charticle
Oh look. Another
Judd Apatow-related semi-sweet comedy. This one's called
Role Models, and it features Apatow fixtures old (
Paul Rudd) and new (Christopher "McLovin'" Mintz-Plasse). These people are the busiest dudes in the business. We know that comedic actors tend to travel in packs—like the old
SNL posse (Murray, Martin, Akroyd) and the Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn/Will Ferrell group—but these gents seem especially tight-knit and disarmingly productive. We're not sure where they get the time, but studios seem eager to throw millions at a bunch of comedies that can be filmed fast and cheap and Apatow and co. seem happy to dance for the nickels. Paul Rudd must never see his kid. Our Photoshop whiz Steve Dressler has put together the chart above, giving you an idea of the guys' large workload.
Mr. Obvious
"The appearance of Jason Segel’s genitalia in the romcom
Forgetting Sarah Marshall had American critics crowing about how the film has courageously broken one of the last taboos in mainstream cinema. Yet Segel’s flaccid member looks pathetic and laughable, especially because it’s attached to a body that is doughy and pallid. It can’t seriously be accused of being capable of anything, let alone of breaking a taboo. So obviously devoid of sexual intent, it symbolises not so much his character’s abject emotional condition at his girlfriend’s rejection of him, but the sorry state of masculinity in American movies today."
The Times of London's
Christopher Goodwin goes on to piss and moan about how actors such as Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill have replaced the manly men of yore—and conveniently dodges a crucial and trend-piece-killing point.
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full frontal
Hey, remember
Knocked Up and
Superbad? Sure, they were each a little sexist and homoerotic (not that there's anything wrong with that), respectively, but nonetheless spawned the adjective "
Apatovian." Now any movie featuring a lovable goof and the Apatow players, also known as the cast of
Freaks and Geeks, gets a rave. The latest is
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring 73 frames of
Jason Segel's penis. A tipster writes in to complain that the
Entertainment Weekly review and the Slate review are awfully similar, both using Segel's body (penis) as a metaphor for the movie. Well, isn't his penis a metaphor for everything?
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funny/sad
[To be read in the voice of
Don "Voice of God" LaFontaine] In a world where Dane Cook, the unfunniest flimsiest hack bastard of a comedian is America's number one laugh man, it's hard to believe that for one night, back in 1992, HBO hosted a
Young Comedians Show hosted by Dana Carvey. It featured
Judd "Knocked Up" Appatow,
Ray "Shit" Romano,
Janeane "Tattooed East Village Ranter" Garofalo and
Andy "Comic's Comic" Kindler. Sixteen years later, as America shuffles across the world stage, sweeping up the shattered laughs and broken promises, HBO rebroadcasts that performance on January 24th. America, learn to laugh again and please somebody make Dane Cook watch this.
"I think the characters [in '
Knocked Up'] are sexist at times, but it's really about immature people who are afraid of women and relationships and learn to grow up. If people say that the characters are sexist, I say, yeah, that's what I was going for in the first part of the movie, and then they change," director
Judd Apatow told
New York mag's
Vulture blog. Okay but that's kind of besides the point because 'Knocked Up,' is so fully sexist, not because its male characters say immature and demeaning things about women, but because all the women in it are portrayed as one-note, unfunny, vain, self-absorbed hormonal crazies. It's also a hilarious movie, so you know, whatever.
just guys
Sweating into his fluffball of jewfro, a heavyset, facially-hairy young man with glasses stepped to the microphone during the Q&A portion of the
New Yorker festival event featuring film critic David Denby in conversation with writer-director
Judd Apatow and his protege
Seth Rogen. Seth called on him to begin speaking: "Yes, me?" This joke got the second-biggest laugh of the night. But it had some stiff competition.
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