"Which one of you guys tripled parked your Bentleys?"

Chris Rock was at Sundance last week to promote his new film, 2 Days in New York, directed by Julie Delpy, whose best movie was Killing Zoe and I will fight people to the death if they believe otherwise. While Rock did the normal PR legwork for his new film, he also dropped a little nugget of terror into our laps when MTV asked him about the status of the completely unnecessary Grown Ups 2.

/film has reported that Grown Ups 2 already has a set release date of July 12, 2013, but Rock raised a few eyebrows when he admitted that he doesn’t know if his upcoming project with Adam Sandler is actually a sequel. Yeah, because that makes all the difference as to whether it will suck or not.

I don’t know yet. I definitely have been called about my availability. But no one’s told me about a script. When Adam Sandler gives you a call and asks, ‘What are you doing in June? Make sure you don’t do nothing in June!’ So I think we’re getting ready to get the gang back together. I don’t know if it’s going to be ‘Grown Ups 2′ or another movie, though.

Who cares? It’s happening regardless. Happy Madison is Skynet. We’ve allowed Sandler and his friends to amass such wealth that they can do whatever they want. Grown Ups made more than $270 million worldwide. Even if a sequel makes half that, they still win and stock their garages with more Maseratis.

If they want a new movie, they get it. A TV show for Rob Schneider? Done. A Broadway musical starring Peter Dante and a chorus of stoned frat boys making hand farts? Book it. This is why we can’t have nice things, world.

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"I can't believe people will pay to see this again!"

It’s awfully fitting that during the same week that I started writing my feature for the Worst Movies of 2011, the studio that gave us my choice for the Worst Movie of 2010 has announced that it wants a sequel. Sony has decided that the story of five childhood friends who reunite at a lake house after their lives had led them apart was worthy of another chapter despite having no plot point to continue. I watched Grown Ups – twice – and the only thought I had at the end was: “They should have stayed apart.”

I don’t need to guess why they’re trying to make this sequel. On a budget of $80 million, the original grossed $271 million worldwide. That’s good enough to make it the highest-grossing Happy Madison film in the history of a company founded on bad actors meeting Sandler at comedy clubs. In fact, it was so successful that Sandler purchased matching Maseratis for his co-stars, David Spade, Chris Rock, Kevin James and Rob Schneider.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Sony wants another tug on the teat of Sandler’s cash cow. However, according to Variety and my prayers, Sandler isn’t signed on for anything. Yet.

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Haha, you said it, Sassy Ostrich!

I was trying hard not to mention the People’s Choice Awards today, the only awards show more asinine than the Golden Globes, but I couldn’t resist pointing out that “Favorite Comedy Movie” went to Grown Ups, the 10%-RottenTomatoes-rated Adam Sandler comedy Burnsy recently recognized as the worst movie of 2010, about which David Edwards of the DailyMirror wrote, “Frankly, if this makes you laugh even once, I recommend seeking medical advice.”

I imagine Kevin James celebrated by taking the cast out for a giant trough of McDonald’s cheeseburgers.  Anyway, as always, the winners were chosen via online voting, and the nominees… well, for that we go to the press release:

“With an ever-increasing audience base, Internet video has become a critical component of the overall media landscape with increasing cultural importance,” said People Choice Awards President Fred Nelson. “The People’s Choice Awards have historically incorporated third-party data like national ratings averages, box-office grosses and music sales to decide on potential nominees. We are excited to integrate Visible Measures’ data and insights on music, television and movie audiences into the nomination process.”

Visible Measures worked with the People’s Choice Awards to determine each potential nominees’ popularity on a True Reach basis, a unique measure of the total audience that has been exposed to an online video campaign – regardless of how widely the campaign spreads or where it appears. To measure True Reach, Visible Measures deploys a robust and patented set of technologies with the goal of capturing the universe of Internet video viewership data in near real-time.

Hmm, very enlightening.  I mean, we still don’t know how the nominees are determined (for such categories as “Favorite TV Obsession” and “Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure,”), but at least we know the technologies involved are “robust,” perhaps with a clean finish and earthy aroma.  Anyway, congratulations to Rachel Ray for winning best TV chef.  Well deserved.

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VINCE’S DISCLAIMER: I didn’t make a list of worst movies this year because to do it fairly, I would’ve had to knowingly subject myself to terrible movies. I don’t care what anyone says, you do that often, eventually it’s going to mess you up.  Ever read a film critic who’s seen every Katherine Heigl ass-pile (or whatever the equivalent of Heigl was in 1983) for the last 30 years?  They slowly go insane, they start recommending films like Atonement. Poor Peter Travers used to be the best critic around.  Now he feeds his scabs to pigeons and buries herring in his garden to commemorate krystallnacht.  I don’t believe in seeing every movie and pretending I don’t already have a pretty good idea which ones are going to suck.  Snobby as it may sound, I’m trying to not ruin my taste buds by purposely scalding them on microwaved chili biscuits from Am/Pm.  But I know how people love lists of bad movies. Luckily, for that we have Burnsy. You think that guy worries about his taste?  Dude lives in Orlando. [/end disclaimer]

Putting together a Top 10 list is a grueling process in any genre, but I found the feat of selecting the 10 worst movies of 2010 to be downright painful. It’s primarily difficult because these movies are atrocious piles of cow flop that should cause unparalleled levels of shame to be cast upon the families of everyone involved in them. It was also painful because I watched so much crap this year, and there was so much more crap that I could have watched but just couldn’t. Seriously, The Bounty Hunter? I don’t have the will power to not throw my TV into traffic. But here’s the thing – I enjoy watching terrible movies so much more than great movies because I live to criticize. Vince can tighten his scarf and crank Florence + The Machine from his hybrid IROC while he raves about Hesher, but by all accounts Hesher is a great movie, so nobody’s going to argue.

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As the cast of the mind-numbingly successful “comedy” Grown Ups makes the rounds to promote today’s DVD and Blu-Ray release, Chris Rock admitted to Howard Stern that his good friend – and demonic source of neverending roles for Kevin James and Rob Schneider – Adam Sandler gave his buddies and co-stars of the movie some very special gifts to show his appreciation – brand new Maseratis. Sadly, no C4 was wired to any of the ignitions.

Grown Ups was made on a budget of $80 million, with the bulk presumably dedicated to catering for James and hair plugs for David Spade, but somehow this paint-by-numbers goat turd ended up making more than $160 million at the domestic box office. According to Rock, this specific film meant a great deal to Sandler, so he was more than willing to lay down $200,000 for each of the high end sports cars, and another $2 million for enough grease to squeeze James into his.

That’s right, E! Online, I’m bringing out all the fat jokes today.

“Now I think that I’m Adam Sandler’s bitch,” Rock joked to Stern.

He also said it’s the first time he’s gotten any kind of token of appreciation for film work, and he’d never have bought such a pricey car on his own.

“The movie’s like the biggest thing for [Sandler], he appreciates the help.”

I refuse to believe that Chris Rock wasn’t showered with gifts from each corner of the Earth following his harrowing performances in blockbusters like Bad Company and Head of State. But all kidding aside, I’m glad that this movie was successful for Sandler since it meant so much to him. If you haven’t been lucky enough to see Grown Ups, you can get an idea from these clips of just how much effort he put into this film.

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