You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023)

Jack and I found this uneven but with plenty of laughs as wealthy girls plan their lavish coming-of-age parties (way more important to them than the Jewish religious ceremonies) while navigating teen drama. It's a family affair, with Adam Sandler's daughter Sunny playing the protagonist Stacy, Adam as her laid-back indulgent father (and not the lead role), another daughter Sadie Sandler as Stacy's sister Ronnie, and their mother Jackie Sandler as the mother of Stacy's best friend Lydia, who is played by Samantha Lorraine.

As she did in Uncut Gems, Idina Menzel plays Sandler's wife and Sarah Sherman is hilarious as the unhinged rabbi. The cast is enormous and includes appearances by Jackie Hoffman and Luis Guzmán.

Directed by Sammi Cohen from a script by Alison Peck, based on Fiona Rosenbloom's 2005 young adult novel, the movie is, as previously noted, pretty funny. The filmmakers were able to add diversity to the cast with character names such as Lydia Rodriguez Katz and Kym Chang Cohen.

Amanda Yamate and Este Haim are credited with the 17 minute soundtrack, streaming on Apple Music and, no doubt, elsewhere. Imdb lists 39 songs. Apple Music also has a two hour+ playlist with 32 of the songs plus the short soundtrack. 

Adam Sandler was last blogged for Hustle, Menzel for Uncut Gems, Guzmán for Keanu, and Haim for co-scoring Cha Cha Real Smooth. Sunny Sandler has had parts in twenty-one features (including Hustle), Sadie has had twenty, and Jackie has over three dozen. Sherman is best known for twenty episodes of Saturday Night Live. I'm a big fan of Hoffman's and some of my favorites of her work are Kissing Jessica Stein (2001), Garden State (2004), (four episodes of) The New Normal, Birdman, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, (three episodes of) The Marvelous Mrs, Maisel, and (fifteen episodes of) Only Murders in the Building (which we finished last night!). 

Cohen has one other feature and several TV shows and shorts to her credit. This is Peck's third feature and Yamate's fourth.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics RSVPed yes enthusiastically with an average of 91%, while its audiences had some no-shows at 61. Apparently it is Adam Sandler's highest rated movie. We watched it on Netflix September 4.

Keanu (2016)

As fans of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Jack and I laughed a lot in this violent slapstick about two suburban guys posing as drug lords in order to retrieve a stolen kitten named Keanu. Key (covered in these pages in Tomorrowland) and his comedy partner Peele just ended their fabulous Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele and I recommend you seek it out when it's released on DVD August 2. On that show they introduced Key's character Luther, Obama's "Anger Translator," to Peele's excellent Obama impersonation. Here's my favorite clip. Luther was so successful that the President invited him to last year's White House Correspondent's Dinner. Even if you never click through on this blog, you should watch these two clips. You can also read these fascinating articles (one, two) about the men, who are both bi-racial and bring up the subject of race in almost every sketch. Another of our favorite K&P clips, The Pirate Chantey, however, is about sexism instead.

Included in the cast are Method Man (a musician in Wu-Tang Clan, among others) as Cheddar (as it happens, the actor's part in The Wire was named Cheese), Jason Mitchell (played Eazy-E in the NWA bio-pic Straight Outta Compton and the NWA song F##k tha Police is in this movie) as Bud, Will Forte (profiled in Nebraska before his 30 episodes of Last Man on Earth) as a white drug dealer, and the reliable Luis Guzmán (among his many credits I'll mention Carlito's Way (1993), Out of Sight (1998), The Limey (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Anger Management (2003), Fast Food Nation (2006), and We're the Millers; he was also in the award-winning ensembles of Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), and Traffic (2000)). Oh, and when the kitten speaks in the dream sequence, guess who provides the voice? You can do it.

The many pop songs are listed and can be streamed here. They supplement a score by Steve Jablonsky (profiled in Gangster Squad) and Nathan Whitehead (new to me).

Rated 78 and 67% by Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, this looks like it will be gone from big screens in these parts after Thursday. You'll be fine waiting for the DVD, also estimated for an August release. Knowing the creativity of these stars, I won't be surprised if the DVD has all kinds of fun extras anyway. In whatever format you see it, be sure to wait for the bonus at the very end.

Update March 2017: I'm laughing at myself that I completely omitted the writers and director when I wrote about this in May 2016. Peele co-wrote the script with Alex Rubens, and Peter Atencio directed. All three performed the same duties on all 54 episodes of Key & Peele, and Atencio has about two dozen other credits.