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Frank Coraci’s 2006 film runs as two separate films. The first half is a familiar Adam Sandler comedy of bad bosses, a dog and crude gags. From the moment the remote starts skipping ahead by itself, it becomes the story of a man watching his life from outside it. One device does both jobs: gag engine early on, trap later. The closing stretch is hospital scenes and heavy old age makeup, a register the trailer never sets up. The screenplay was a speculative script by Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe, bought by Sony in 2003 after the pair’s previous comedy did enormous business. Juan José Campanella was announced as director before the job passed to Coraci. For the freeze shots the crew first planned to stop the environment too, found that it bothered the eye, and froze only the people while leaves kept moving in the wind. It took an academy nomination for makeup. A good fit if you can take a shop gag and a deathbed scene in one film and want the old age makeup carried all the way rather than cut around. Not for you if you are putting on a light Sandler comedy: once the remote chooses for him, the film is about a man losing his father and his children’s childhood.