The Worst Idea Of All Time - Seeing Sandler: Spaceman

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Adam Sandler appears to have re-upped his lucrative Netflix multi-picture deal and it's a good thing because without it, would we even have the Netflix original: Spaceman (2024)? In this dramatic sci-fi turn for the Sandman, Paul Dano voices an unfortunately unf***able spider and Sandler himself stretches his legs by randomly hinting at a Czech accent. It's worth noting that Carey Mulligan is in this movie and it's also worth noting that 8 potential good movies could have been made from the bones of this single (SPOILER ALERT) bad one. You'd better believe Tim and Guy list each and every possibility. Come blast off with us in, Spaceman.Support our BS on our Substack Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim here, if you want to see me in the flesh and you're in New Zealand or Australia, good news. I'm coming to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington for the comedy festivals. Please buy some tickets now at timbat.com.com. Thanks for joining me, Tim. You're so welcome. And thanks to you for joining us. I thought we were wearing suits today, man. What a fuck?

You told me you're wearing a suit. I said, do what you. you have to do. I have to dress like Adam Sandler when I'm watching his movies. What do you give, for the people who are listening and not watching, who are you wearing? I respect, by the way, the traditional consumption of podcasts. This migration to everything being a video is devastating.

Terrible time to announce that we will be going video on all the platforms. Because you've got to. You have to. You have to. You must. It's so important. Daddy Joe told us, he said, you've got to have video. Yeah, and we always listen to Daddy Joe.

I'm in socks, sandals, soccer shorts and a loose-fitting sweatshirt and a cap. A lot of S's. I'm in an amazing electric blue suit. A salmon. Electric blue, boogaloo. And a great semi-matching navy blue tie. He tied the tie too long. I asked why he said to match his favourite president.

Yes, JFK. And it's only slightly too long. Okay. You didn't want to retime? No. Who's got the time when I'm so busy watching the Adam Sandler-2020 Netflix contractual obligation, Spaceman? It's interesting because as I was watching it,

I thought, is this one for him or one for them? And the answer is no. It's one for no one. This movie, as we explore the Sandler system in anticipation of what will surely make a much larger splash in the cinematic solar system, which is grown-ups three, I don't know what you'd say

I don't know if we got sent to ore but I don't know if you'd say we were treating water but this was a movie this was a movie This was a movie End Here's our review

Tim and Guy watched Space Man This was a movie That is a That is a statement I would say that everyone who watched this Can agree with I want to throw you What's in this movie people

Because it's actually pretty easy to explain For some reason the Czech Republic and South Korea engaged in a space race to get to a purple cloud that sits just outside Jupiter on the dark side of Jupiter called Chopra. Chopra, the Chopra cloud. Now, before Tim continues with his plot recap, I challenge you, the listener, to decide

which side of the space race is Adam Sandler representing? Is it A, the Czech Republic or B, South Korea? Disappointingly, for everyone, it's the Czech Republic. Yeah, absolutely. gutted with that decision. This is adapted by a book, and so they could have gone either way. They could have chucked him in South Korean style and gone like, well, it's a film, so we're taking a couple artistic liberties.

He is... He can tell it the film way. He's a... Where we get Adam Sandler's talking an Asian accent. In 2024, Trump's back in office. Let's go. There'd be something to fucking talk about if that happened. It'd actually be something to hang your head on.

Let me get. Let me get to the meat and potatoes. So this movie exists, like so many movies exist. on Netflix for a trailer to be created and for you to be intrigued by a couple of frames within that trailer namely, and sorry, I am diverting away from the plot synopsis to get into this, I will now give you the trailer synopsis, which I assume I haven't seen it. I saw the trailer in 2024 and I thought that looks like it could be good.

Yeah. So mission success. So what are we saying in the trailer? Adam Sandler is an astronaut more accurately when you watch the film a cosmonaut. joined by a huge spider in the ship, which is at varying times as big as him, quite a bit bigger than him, and then smaller than him. It sort of just depends on how they feel.

Depends on the trip. And that, I assume, is the whole trailer. They were like, check this out. Adam Sandler, an astronaut and a spider. Yeah, you're missing some key stuff. Kerry Mulligan, like Control Centre, Adam Sandler floating out of space Like looking like you can't get back to like it's

That's space man stuff I'm going to chalk that up to That's all covered by it's all covered by Cosmon Carrie Mulligan I'll give you though You gotta put her in the trailer You gotta put her in the trailer Original song by Max Richter The Composer and the American band Sparks

Which was fetched in the trailer And um Sparks Sparks Recently did I believe a really cool collaboration with guerrillas That happy the happy

Gilmore. The happy emperor. Something like that. Anything's possible. It's the only good track on that album. I'm so sorry. I like guerrillas.

I'm a big guerrillas fan. But that album wasn't for me. But that one track that they did with Sparks, if I'm correct, this might all be nonsense. He might not be. It was really good.

We digress. From the burning wreckage of this film, they have salvaged a beautiful trailer. Yeah. I don't even know that it's fair to call

the film of burning wreckage because it's not. Again, that would be enticing or interesting in a way that this movie fails to be. Oh, it is. You're blowing up our podcast episode before we even get into it, man. Why would anyone listen? Why? Yeah. Because to hear us artfully deconstruct the miss. Come on. Come on now. It wasn't all bad. Okay. So we got... No, no, tell me this. Tell me this. Even when he goes serious. Tell me this. When's the last time you watched an Adam Sandler movie without a single fucking joke? There was one joke. Well, no, it wasn't really a joke. It was a funny line.

The spider, voiced by Paul Dano says, fucking Quentin Tarantino. Searching through your sinful, you will not find what you are looking for, searching through your sinful waste. Talking about poods, I thought that was funny. A space spider telling a cosmonaut

that their poos is sinful waste? It's allegorical to Adam Sandler searching for salvation through the wreckage of his memories of his relationship in which he has revealed to be a very selfish partner with Kerry Mulligan. who is carrying his unborn child and attempting to leave him while he floats in space.

This information is suppressed by the Czech space team and therein lies what is supposed to be some of the emotional intensity or curiosity of the movie. And I suppose even the responsibility of, you know, it's a very fascinating emotional tightrope to walk for the space mission to stand in between the personal communications of the astronaut and the partner at home. Sort of.

it could be. Yeah, yeah, it could be interesting. What they've accidentally done is set in an emotional relationship drama in space. That's what they've done. Here's eight successful movies you could have made from this movie instead of making one unsuccessful movie. Number one, we've got a spaceman who is completely isolated and is tearing himself apart with a spider. And that's an hour 45 runtime. It's a two-handed. It's almost like a play.

It's like waiting for Godo, you know? like it is a deeply meditative piece which explores how we all are born and will die alone and what that means to be human and for the human condition. That's number one. Number two, is decent sci-fi movie exploring what this gas cloud could be? Is it radioactive? Does it hold some secrets to the universe? Does it hold some utility to humanity?

Is there a point to visiting it? is there some, you know, like interstellar, is there some sort of inciting event on Earth where we're fucked if we don't get to the cloud and it can solve all our problems? Is there some interesting McGivor shit that the sole Czech cosmonaut has to solve to be able to get there?

Ala interstellar. Yeah. Again, here's a third one. I got one for you. Yes. Same movie. Sandler's doing a South Korean accent. Fuckin A.

Number four. Number four, exploring the sort of geopolitical political dimensions of for some reason the Czech Republic going Tet-Ret with South Korea in a space race.

Yeah. You know, give me that alternative future where they're both gassed up enough to have an economy to shoot rockets. Actually, South Korea I wouldn't put it past them.

That rocket would be designed and built by Samsung and it probably wouldn't suck. No. Czech Republic, I'd be very interesting to see how many tractors they had to tape together

and tie it to a firework together. Take that, take that Czech Republic. Number five. Okay, just, just what happens to an astronaut and an astronaut's wife when an astronaut has to be in space for 12 months. That is also interesting if you're just going to focus on that. Yeah.

While she's carrying child, by the way. Yeah, exactly. You know, there's some deep emotional reckoning. What it means to sacrifice for science, what it means to sacrifice for the science. what it means to sacrifice for the species. Better yet, like a screwball comedy between Sandler and the spider, and they're like absolutely causing chaos up on the spacecraft. They're getting up to all sorts of hijinks.

They're having a lot of fun, and the people down on Earth are like, guys, you've got to take this seriously. And slight trick shot, because this is sort of a variation on the one you've said, but it's a completely different genre, and it is the direction I thought the movie was going to be going in. Adam Sandler is a cosmonaut who goes a little crazy in space and fucks a spider. Yes. yes we're talking about that early

it would be one of the main ways to create intrigue is for Samla to fuck the spider Sandler could fuck the spider now here's why fucking the spider wouldn't work for me personally and this is the only reason they put a mouth on the spider and I really think that was a bad call

weirdly the mouth looks exactly the same as the Sonic the Hedgehog mouth so if you cast your mind back to I want to say about 2018 17 something around there everyone gets very excited because a major studio, don't ask me the name which one, is going to make a Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

Cool. Cool. Okay, this could go very badly or this could be wonderful. They release a trailer eventually. The trailer horrifies everyone. Yeah, it melts down the internet. Human teeth and it looks fucking bad. Yeah.

It looks so weird that they've given him human teeth. CGI blue hedgehog human teeth. Not good at all. One of the funniest old tweets I saw was it was, just a picture of like a blue curry with the packaging next to it and it said honey are you okay you've hardly touched your Sonic the Hedgehog special edition ticker this up yeah there was a lot of that was a great kind of era to be online it was like uh you know movie Sonic can't hurt you and then they show a frame of him with the teeth from the trailer so they went back this was

incredible this was actually one of the most responsive things I've ever seen from internet net, you know, sort of blowback happening. They release the trailer. Everyone flips out. The people making the movie go, oh, oh, we're going to have to reanimate the entire movie again. They go back in. So they do.

They go back and they completely change the look of Sonic to a far more amenable visual. And the movie does great and goes on to have, I believe, two sequels with Jim Carrey. I think they pulled Jim Carrey out of fucking retirement. he announced he wasn't going to act anymore but he's like you know what if it's Dr Robotnik I'm it I will come back for that

yeah man Jim Carrey is also a fascinating case study he is but anyway we're focused on the Paul Dano spider so Paul Dano's voicing the space spider and unfortunately they've given him a mouth and they shouldn't have done that they should have just made a telepathic connection because for Tim's money that makes the spider unfuckable

it killed the bono yeah okay Sandler you know It's fine. He's a guy. He's in there. He's lonely. Where does the mind go in six months? We've talked a little bit about Sandler's accent. The road's not taken. The road that was taken was he heard a check person speak. Like the third to last person he heard talk before he was on set was a check person. And so the echo of a memory of that accent is sort of funneling through. Like every fifth syllable. I think that's too generous.

Intonation escapes the cave of his mouth. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't yell once either. So he doesn't tell any. jokes and he doesn't yell. It's like, am I actually watching an Adam Sandler movie? Well, he's like doing, fuck it, he's cosplaying as McConaughey, Damon, Clooney, Pitt. Why do astronauts have to be so fucking serious? The most famous astronaut on Earth is that like Canadian guy who plays the guitar or

something up then sends videos back. It's like, why the fuck whenever we send an A-list Hollywood celebrity into space are they so introspective? I get it. It's going to happen if you're spending that long by yourself. But it's fucking exhausting to watch. You're right about that. They're not like that.

Buzz Aldrin. I mean, it's because they're all from the fucking Air Force. They're all like jet pilots who are famously, you know, loose talking, big drinking, dick slinging, a-holes. Just like, it's such. Buzz Aldrin punched a fucking guy in the face for something that he didn't land on the moon. Yeah, that's awesome. Buzz Aldrin's a, he's a buzzy, Trumpy kind of guy. Yeah, he was an interesting cat.

So we can't have. the unfortunately we can't we still also haven't outlined an eighth alternative in which the movie's superior to this oh damn i thought i was going to do seven do you know what it is for me the eighth one is literally like exploring you've sort of covered it but you you're like what are the secrets of it i think it's like because the way that we meet the spot paul dano spider is uh a voice is a voice starts talking to him before like before he sees any physical representation of the spider you've said a lot of things that I, unfortunately, I've got to check you on a little bit. Number one, Adam Sandler does yell in this movie.

When? He yells after the Paul Dano Spider. Who does have a name, but we refuse to use it. Yes, he does. Not Sandler style. He says, don't go, don't leave me. He does, we kind of does yell because when he does it, I was like, oh, we're back to Sandler.

Like, it was a moment. No, no, no, no. This is the problem with Adam Sandler being in a serious role where he's forced to yell, because as soon as he does yell, which a normal human being would do to denote, like desperation, we're back to like, oh, water boy. No, because if you look at the full spectrum of a Sandley yell, this doesn't even register past five. This is a whisper on the scale of what he's capable of.

It's a vocative enough, though. What you would expect Adam Sandlin to yell like? Do you want him to yell in this? Wouldn't that just take you the hell out of the movie? Do you know what took me the hell out of the movie? The movie. Literally the whole movie could not engage. I couldn't engage with it.

It couldn't engage with me. We tried hard, everybody. We really did. And the movie did too. This is one of the issues with criticizing this movie. If I'm criticizing like a lazy Adam Sandler family comedy, there is a lot to latch on to. There's a lot to kind of pick apart.

Jokes on us. Jokes on us. Fool me once. Jokes on me. Yeah. For me twice. Jokes still on me. Because I've been,

I've chosen to be fooled twice. That's right. But. For me 52 times. The joke is on both of us and hopefully yours to enjoy. I just think that there were so many roads not. taken. And what we wound up with was a middling emotional drama, like a sort of like a classic men will literally do anything to avoid therapy inside of a rapper that is labeled sci-fi.

So you unwrap something that says sci-fi and you think there's intrigue here. And then inside of it, you've basically got a man learning not to be selfish by spending six months in space talking to Paul Dena as a spider. So boring. Even in that, it sounds like there'd be something to be fascinated by it but it is so boring. Also I understand the book as it

may well have been and it's uninteresting to be like the movie fails the book but I clicked on to the link for the book to be like what was this book it was described as having

like an incredible sense of humor like turning sci-fi on its head a pig died in the book like all this stuff that is not featured in the movie at all I mean they float a pig

through the space shuttle his father was a I said it was just a vision that he had because he was talking about his dad being a pig farmer. And this whole thing is just, hey, guess what? Astronauts have daddy issues too.

Yeah. Thanks, great revelation. Yeah. I need to spend an hour and 45 minutes of my time. But so Carrie Mulligan's excellent IMDB is besmirched for that revelation. We do not want to besmirch Carrie Mulligan's IMDB. Good Lord. I think...

Is there are more besmirched IMDB than Adam Sandler's? Adam Sandler's IMD is so sprawling. It's actually impossible to say it's... but like it's so, it goes, his filmography is so vast. Yeah. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's, it's like, it's like, it's, it's like, you can't, it's like, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't, you can't fathom their experience. You can, funny, you bring that up, because this movie does try to do that inside of a purple space cloud that is on the dark side of Jupiter. The eighth version of this movie, though.

Yeah. So what I was saying is we hear like a visual representation of Paul Dino's Hinoosh, the spider. Oh, say his name. Even if it isn't say his name. That's right. It's like, is to hear that and to have him like come across not just one representative or a hallucination, but a species, like to come across an entirely different species or terrestrial. You know, like a...

Yeah. Like, more traditional sci-fi spotter, but, you know... I mean, this is a real nitpick. I don't know why I'm getting so focused on this. But like, okay, so my assumption is... Because the spider talks to him about how he's traveled through black holes and across galaxies and across time to get to him. But they're very married to the fact that he is in that spider...

I was like, oh, maybe he takes different forms. Or he's going to explain that he took the form of a spider because that is relevant to Adam Sandler's character for some reason. No, they're just very wedded to the fact that this creature is indeed physical and real and looks just like a spider that you would find at your house but big. And initially, of course, you're scared. There was one really lovely sci-fi touch when Adam Sandler wakes up in the middle of the night to go look in the mirror and you can see something moving beneath his skin.

That was the issue I was going to take with what you said that the first experience we have of Hanush is the voice. Because that's the actual first one. It's a spider crawling in the... That's like they're opening up the portal to a different, more interesting alien-style movie where it's like, you know, what you're afraid of is within you. Yes. But then the next expensive... Wait, is that what aliens is about?

There's something... Does he no more if I think is the thing to fear an alien? Yeah. That is very external. Yeah. But it gets into people. No. Oh, the facehuggers?

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Anyway, we're getting bogged down in something which is sort of extraneous to what I want to say. Sure. Which is that that's more interesting. So all of the things we just said are more interesting. It's just, it was just so disappointing because the spider, you immediately, when it starts talking and it's in its physical body, it's like, I'm not here to freak you out. I'm not here to hurt you.

So we quickly grow to accept this. So it is a benevolent spider. And so again, you've removed a tension point. And so what you're hanging over us as tension or intrigue is that the spider has ulterior motives. It is withholding information from Adam Sandler. It's going to turn out to be a malevolvement. in spider but there's only one moment in which the spider turns which is when he learns how selfish Adam Sandler has been in his previous relationships because the spider

therapies his sandler in space they pour through all of his memes with Kerry Mulligan and the spider's belief is like oh this is just how humans are and then with time he's like oh no you're just a piece of shit like you're a bad partner which is funny that is funny that is conceptually really funny and I want to get not at all not well maybe the attempt was made that didn't connect but I want to assume in the book like that's a really funny moment where it's like this intergalactic spider that has traveled for millennia across light years and experienced all these different things and living creatures and it comes across an example of humanity and it goes you're so flawed and interesting and why are you such

assholes to each other and then there's a turning point where it goes oh wait now you're just a piece of shit you're you're the problem that's funny that is funny I just it feels like it was effortfully unfunny like it feels like maybe adam sandler must have had oversight to be like I'm doing a serious one Oh, yeah, because he's a suit on in respect for Adam Sandler. Of course. And I respect him, but he specifically, I don't know who directed this. Plays without laughs. Well, yeah, but that might be the direction.

And I just hearkening back to what you were saying about the accent, I even think your take on he sort of caught a whiff of someone from the Czech Republic talking and tried to latch on to that. I even think that's too generous. What I would describe Adam Sandler's accent work in this film, as is at various times randomly there's no pattern or reason to when he decides to talk just like Adam Sandler and when he has a small affect it is like just hearing someone do a stereotype of speaking a language that is not their native tongue so it's just like stilted foreign

English yes which is like don't do that don't do that carry Mulligan speaking with her British accent. Yeah. Supposedly in love with a cosmonaut. So is the guy who is like his mission control,

you know, main man. Oh, is he Peter? I thought he was Peter. He's Jacob. Oh God. There you go. I was tuned in.

So just let everyone, you know, death of Stalinate, let everyone talk in their native tongue, it's not going to be an issue. Yeah. It's actually going to be

more distracting if you try and get Adam Sandler to occasionally speak referencing the fact that he's from a Russian-speaking country. much opity or mart op it no there's so much opportunity for stuff to be funny in space like you let you see his sort of pantry station all the food strapped down and there's tobasco and there's saracha and the spider's being introduced to flavors and he gets given some sort of eastern

european natale equivalent and he loves it and it's sort of like a moment shared but like fuck with them play around with each other yeah do some food challenges up there yeah Yeah. Everything. Muck bang it out for a second. You've got all those 4K cameras. You've got all that visual effects budget, you know, that I'm sure Netflix has got access to.

Serious. If you're going to animate the disgusting mouth on the spider, play with it. Yeah. Put some gross shit in there. Yeah. Make jam be on his teeth. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then he's using his eight crazy legs and all his little spider hairs to try and get rid of a bitter seed that he's got in between his teeth. What if I told you? you in the vastness of Adam Sandler's filmography that he pivoted straight from Spaceman or Spassman

Spicheman, Spichemen, to Happy Gilmore 2. This one was first? This was first Happy Gilmore 2 is a pallet cleanse. Do you happen to know what the gap was between the productions? No, I know the release years were one apart. This is 24. Gilmore 2 is 25.

Gilmore 2, I assume, because it's like a in-house production you shoot it and it's it's on TV eight weeks later what do you think at a high budget Gilmore 2 was pretty crazy yeah it's that's an interesting question well this I don't think this movie

costs a lot to make I have to be honest with you and I think all of the money went to Adam Sandler and a little tiny bit to carry Mulligan and I think that's why they spent money on and the spider the spider effects man these days i mean i know it was 2024 you could make it now just get chat gpt to animate that spider for free essentially really yes i can yeah not that hard not that hard this is a blockbuster attempt it didn't work but they put money behind it

you can make a spider very easily if you got the right guys working on it this honestly the most of the movie is shot interior in the spaceship yeah it could have been at his house. Adam Sandler might have converted a garage and just got the crew to come round and shoot this on weekends. He might have been making something else during the week. That would be interesting.

This could have been a weekend project. I just think, no, do you know what? If this was a weekend project, if he was going between sets, I just think there still would have been like a shadow of comedy. You couldn't shake it all off for this. You couldn't shake all of Gilmore off to do this. what was I going to say?

I wanted to give some props to the movie now. Okay. I want to say some things that I thought worked because... No one's stopping you, man. I've been rude. Not rude. Frank.

Cinematography really worked for me. I thought that they captured the weightlessness of space and kind of the disorienting nature of moving between it. I thought they did a great job. I thought that the representation of Chopra, the sort of purple gaseous cloud off of Jupiter, was quite beautiful. Like I genuinely thought, you know,

we didn't spend much time with it. It didn't mean anything. You're not wrong, but it's a fucking Windows 98 screen save. Exactly. But they captured it well. Like the camera moves and everything were complementary to the story

it was trying to tell. The performances are sound. Look at them go, everyone. There is emotional resonance in everyone's performance. It's just that what we are dealing with or the translation it was run through to be communicated from book to film

removed any semblance of reason to care. I thought the score was good. I thought Max Richter did a good job. Kind of end of list. Should we talk about adaptions and how they work? So it is tricky turning a book into a movie, and it often fails. I'm not speaking from first-hand experience

because, A, I've not tried to do it myself. I don't know. I haven't seen that many booked film adaptations, I don't think. Not watching a lot of movies these days. but things that have pulled it off Hunger Games, you know, in terms of big commercial successes that they should say is good.

Potter, huge, absolutely. A flawless cultural product, as we all know. Lord of the Rings. Well done, PJ, one of ours. It's got to be way more. There's tons more. Matilda. Oh yeah, true.

Matilda is good. Danny DeVito's Matilda. Yeah. Which took, you know, like was updated for the American 90s cinema going on. audience. Even Space ones.

Well, Project Halemary recently. That was the one I was trying to think of. And I think there's another one that was a book. So I didn't put Gosling in my list of A list

as we send to space. Everyone's got to do it at some point. You have to do. Because Sandler kind of exists in his own ecosystem. He exists independent

from all of those others. Like Gosling, Pitt, McConaughey, Clooney, Damon. They all kind of... How fucking good would would an Ocean's movie be with Sandler in it?

Well, it would be... It'd be so sick. And he could, Okay, let me pitch you this. He's allowed to bring one of his guys in. It's David Spade. How good would David Spade be in an Oceans movie? It is such a strong and unique flavor in a pre-established rhythm.

It's sort of like, I'm struggling to get my head around it. I don't actually like any really of the sequel. I mean, 12's okay, 13 lost its way. They did the all-female reboot, which I haven't seen. Sorry. take my fucking ally card away from me. But 11's just like so god damn perfect as a movie. But do you agree with the idea that Sandler is like as one of one?

Like all of those actors are sort of comparable to each other and that you're traditional Hollywood A list to leading men. And Adam Sandler's carved out his own and it's not a niche because it's so broad and it goes so wide. Yeah. But he exists in an entirely separate kind of. stream of Hollywood star. And he's probably, if you put all of their box offices next to each other,

Sandler's probably out in front. I don't want to like, this is, I don't know why this has come to mind. I want to liken him to Trump in any other way except for this. Adam Sandler sort of has a little bit of a reality distortion field around him where he just sort of wills things into existence and they happen. Like he's, that lane that he's created in Hollywood, he very much has created himself. Yeah. That doesn't feel like, in the case of the other names that you mentioned, I feel like the

careers were jointly made by like a really good agent and some really good PR person who inserted the right stories and right places. I really feel like Adam Sandler made his whole thing, you know? Like he willed the whole thing into existence and brought everyone with them. And it is such an expansive career. None of those other people because all of them are, I mean everyone eventually tries to direct or write or sort of create or have more of a sort of artistic touch on their own vehicles. Even John Stewart. But he...

Everyone gets allured, like, uh, fucking... What's his name? To the ring. Oh. Dollum. Yeah. They're precious. Shingle.

Yeah, we were doing impressions of him last night while I was doing the laundry. That's fun. Yeah, it was pretty fun. You know, a mate of mine lost his wedding ring a year ago and he just found it. At the work site where he was working at. That's crazy. Yeah. There's a builder and it was like under a sandbag.

And he just sat there. He built his ace. He's doing the same website one year later. You've got to be kidding me, this guy. I think it was an adjacent property. He's so good. He's doing the house and the house next door. Wow, this guy.

But yeah, like all of those people, they exist inside of the studio system or like all of the movies that they swing from. You know, they can say yes to great roles. Yeah. Sandler has invented so many properties in which he is the star that have resonated with so many people. It's kind of fascinating

And it's why maybe when you watch something like this Where he's slot it He's still got agency over what he says yes and no to But where he's sliding inside of like a more traditional Or alternative to him vehicle You will note that at the outset of my introduction For this episode I described this as a contractual obligation to Netflix Because this does come under the umbrella of his

Was it 10 picture deal? I think that's expired I think he's renewed it I think he's on a new four picture deal But like Yeah I mean none of those He's also kind of a leader, like a thought leader. No one was brokering 10 picture deals with Netflix when he was.

No one could. No one else would think to. He also, you know, as we spoke about during the Happy Gilmore episode, like in terms of the amount of product placement, he is an absolute innovator. Yeah. It had been done before and people attempted to be bashful and tasteful about it. But Sandlin was like, what if we weren't embarrassed to take everyone's money to make a movie? Yeah.

And he's done that his whole career. I had a data point. What if there was no sort of wrong move with teaming up with a strap? It's like how there used to be that weird thing before Sopranos came out, that movie actors would never deign to think about taking a TV role because it's so beneath them. And now, you know, after the age of sort of prestige television and now with streaming, it's like they're fucking the same. Yeah, yeah. You can do it all, baby. Neither is more prestige than the other.

It's still like, you know, it would still be newsworthy for Robert De Niro to lead a television series. Movies went down and TV came up and they met in the middle and fucked online for our entertainment. I'll tell you what would be newsworthy. I'll tell you what would be newsworthy. If Sandler led a TV series. Has he, yeah. Has that happened? He hasn't done TV, yeah.

None of those people I was saying are TV guys. George Clooney started on General Hospital. General Hospital? Yeah. Fuck. E.R. I was close. yeah but he never went back

Brad Pitt was on Friends No no no no I'm talking about I'm talking about after their at the apex of their career Okay let me see if I can fucking Yep no you got me If you can lock in

Ryan Reynolds Two guys a girl in a pizza place He went back with This is Rexam or whatever That That doesn't count No I know That doesn't fucking count

He made an ad For the fucking financial product That they bought In the UK Good on you mate All of the There's a whole inside of everyone.

Speaking of corporate sponsorship, that is, okay, now we're up to number nine on suggested interesting movies that could have been made, you know, sort of picking over the bones of this one. They only sort of referenced it a couple of times,

but they do so quite hamfistedly. The space program that has managed to get the check cosmonaut into space is a joint venture between the government and a whole bunch of corporate concerns. Yeah. There's one scene in the movie where Adam Sandler,

um, First encounters, now I want to say Hormuz. Hymush. The spider and is like, oh my God, I'm losing my mind. Or there's a massive spider in the space shuttle. Is how I think anyone would react. Let's do some problem solving. Let's gas the whole spaceship.

They can do a decontamination process by putting like a decontaminant across the whole thing. So it gets into his airlock, gets into his spacesuit, which has got an oxygen supply and commands mission control to initiate the decontamination phase. but the guy at mission control says we've just had word the sponsor would like you to say the slogan before we can do the decontamination The sponsor is Bomba

So Bomba is like a Ajax Like a disinfectant company Morteen Rage type Yeah and so he has to say The slogan before they like gas the ship That's interesting The sort of corporate state Especially in a communist government

In my Soviet bloc country In my read I thought that came close to a joke, not like a black humor-style joke. Not a joke played for laughs, but like a knowing sort of sense of humour about the state of things. Certainly a humorous moment. Wow, an attempt at humour in the movie. But like an interesting, it just, hey, that's interesting.

Hey, let's get into the sort of, you know, political economy of corporations teaming up with governments to send dudes into space. A statistic in some of my sort of ancillary research into Sandler. that his properties across Netflix have been viewed collectively. Like I think he's accounted for over two billion streaming hours on the platform. Fucking hour. That's a lot of Sandler. I'd say we've accounted for quite a lot of those hours, to be fair.

We've certainly accounted for some. I feel like we kick started that. You know, we gave it a good nudge at the beginning. I think he kicked started it. No, no, no, no, no. Let's not sell ourselves short. It's just, it's, it's, um, This is, I think what I'm finding interesting...

When we started paying attention to Adam Sandler on a weekly basis, I think bloody the Netflix we know in love was a twinkle in its daddy's eye. They were probably posting DVDs to people back then. Yeah. In the mail. Still. Saying no to Blockbuster buying them out. Is that what happened?

That's right. I just think... Other way around? What's it? Yeah. I think Blockbuster got the offer from Netflix and then turned it down and then promptly went bankrupt. Yeah. I just think this is a...

in the scheme of the movies we've watched of Adams and exploration of the Sandler system. And maybe why it's left such an interesting, not interesting again, is the wrong word because it sort of represents hope for watching this. But like such a unique flavour in my mouth is this is of everything we've seen in a assess together. Give me the mouth feel of Spaceman. It's like, okay, it's like going to a nice restaurant. Okay. And sort of you've heard of the chef.

and you kind of trust the chef and the matriety says, oh, the chef's, um, doing, you've come on a great night. The chef's doing something really interesting tonight. And you go,

oh, okay, what are they doing? And they said, well, he's never done it before. But he's, um,

he's reconstituting oysters. He's taking old oysters and he's like, he's dehydrated a bunch of oysters. Um, from a year ago. And he's, um, He's putting them in tempura and then air frying them.

And you're like, it sounds like something that other people have done before, perhaps in a more traditional sense. And they go, yeah, but you haven't tried them to. So you're like, okay, I'll try it. And you have it. And you're like, this is like, this represents the flavor of a dish that I know exists that has been executed elsewhere. This is not what you're famous for as a chef.

So I understand that you want to explore the limits of what you can do. but it's not for me and if I could be honest with you I don't think it's for you either and that's kind of what it feels like it's such a unique miss because it's not a broad strokes comedy that's missed

and historically when he decides to do more serious dramatic acting which he does really well in this movie he's... You think he's doing really good acting in this movie? I think he's acting so... I don't think he misses I don't think...

We've talked pretty extensively about the accent Oh the accent that's a big part of communicating the character You get over it pretty quickly. I didn't care about the accent within, you know, we noticed it and then we stopped talking about it basically. I'll give you that. So I just think it's like it's not a comedy miss and it's not a dramatic performance miss. It's like this other thing, which is a movie asking to be taken seriously that does not warrant that.

It's like a really unique miss. It's a bit distracted in the back catalog. The movie's a bit distracted. and then you lose interest. I thought we were going to the gas cloud. You were so focused on the gas cloud. You were telling me that the gas cloud was so important. And you had to launch your best guy

and corral a bunch of corporate money combined with the state money to get this guy to investigate the gas cloud. And the South Koreans are involved and they're also investigating the gas cloud. And then for about an hour, we ignore the gas cloud because we've got to talk about Adam Sandler's data issues

in space with a spider. And you're like, okay, why guess we're talking about that? And then just when you're getting into that, man we're back to the space cloud and we're like oh i forgot the space cloud and also carrie mulligan but literally by the time adam sandler's in tracking with the space cloud he's like all i want is to be with carrie mulligan and then you're like well you should care about the space cloud because i i quite you brought me here it's like i'm going to road trip it's like we're going to queenstown fuck yeah that's so cool we'll go to the mountains we go skiing we go snowboarding

and then you get to like ash burden and they're like we've arrived this is not Queenstown We've been on a trip We went somewhere This is not Queenstown This is not the jewel Of the South Pacific

Then But they do This is Ash Burton But let's continue the analogy Because in the movie We do get to Queenstown It's like But then the person who told you

You're going to Queenstown It's like All right I hope you enjoyed Queenstown I really miss my wife Everybody Back in the car We're going home

Yeah maybe that's more apt version of the analogy. Anything else do you want to say about this movie guy? Nothing off the top of my head. Look, shout out to everyone for having a crack. And I don't say that enough when I watch movies I don't enjoy. But I know you all tried. And, you know, I can't say fairer than that.

You? I would like to say, and I apologize that I don't have their name to hand, but this suggestion came to us directly by email from a listener. I would go so far as to say a fan, potentially. So thank you so much for recommending that we watch this. I'm glad we got to knock it off. It's appropriate. It is appropriate insofar as we are exploring the Sandler system.

This is Sandler exploring space. So I can see that there is a direct correlation between what we're doing and what he is doing. Unfortunately, in this instance, the parts were not necessarily compatible. But I think in colouring the entirety of his career and reflecting on what he's built and where he is and where we are and how we're all going to. meet together at the beginning of grownups three yeah this is what i wanted to end on if i may a final question for you guy montgomery how how does uh watching this movie 2004 is netflix's adam sandler's spaceman adapted by the popular novel i guess i don't know about the book how does it make you feel about going into grownups three well this will sound naive and foolish and like i'm fucking

brain dead but it makes me excited to watch grownups three because it's like that's terrain that know how to assess and cover. And look, I'm not bright. This movie might be awesome. And I might have missed it. It's not. Shortcut, it's not. And also believe in yourself.

I will say, when I read the Wikipedia plot recap of Spaterman, it made a lot more sense and took a lot less time than when I watched the entire movie. Do that. Just do that. Well, just leave it here. Don't even do that. Just take our word for it. I'm going to give this movie

Two spiders Out of five I will join you And giving this movie I'm going to change the Scoring Mechanic I will give this movie The equivalent though

And that is 40 out of a possible 100 spider teeth Which it should not have Okay Don't give it a mouth Don't give the spider a mouth Do spiders have teeth in the world? It kills my boner

No Okay. Okay. Do they have gums? No. Bye.