Christ, I should be working at the Enquirer with these headlines. Anyway, we all remember when Katherine Heigl whined because Knocked Up was sexist, right? Good. Well Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow recently went on Howard Stern, who naturally asked them about her. They responded by saying the obvious things, but it was still cool because Katherine Heigl is a bitch.
Rogen says he doesn’t see how Heigl’s new comedy, The Ugly Truth, makes women look even better. “That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way,” he quipped.
Added Apatow, “I hear there’s a scene where she’s wearing … Underwear …with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”
Even more baffling, said Apatow, “We never had a ‘fight’” with Heigl while filming. “Seth always says, it doesn’t make any sense – she improvised half her s***,” Apatow said. [USWeekly]
And then Rogen was all, “Yeah dude, it’s like she doesn’t even have a BRAIN!” and I looked over and he was totally holding his nuts so it looked like a brain. So hilarious, bro, you should’ve been there.
I hate that Funny People is 25 minutes too long, because it does a couple of amazing things. From his album They’re All Gonna Laugh at You through a few years after Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler was a comedy God. I laughed so hard the first time I heard “The Buffoon and the Dean of Admissions” that I farted placenta. But at some point around ‘97, he seems to have decided he didn’t give a sh*t anymore and started doing a string of increasingly sappy, unfunny paycheck abortions like Click and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. The only glimmers of talent came in dramatic roles like Spanglish and Punch Drunk Love, in which he proved he could act, but didn’t really seem like himself, like he was just trying to prove a point.
Funny People not only reminds us what Sandler looks like when he’s doing honest comedy — and by that I mean comedy that he himself finds funny rather than “You want me to do a silly voice again? Fine, I’ll do the a voice again. Lap it up, you pigs.” — but combines it with the Sandler who can act. Not only that, the story is the kind of pointed, meta-fictional take on his life that JCVD could’ve been for Van Damme if it hadn’t devolved into such a pretentious euro wankfest. I hate to be a reactionary, but while I was writing this I noticed other people calling Funny People Entourage with Cancer, and I felt compelled to point out all the differences between this and Entourage.
1. Decent writing
2. Decent acting
3. Conflict
4. Likable characters
5. The celebrity character in Funny People is famous for having an actual skill
6. The minor characters are trying perfect an actual skill, and aren’t driven by the sole desire to be famous, or to hang out with famous people, or to help the main character get more famous
7. No one talks about shoes or cars, not even once
Yahoo just released this clip (after the jump) of Funny People director Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler talking about Funny People, and how Seth Rogen’s character’s relationship with Adam Sandler in the movie is kind of like Apatow’s relationship with Sandler back in the 80s/early 90s (PS, that picture couldn’t get any gayer if they were standing 69-ing and listening to Lady Gaga). Anyway, I didn’t watch the whole thing because I’m really excited for this movie and I don’t want to spoil my appetite and I have a really really good feeling about this one, and I don’t care so judge me all you want you big meanie.
I know Adam Sandler is known mostly for making awful movies nowadays, but I still remember where I was when I first heard “The Buffoon Meets with the Dean of Admissions” like it was the goddamn Kennedy assassination. It was kind of like the day I went through comedic puberty. I guess what I’m saying is that no matter how many times he lets us down, there’ll always be some tiny part of me that’s waiting for Adam Sandler to stop sucking and be my hero again. For youngish comedy writers, Adam Sandler is our OJ.
The red-band trailer for Judd Apatow’s Funny People just hit the web and judge me all you want, but this looks awesome. Knocked Up was awesome too and so are dick jokes and drinking beer and quoting Anchorman so screw you, hippies. The trailer premiered over on MySpace, and just in case you forgot MySpace was a sponsor, there’s also scene in which Adam Sandler’s character does stand up in front of a giant stage backdrop that says MySpace. I heard there’s even a special edition 3-D version of the trailer that you have to watch with glasses that say “MySpace” on the inside. Too bad it takes forever to load because they let random chicks change the background song to suit their mood. That might have been a bad idea.
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Judd Apatow’s next movie, Funny People, is kind of about comedians, and while he was filming it, he held a concert called A Night of Funny People, featuring people like Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman (probably my two favorite comics, along with Zach Galif.), and reportedly used some film from the concert in the movie. Today’s news is that some clips of Aziz Ansari’s performance, where he did a character named Randy, have hit the web. And they’ve even started a Randy website (laughyourdickoff.com) as part of their viral marketing.
[Update: the clip I was originally talking about was this one, but the video kept autoplaying so I took it down]
I know I’m a grouch and a hater about a lot of things, but I’d like to think I’m pretty open when it comes to comedy. But a lot of people whose opinion I usually respect find this Randy character utterly hilarious, and I… I just don’t see it. It’s not unfunny, it just doesn’t do anything for me, kind of like the comedic equivalent of the Foo Fighters (go ahead and yell at me for that one too). Plus he keeps breaking character. Is that what’s funny about Randy? That he’s a character who constantly breaks character? Nonetheless, I’m posting some clips in case you guys enjoy it. In the meantime I’ll just continue to stand here, frowning at my lawn and wondering why you never call.
[via CHUD]
