Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller stars as a man consumed with jealousy about his more successful friends in the new film from Mike White.

We live in a world where we get one good Adam Sandler performance for every dumpster truckload of bad Adam Sandler movies. Netflix may be shoveling Sandler original movies at us like coals into a fire – and hey, you’re to blame, America – but they’re also behind the latest Noah Baumbach movie which allegedly features the best Sandler performance since his surprisingly poignant turn in Punch Drunk Love.

There are many ESPN channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN First Take where they just show that show on a loop forever. (It’s mostly watched in prisons as a form of enhanced interrogation technique.) But the greatest of all ESPN channels is ESPN 8, or “The Ocho,” as it’s known to devotees. It’s the ESPN devoted to the finest in seldom seen sports.

Ben Stiller’s latest role is a middle-aged guy reflecting on the missed opportunities and regrets of his youth, mourning the life he could’ve had. No, this isn’t When We’re Young, the Noah Baumbach film where Stiller tapped into nostalgia and new-age hipster-dom with ayahuasca trips alongside Adam Driver. It’s Brad’s Status, the latest from School of Rock, The Good Girl, and Orange Country writer (not to mention one of the scribes behind The Emoji Movie) Mike White.

I’ve got good news, bad news, and further good news. The first good news is that the Chippendales movie you may remember reading about in 2014 has been revived yet again, and seemingly for real this time, with Ben Stiller and Dev Patel attached to star. The bad news is that Patel will not be doing any of the stripping in the film. The other good news is that Stiller won’t, either.

We never got a sequel to Dodgeball, the 2004 underdog sports comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller as opponents in an epic dodgeball tournament. The last update on a possible 2 Dodge 2 Ball came four years ago, when screenwriter Clay Tarver was reportedly tapped to write a screenplay for a potential follow-up. Four years later, we still have nothing to show for his efforts.

Adam Sandler’s reign over Netflix is far from over. After the streaming service renewed his movie deal, Netflix bought Noah Baumbach’s upcoming The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), which is set to premiere at this month’s Cannes International Film Festival. Today, we got our first official look at the film, with four new images.

Netflix, for all their diverting original series and Bong Joon-ho subsidization, has also been responsible for the introduction of a great evil into the world. I am referring, of course, to their seemingly infinite-picture development deal with chronic Phoner-of-It-In Adam Sandler. Netflix signed Sandler to a four-movie deal back in 2014, which has been going decidedly less-than-great so far — his Western spoof The Ridiculous Six was a big pile of donkey turds, and the trailer for his upcoming Sandy Wexler has not inspired much more confidence. When the news hit a few weeks ago that Netflix would re-up their deal with Sandler for four more movies, our coverage of the notice contained the words “oh no.”

True Detective didn’t exactly pan out for Colin Farrell, but Amazon might welcome him back to TV. The Lobster star is re-teaming with director Yorgos Lanthimos for a new Amazon limited series about the Iran-Contra affair, with Farrell portraying Oliver North.

As is tradition, the night before the Oscar ceremony takes place, the 37th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards will descend on Los Angeles to commemorate the worst that Hollywood had to offer in 2016. A mean-spirited diss-fest in the estimation of some, a good-natured ribbing to others, the so-called Razzies are twice as unpredictable and ten times as frank as the usual awards program. The expected categories of Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Actor/Actress share space with the distinctions of Worst Screen Combo and Worst Prequel, Remake, Ripoff, or Sequel at the ignominious ceremony. Some celebrities take the jokes in stride (Sandra Bullock famously showed up to receive her Worst Actress Razzie for All About Steve the day before she dropped by the Oscars to pick up her Best Actress prize for The Blind Side), but the program goes widely ignored by the industry overall.