How to Be an Adult: Gene Wilder in Silver Streak

Look! A new segment for special segment Friday. "How to Be an Adult" owes its existence from noticing truly amazing characters who are completely grounded in reality. These characters offer a class and dignity in how to deal with certain everyday actions. They give us actions we as people need to try and emulate in order to make this world full of bounce and vigor. First up: the impeccable Gene Wilder in the beautifully shot, scored, and executed Silver Streak.

This is from the beginning of the movie. Before things get crazier. When we just know that he is a publisher. The everyday interaction this mild mannered man comes to face is how to talk to a beautiful women. It's a tough assignment. But Gene Wilder's George Caldwell is seemlessly calm and collected. He talks about himself. He asks about her. He shows that he is listening. It's not very churning cinema, but its real, and its charming. It hits a sweet note, without coming off as cute. The "I know what goes where"s. "I like this song, if I ever hear it again it will be hard not to think of you" is a line every man should have thought of but they aren't that debonair. Gene Wilder shows us how to get a girl by simply being himself and conscious. That's a great life lesson from a great person to get great things from. Recap:

How to Be an Adult (Silver Streak)

-Remember what a women you talk to says

-Jokes should be thought out and informative. Don't be coy, and add the appropriate amount of innuendo. Tip: Play jokes as bits, but not schtick.

-Read signals and go for them! Mask aggression with magnetism.

-If you're ganna drink- handle it! Drinking makes things easier, but you need to stay in control.

-Talking what you know about can turn a women on.

WAY TO READ A LINE: Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer

Let me save my shaved face here. Adam Sandler is squandering his talents and pandering to his audience in making ego-serving movies that exist to make money from idiots. Now let me blow my face off my face into a face receptacle: Adam Sandler is a funny guy who used his talents to make more money than I could ever think to know exists, while still maintaining shards of credibility. He's an absolute peach in Punch-Drunk Love, I found him sadistically relatable in the vastly underrated Funny People, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were crack to 13 year old me, and I think I might be able to defend the social merits and controlled zaniness of Don't Mess with the Zohan. Also, his SNL characters are a bit of post-modern commercialized dadaism zeitgeist. So however polarizing I myself find Adam Sandler to be, I can agree on what thing. THIS:

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THAT at the very end there. "things that could've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY". Sandler has that ability to turn mucky muck muck scenes on a dime with a simple bout of manic yelling. Robbie Hart is a sad guy, but we don't want to see that. We want the fire that lets us know, "hey- there is a rest of a movie still going on." And that slow build to the word 'Yesterday' lets the audience know not to worry, and that this Robbie Hart in an altered state can be funny. They try the joke later in a more wordier manner while making it less poignant and more annoying: "well I have a microphone, and you don't, SO YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY WORD I HAVE TO SAY". This just comes off as a joke painting the Robbie as selfish, while YESTERDAY casts Robbie in a scorned lover light.

Adam Sandler's career is based around playing juvenile, ill-mannered, egotistical demeanors who mostly thrash about vulgarly displaying, not controlling, the characteristics. When he's not doing that he chokes wry sentiment from emotional situations (Big Daddy, 50 First Dates, Click). The Wedding Singer falls into the latter, but coming off of the career establishing of Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and SNL, we were still tossed a couple of uninhibited goofing. The line 'things that could've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY' establishes the emotion without sacrificing the fact that Adam Sandler is here to amuse us. With that line in that scene, his career peaked. Sandler has been a mess of money-making PG-13 affairs and ho-hum attempts of crediblity ever since. I don't know whether it is a sad thing to encapsulate someone's career into one line or not, especially for an actor as successful as Sandler. It probably isn't. What I do know is that I am glad Adam Sandler delivered us a line that is a lighthouse of a sentence in a rough seas of a career.