"Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" opens in theaters today

[BillBrasky]

Sure to be a shoo-in for a Best Picture nomination at next year's Academy Awards, "Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" starring Nick Swardson opens in theaters nationwide today. Ok, I was being slightly tongue in cheek there, but this Happy Madison production promises to at least be some good mindless fun on the order of previous HM films such as "Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo" and "Grandma's Boy".

Written by Swardson along with Adam Sandler and Allen Covert (who previously collaborated with Swardson on 'Grandma's Boy'), the film was directed by Tom Brady, who also directed the Rob Schneider vehicles "The Hot Chick" and "The Animal". The story centers on a small-town idiot (Swardson) who stumbles upon a family secret: His quiet and demure parents were famous porn stars in the 1970s. This motivates him to leave northern Iowa for Hollywood, hoping to follow in their footsteps and fulfill his destiny as the biggest adult film star in the world.

The film costars Christina Ricci, Stephen Dorff, Don Johnson, Kevin Nealon, and Curtis Armstrong. Swardson is also set to appear in Sandler's next movie, "Jack and Jill", which opens later this year.

[aenemaTron]

The Onion A/V Club weighs in... (D-)

Is there a staler target for satire than the porn industry? Is there any humor left to be gleaned from describing X-rated acts in G-rated language? Bucky Larson suggests there isn’t, yet it plunges ahead all the same, powered by little more than co-writer and Happy Madison capo Adam Sandler, who stubbornly insists that silly accents and stupid haircuts are inherently funny.

(Capo? Pretty sure he's the Godfather.)

[J.B.]

...stubbornly insists that silly accents and stupid haircuts are inherently funny.

They are though!

Don't know why I'm defending a movie I haven't seen and probably will be disappointing.

[scamboogah]

Really? There are people still around trying to convince people that you're wrong if you laugh at an Adam Sandler movie?

Part of what makes something like Billy Madison so great is imagining humorless film critics shouting at the audience while they're laughing, "But he just made a fart noise and talked in a goofy accent! Save your laughter for Shakespeare, you simpletons!!".

[BillBrasky]

For once, Scammy and I are in agreement!

I don't think anyone went into this movie thinking they were making some great masterpiece of comedy. They were just looking to have a good time, and it comes across on screen. Swardson commits to his performance and his character is actually kind of sweet in his naive innocence. For some reason, I enjoy the typical trope of a Happy Madison movie where they will introduce a character or running joke and then keep returning to it throughout the movie. Like in this movie, Kevin Nealon's character is introduced as a paranoid jerk who doesn't want Bucky to touch any of his possessions in the apartment they share together. And then throughout the movie they keep returning to that joke, with Nealon accusing Bucky of drinking his milk or stealing one of his grapes (as they show in the commercials). It kind of gets funnier every time they return to it.

When a movie is made with a light touch and a gentleness that suggests that nobody was taking things too seriously, it goes a long way with me towards me enjoying the movie. I liked "Grown Ups", I enjoyed seeing all those guys back together, and I'm actually looking forward to "Jack and Jill" (probably even more so than something like "Just Go With It", because at least "Jack and Jill" won't have a BS romantic subplot that I don't care about getting in the way of the comedy. It will just be silliness, which I like.)

[CarolineEAnd]

I don't think anyone went into this movie

You can stop it right there. According to Box Office Mojo, Bucky Larson had a per-showing attendance of 8 people and opened 15th. I'm genuinely pretty curious as to why it performed so low.

[BillBrasky]

I think the commercials with Dante probably hurt more than they helped. Unless you're a huge Happy Madison fan, you don't know who he is, so those commercials are just going to be annoying to you.
Also, they kind of shot themselves in the foot by getting an R rating, thus eliminating a lot of their target audience (horny teenagers). Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon talk about that in their screenwriting book, how the "Reno 911!" movie didn't do well at the box office for the same reason. (They joke that their movie ended up selling "Ghost Rider" a lot of extra tickets).

Really, I think nowadays that people know that DVDs are going to be out in 3 months' time, they're a lot less willing to shell out money at the theater for something that is clearly a "watch it on TV" (or "watch it on a plane") type movie. I will generally go see whatever comedy movie is opening on a given weekend, but I know I'm a rare case.

[skule123]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/buck..._to_be_a_star/

Wow, a 0% score at RottenTomatoes.

[aenemaTron]

I think the problem is that it appears to be a loathsome shit-nova of a movie. That and eleven year olds snuck in.

[Couldn'tThinkOfaName]

Part of what makes something like Billy Madison so great is imagining humorless film critics shouting at the audience while they're laughing, "But he just made a fart noise and talked in a goofy accent! Save your laughter for Shakespeare, you simpletons!!".

Yeah, fuck those pretentious, bespectacled McSweeneys-reading motherfuckers with their love of Synecdoche, New York.

[Travesty.]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/buck..._to_be_a_star/

Wow, a 0% score at RottenTomatoes.

Holy shit! I've seen some bad scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but that's easily the lowest I have ever seen.

[scamboogah]

You're SURE you haven't seen a score lower than zero?

[aenemaTron]

If you give a movie a negative score, you have to make a movie in response. Maltin rules.

[Ravi]

Also, they kind of shot themselves in the foot by getting an R rating, thus eliminating a lot of their target audience (horny teenagers).

I don't see how this film could have succeeded, since it has inherently R-rated subject matter but wouldn't appeal to anyone over the age of 16. I feel like any smart studio marketing guy would know that.

[scamboogah]

I don't see how this film could have succeeded, since it has inherently R-rated subject matter but wouldn't appeal to anyone over the age of 16. I feel like any smart studio marketing guy would know that.

Billy Madison, American Pie, Porky's, Happy Gilmore etc.

The only thing they miscalculated was the name recognition/drawing power of Nick Swardson. If this same movie had Sandler in his prime, we'd be wondering how it made $200 million in one weekend.

[JPSpaulding]

They were looking for another "Deuce Bigalow" and instead got "Deuce Bigalow 2"

[Travesty.]

You're SURE you haven't seen a score lower than zero?

Who said anything about being lower? It's just the lowest rated movie I have seen on Rotten Tomatoes.

[BillBrasky]

I think the problem is that it appears to be a loathsome shit-nova of a movie.

This is a funny (albeit glib) statement, but it really has no relation to reality. The appearance of quality rarely has anything to do with whether a movie does well at the box office. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" didn't look appreciably better than this movie, yet for some reason it still was a smash success when it came out a few years ago, in January (a typically slow month at the box office). Yet "Zookeeper", which was essentially the same movie, didn't do well at all when it came out a few months ago. So the adage still holds true that nobody ever knows anything in Hollywood.

[aenemaTron]

I have to disagree. I'm not just talking about overall quality. The subject matter, the appearance of the characters... I saw a clip when Kevin Nealon was on Conan and even the picture quality looked awful (in HD, even). Paul Blart, to me, looked way better, and that's not even taking into account that Kevin James was an established sitcom star. It's a simple premise, basically, comedy Die Hard in a mall. It could be bad or it could be good, it's not a foregone conclusion. Bucky is barely a premise - why is he so clueless? Compare it to Orgazmo, which I think is underrated and might be the best thing Parker and Stone have ever done. It's a fully formed idea that intertwines with a story, not a wig and fake teeth and a string of cameos.

I agree that bad movies can do well and good movies can do poorly. What I'm saying is that they failed to hide its shittyness with any kind of slick ad campaign - the stuff with Peter Dante, it was one notch above the late-night "offensive comedy movie" ads, or whatever that was. Zookeeper had no chance of hiding it's dumb premise and didn't try. Plus, I think people were turned off by the idea that a gorilla might eat food from T.G.I. Friday's.

[scamboogah]

Who said anything about being lower? It's just the lowest rated movie I have seen on Rotten Tomatoes.

There is nothing lower than 0%, so saying it's the lowest you've ever seen seems more than 0% pointless.