sensitive actor, capable of conveying real emotions and a lived-in sadness. While it is looking less likely that his turn in Noah Baumbach's "Jay Kelly" will finally be the one to net him an Oscar nomination, having this program designed to bolster recognition for his work is still pretty great. (We will leave the quibbling over excluding James L. Brooks' "Spanglish" for another time.)

On Monday there will be screenings of Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Collected)," his first collaboration with Sandler, and Mike Binder's 2007 "Reign Over Me."

"Meyerowitz" casts Sandler alongside Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel as the troubled children of an artist played by Dustin Hoffman. In his review of the film, Kenneth Turan noted, "Sandler's performance is, frankly, a revelation. Almost nothing he has done, not even his fine work in 'Punch-Drunk Love,' prepares you for the moving, completely unmannered and heartfelt portrait he creates here."

Tuesday will see a 35mm screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's 2002 "Punch-Drunk Love," among the first times Sandler stretched into something different: a serio-comic romance set, not surprisingly, in the San Fernando Valley (with an interlude in Honolulu).

Also on Tuesday is a screening of Judd Apatow's 2009 "Funny People," in which Sandler plays a movie star and comedian grappling with his own mortality. The supporting cast includes Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jason Schwartzman, Jonah Hill and Aubrey Plaza.

Wednesday brings a 35mm screening of Josh and Benny Sadie's "Uncut Gems" as well as Jeremiah Zagar's sports dramedy "Hustle."

In his review of "Uncut Gems," Justin Chang wrote about Sandler's performance as reckless gambler Howard Ratner by saying, "'Uncut Gems' reignites his fires and then some, partly because he's playing someone so driven, who adores the thrill of the chase and takes an almost sexual ecstasy in every payoff. But it's also partly because Howard — flamboyant, shameless, loathsome and intermittently lovable — charges so many of Sandler's familiar expressions and gestures with searing new energy and purpose."

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Speaking about working with Sandler, Zagar said, "He's just incredible and wonderful to watch. He is that guy and he did it perfect every time. One of the cool things about watching Adam act is there aren't bad takes. They're just good in different ways."

Asked in a 2017 screening Q&A whether he approaches his dramatic acting differently from the broader comedic roles on which he first made his name, Sandler replied, "Absolutely."

He added, "I mean, one thing in common is I work as hard as I can possibly work. I believe in everything I do. My process is just a lot of hours. I'm consumed with making sure I don't feel any regret at the end of a work day. And of course you do — you go home and think, 'Oh, I should have done this or that,' but I go in with full intent to do my best."

Points of interest

'The Long Goodbye' and 'Night Moves'

Two of the best examples of 1970s neo-noir will play as a double bill in 35mm at the New Beverly Cinema Tuesday through Thursday: Robert Altman's 1973 "The Long Goodbye" and Arthur Penn's 1975 "Night Moves."

Adapted by Leigh Brackett and starring Elliott Gould as detective Phillip Marlowe, "The Long Goodbye" relocates Raymond Chandler's novel to 1970s Los Angeles. After giving an old friend a ride to Mexico, Marlowe finds himself swept up in a complex tale of infidelity, gangsters and murder.

Though it has grown in stature to become much beloved — it is unabashedly one of my all-time favorite movies — at the time, the mash-up of sensibilities created by Altman was confounding and even upsetting to many people.

In his original review, Charles Champlin admitted he couldn't get past his own preconceptions about the character, writing, "He is not Chandler's Marlowe, or mine, and I can't find him interesting, sympathetic or amusing and I can't be sure who will."

Written by Alan Sharp, "Night Moves" stars Gene Hackman in one of his greatest performances as Harry Moseby, a former football player turned private detective in Los Angeles. Looking for a missing teenager, he winds up in Florida, where he becomes embroiled in a mystery around the smuggling of rare artifacts.

Reviewing the movie at the time, Kevin Thomas aptly described the film as "a tough yet vulnerable private eye's investigation of a murder [that] becomes a quest for his own identity and a pursuit for the truth that cuts through many layers of social strata and ends with a wry sense of irony over the eternal treachery of human nature and one's own illusions. Lest all this sound pretentious and therefore off-putting, let it hastily be said that 'Night Moves' is also a fast, often funny movie with lots of compassionately observed real, living, breathing people. … 'Night Moves' is a tribute to the Hollywood genre movie at its reflective, revealing best."

Visconti's 'The Damned'

On Wednesday, Vidiots will host a rare screening of Luchino Visconti's 1969 drama "The Damned," starrng Charlotte Rampling, Dirk Bogarde, Ingird Thulin and Helmut Berger. Tying together bourgeoise decadence and the rise of nazism in the 1930s, the story follows a wealthy industrialist who begins doing business with the Nazi party, even as a member of his family finds his queer lifestyle at odds with their strict codes of behavior.

In his original Dec. 26, 1969 review — imagine "The Damned" as a holiday release — Kevin Thomas called it "Luchino Visconti's masterpiece and the most powerful indictment of Nazi Germany ever filmed." He added, "Everything converges to make the movie's major point: that Hitlers don't rise to power without the backing of the captains of industry."

De Palma's 'Obsession'

On Friday night, the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre will host a 50th anniversary screening of "Obesession," directed by Brian De Palma from a script by Paul Schrader. Not surprisingly, the film plays like a couple of huge Hitchcock fans having a blast riffing on the master — a score by Bernard Herrmann only adds to the feeling.

Gleefully pulling from "Vertigo" and "Rebecca," the story is about a New Orleans businessman (Cliff Robertson) who loses his wife and daughter after they are kidnapped and a ransom exchange goes wrong. Later he meets a woman (Geneviève Bujold) who reminds him of his late wife. As they plan to marry, she also gets kidnapped.

Reviewing the film when it was originally released, Kevin Thomas called it "a heady homage to full-blown melodrama in all its unbridled romanticism." He added, "By sheer dint of bravura style and intense passion, it can sweep the willing viewer right along with it."

In other news

Farewell to Béla Tarr

Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr died this week at age 70, leaving behind a legacy of films such as "Sátántangó," "Werckmeister Harmonies" and "The Turin Horse." Known for his spare, unforgiving style and darkly comic fatalistic sensibility, along with his penchant for leather jackets, lots of smoking and a deadpan sense of humor, Tarr was a quintessential arthouse filmmaker.

Carlos Aguilar spoke to Tarr on what turned out to be his final visit to Los Angeles in 2023, for an extended tribute series as part of the American Cinematheque's "Bleak Week" festival.

"It's easy to say they are depressing or bleak, but it's not about that," Tarr said of his films. "Human beings are very complex, and when you are doing a movie, or any kind of art, you have to try to have empathy for people."

Our John Penner wrote a tribute to Tarr, noting, "His stark black-and-white imagery in assiduously long takes with creeping camera movements demanded that the viewer pause to look, to see, as one might in regarding a Picasso or a Bruegel. Tarr's revolution in form, however, cannot be separated from the radical humanity of his filmmaking. In a concentrated collection of 10 features over less than four decades, his gaze was fixed on the resolute dignity of his marginalized and downtrodden characters, which elevated his work beyond the realm of cinephile rumination."