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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It seems Fox’s brilliant viral campaign featuring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise doing candid things was a failure, as Knight and Day landed a distant third at the box office.  I was about to take Schadenfreude Sloth out for a walk, but Kevin James farted on his head and hit him in the groin with a football.  Grown Ups earned $41 million, doubling Knight and Day‘s $20.5 million take and landing it in second behind Toy Story 3 ($59 million), thereby proving that audiences will literally pay for Adam Sandler to take a sh*t on their face.  The only thing he’s not allowed to do is make fun of himself or anything thoughtful (sorry, Funny People). Sorry, Adam Sandler, you must play the lovable every man from now until the end of time.  You are the Will Smith of comedy.  Speaking of which…

Karate Kid landed in fourth.  Not a bad showing, but probably not the smash hit people predicted after the big opening weekend.  So don’t start wearing sneakers with pictures of yourself on them just yet, Jaden Smith.  What’s that?  Aw, crap.

The two biggest losers of the weekend were Jonah Hex, which fell 70% from last weekend, earning $1.6 million this weekend and still short of the $10 million mark, cumulatively; and Killers, which earned $2 million and fell 60% from last weekend.  I still maintain that Jonah Hex was a glorious, glorious trainwreck.  Meanwhile, if life was fair, the people who financed Killers would be less popular than the CEO of BP right now.  Sure, one indirectly contributed to an ecological catastrophe, but at least that was an accident.  The Killers people not only put Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl into a movie together… they did it on purpose.

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This is the trailer for Restrepo, a documentary about a forward base in Afghanistan. The film consists largely of actual combat footage.  I’ve heard it’s moving and intense.  You can see it this weekend… provided you live near the Angelika Theater in New York or the Landmark on Pico in L.A.  The rest of the country, we’re not mature enough for movies aimed at adults, apparently.  Instead we get…

Knight and Day
I always thought James Mangold was a pretty good director, the trailer has Muse, and the reviews have even been mildly positive, for the most part.  And I don’t always mind Tom Cruise.  He was good in Collateral and Magnolia. What really offends me is the “On three” sequence at the end of every trailer and commercial (relive the magic below). Everything about that sequence is unforgivably retarded. He says “let’s go on three” and she runs into a hail of bullets on one because “she panicked.” And this is supposed to be funny. And they thought this sequence was so indicative of the value of this movie as a whole that they play it every ten minutes on TV. NO. F*CK YOU. THAT IS TERRIBLE. IF YOU CAN’T SEE WHY THAT SEQUENCE IS TERRIBLE I DON’T WANT TO KNOW YOU.

Grown Ups
Adam Sandler’s latest paycheck. I think I’m one of the few people in the world who thinks David Spade is funny. Other than Sandler if he’s not totally mailing it in (Funny People, Punch Drunk Love), Spade is probably the best comedic actor out of this group (his old Comedy Central show where he made fun of celebrities was great). I also object to everyone’s criticism of this being based on it being full of “fart” or “toilet humor.” Look, a laugh is a laugh. A real comedian doesn’t care whether you think he’s clever or not, so long as you’re laughing. The false perception that you’re a buffoon just comes with the territory. I’ll take Tracy Morgan talking about karate kicking pregnant ladies over some half-assed political discourse any day. That said, I watch the commercials for this flick and I can barely tell where the jokes are, unless Kevin James is falling down. Dennis Dugan is a massive hack. When you’ve directed You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, The Benchwarmers, and National Security, you shouldn’t be directing more movies, you should be in jail.

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If you’re new here, there’s this game we like to play on FilmDrunk where we take a film we’re probably not going to see and try to recreate the plot using only quotes from other peoples’ reviews (expository only, no analysis!).  It tends to work better with the more silly-plot heavy films, but this week we don’t have that luxury, we have Adam Sandler farting while Kevin James’ pants fall down, a hurpity-durpity ding dong.  Will it be as fun as hearing how Miley Cyrus saved the sea turtles and learned to love the piano?  Probably not, but let’s try anyway.

We meet “the guys” as kids — 12 year olds winning a basketball championship. Their beloved “Coach Buzzer” lectures them afterward to make sure they “leave it all on the court” in life, too. Don’t let yourself have regrets later.  -Orlando Sentinel

The setup for the story: Their beloved old coach has died. To mourn him they return to the lakeside cabin where they celebrated their victory all those years ago. – Roger Ebert

….in “NEW ENGLAND,” as the establishing title card reads. -Chicago Tribune

Wouldn’t you know, the five kids on the team they beat are at the same lake for the same weekend. -Ebert

Lenny (Sandler) is now a big Hollywood agent who’s married to a fashion designer (Salma Hayek Pinault) with whom he has obnoxious, spoiled kids. -AP

(he insists that the nanny be referred to as an exchange student). -AZ Central

Eric (James) is also married with kids; his wife (Maria Bello) still breast-feeds their 4-year-old son. -AP

The sensitive-since-childhood Kurt (Rock) is a Rachel Ray fanatic stay-at-home dad utterly emasculated by his wife (Maya Rudolph) and her obese, “I got BUNIONS!” mom -Orlando Sentinel

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This new trailer for Grown Ups played before my Kick-Ass screening last night (review to come).  Starring Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Chris Rock, and Kevin James, from the visionary director of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, it’s about a group of guys who were friends when they were kids who reunite 30 years later for a July 4th weekend with their families.  They try to show the youngins how to have real fun like they used to, but Kevin James is fat now so his pants fall down a lot and sometimes people fart.