Photo : Antony Jones ( Getty Images )

This past weekend, a man was freed from prison. Admittedly, it was a prison of his own making in which the warden, guards, and the very walls that contained him were made up of Hollywood funnyman Adam Sandler. This man’s name is Eloy Lugo, he voluntarily watched an Adam Sandler movie every day for a year, and he is insane. (He is also a music publicist with whom The A.V. Club has worked on occasion .) Recently, Vice sat down with Lugo to see how he’s holding up and gauge his feelings on the Sandman at the conclusion of this 365-day movie marathon. Turns out, the guy still loves Adam Sandler.




“I think Sandler gives every performance his all—a lot of people might say Sandler is phoning it in—but I really think he commits,” Lugo tells Vice. If anyone is qualified to give an assessment of the comedian’s acting chops, we guess it’s the guy who watched Mr. Deeds upwards of thirty times. He’s seen Eight Crazy Nights more than that, but admits that’s mostly because it’s the shortest in the Sandler oeuvre, clocking in at about an hour and fifteen minutes. “But I do love Eight Crazy Nights,” he concedes.

He loves Jack And Jill, too, and thinks Sandler’s performance as Jill—“the quintessential unwanted house guest”—is particularly good. He thinks Grown Ups 2 might be the most fun to rewatch because it’s “fucking insane,” and believes Little Nicky is due for a reevaluation, which is why he screened it at his #YearOfSandler celebration last weekend. In fact, Lugo gives an unqualified endorsement of all of Sandler’s work, not just the more dramatic turns that critics admit to liking. It’s unclear if this is the result of some sort of Stockholm syndrome or the inevitable conclusion of a lifelong fandom, but Lugo seems to think history will prove him right.


That’s not to say this past year has been easy. Lugo recalls hitting a low point at about the six month mark, saying, “It just felt like I had been doing it for so long at that point that the thought of going through all of it again was super daunting and stressful. I definitely thought about quitting every day for a while there.” But, thanks to the support of his friends and Twitter followers, Lugo persevered through another screening of Spanglish or whatever he happened to be torturing himself with that day.

Now on the other side of the prison wall, Lugo can limit his Sandler intact to that of a normal man. Meaning, he’ll occasionally catch part of The Waterboy when it’s airing on TBS.


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