As a parent, it hasn’t completely escaped my notice that I may have used the Film at 11 podcast to watch goofier and… how do I put this?… less challenging movies with my son Thomas, while I often save the somewhat weightier fare for Joseph. Not always, but perhaps more than I should. I realize that’s not really fair to either of them. That why, this week, Joseph and I sit down to watch Adam Sandler’s dumbell comedy classic Happy Gilmore!
Adam Sandler’s rise to movie stardom in the mid-1990s hit just a little too late for me to appreciate at the time. I’d enjoyed him on Saturday Night Live, but having just come out of film school, I was honestly too pretentious to pay movie theater prices to see a goofy comedy about an overgrown man-child screaming at people. I watched Happy Gilmore eventually, probably on TV, but didn’t give it a lot of thought. Looking back at it now with some distance, Sandler’s antics and the movie’s sometimes surreal humor are a lot funnier than I gave them credit for.
And Julie Bowen… Yowzah!
| Title: | Happy Gilmore |
| Year of Release: | 1996 |
| Director: | Dennis Dugan |
| Watched On: | Fandango at Home (rental) |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Peacock TruTV Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
Video Streaming
I don’t own any copies of Happy Gilmore on home video. Universal released the movie on both Blu-ray and its short-lived competitor format HD DVD way back in 2006. More recently, Kino Lorber licensed the title for a remastered Blu-ray and new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.
This is the type of movie I’m generally fine streaming. To that end, Peacock carries it, but I’m on an ad-supported plan and didn’t want to deal with interruptions for this viewing, so I rented instead from Fandango at Home. Unfortunately, Fandango only offers the movie in HD resolution, no 4K. I checked Peacock and found the same. Video quality on both platforms looked pretty comparable from what I sampled.
Sadly, both clearly must be using the older HD master. The 1.85:1 image looks pretty dated, with a gritty and artificially sharpened appearance. Colors are acceptable, and the picture’s not so terrible as to be overly distracting. I’m sure it probably looks fine on smaller screens, but it definitely doesn’t hold up well to projection. The best I can say is that it gets the job done and is acceptable for a one-time viewing. However, if I actually wanted to own this movie, I have no doubt the 4K edition would be worth trying.
The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is a pretty standard comedy mix, mostly prioritizing dialogue, but it does occasionally get a little creative with swooshing sounds in the surround channels as golf balls zoom through the air. Sound effects also ping-pong all around the room during the mini-golf sequence. Dynamic range is modest, but Bob Barker’s punches hit with some authority.
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