<![CDATA[Gawker: seth rogen]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: seth rogen]]> http://gawker.com/tag/sethrogen http://gawker.com/tag/sethrogen <![CDATA[Why MySpace Is Happy to Be Insulted by Adam Sandler]]> Social networking is for lonely, psychotic shut-ins. Or at least that's the upshot of the jokes in the attached clip from Adam Sandler vehicle Funny People. And still MySpace apparently cooperated with the filmmakers; its co-founder and logo appear.

The video clip above, from YouTube, is grainy, but TechCrunch's Mike Arrington assures readers it's in the final movie. I hadn't seen the film myself, unaware it touched on social networking, but Arrington writes that MySpace takes up a solid five minutes of the movie.

The treatment is brutal. Early in the clip, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson asks Sandler if he actually uses the product. The star's reply: "No, no no. I fuck girls, Tom. I don't have time for that." When he goes on stage, the comic greets the MySpace crowd as "nerds" and then trashes their users: "They say the more friends you have on MySpace the less friends you have in real life." .

Sure, MySpace's competitors are insulted, too. But companies like Silicon Valley-based Facebook are fighting hard to avoid Hollywood; Facebook trashed Ben Mezrich's book about the company, The Accidental Billionaires, and by extension the Aaron Sorkin movie based on that book, calling it inaccurate.

But MySpace is based in Beverly Hills, close to Hollywood, and seems to have a better handle on the big picture: Being on the silver screen, in any context, means you're culturally relevant. Why not embrace the opportunity to make your virtual community a lot more real? (Via TechCrunch.)

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<![CDATA[Did Apatow's Funny Make Any Money?]]> Hollywood's been waiting for the answer to the question Does Judd Apatow have what it takes to be a "serious film" filmmaker? or at least wants to know about his bankability in drama. Take a guess what happened.

Early box office counts show Funny People pulling $23.4M since opening on Friday here and in Canada. Which, let's see, had Nikki Finke — who's been having fun with the picture of Apatow scratching his head, above - noting as "lousy," and Reuters pointing out in their lede that it was Adam Sandler's worst opening in almost five years. It was also the lowest opening for a #1 movie since Jim Carrey's Yes Man, it has a Metacritic score of 60/100, and on Rotten Tomatoes, has only 65% positive reviews.

So, no. Guess America doesn't like dramedy with their dick jokes.

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<![CDATA[Seth Rogen Forced To Re-live His Megan Fox Rejection Over And Over Again]]> Before she snubbed the little boy with the yellow rose, Megan Fox was rejecting Seth Rogen's polite kiss on Jimmy Kimmel's show. Last night, Seth told the story and Jimmy rolled the tape.

As much as this plays into the Megan Fox as ultimate object of masculine desire cliche (which is just boring at this point), it's a relief to see poor Seth Rogen getting to talk about something different at this stop on his (and Sandler, Mann, and Apatow's) seemingly never ending Funny People tour. And, actually, it contains an infinitesemally revealing fact about Megan Fox: she was so nervous before the first show that she stopped by Seth's dressing room to ask him to stay and help her be funnier. If Megan Fox is the current blank screen onto which we project our ideas about ultimate femininity, the fact that she did that adds one little tiny pixel of coolness to that screen. I can't imagine a lot of actresses doing that, or even knowing who Seth Rogen was at that pre-Knocked Up point in time. And, bonus: next time Megan Fox is on Kimmel, she'll have something to talk about besides her tattoos.

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<![CDATA[Everyone Hates Katherine Heigl]]> Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow trash Katherine Heigl, Joe Jackson confirms Michael Jackson's Norwegian lovechild, Britney mocks K-Fed's weight gain, Robert Redford dislikes Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Simpson has an expensive new reality show and Sienna Miller needs love.

  • Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow were on Howard Stern's show and they took the opportunity to give Katherine Heigl a good trashing. You may recall that Heigl had some critical things to say about Knocked Up after the film made her a star, saying that it "paints women as shrews." Speaking about Heigl's new film, The Ugly Truth, Rogen said, "That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way," while Apatow added, "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." Everybody hates Katherine Heigl. [Us Weekly]

  • Crazy old Joe Jackson has confirmed that the Norwegian man rumored to be Michael Jackson's biological son, Omer Bhatti, is indeed Michael Jackson's biological son. [Daily News]

  • K-Fed is still packing on the pounds. Like, dude is large. And Britney, that trollop, is mocking him behind his back, going around calling him "K-Fatter-line" to all her friends. [Daily Mail]

  • Jessica Simpson employs the most expensive grooming handlers in the world and she will probably send Viacom into bankruptcy with her new VH1 reality show's outrageous hair and makeup budget. [Page Six]

  • A new book on Robert Redford claims that he basically wanted to kill Scarlet Johansson when he directed her in The Horse Whisperer in the late 90s. [Gatecrasher]

  • Poor Sienna Miller. Her newest shag-buddy, Balthazar Getty, has run back into the arms of his wife, while she's drowning her sorrows at The Box on the Lower East Side. For shame. [Gatecrasher]

  • The mother of Jude Law's latest child has been revealed to me Samantha Burke, an aspiring model and actress. [Mirror]

  • Here is George Clooney's new "lapdance model" lady-friend dressed as a nun with her boob hanging out. [Sun]

  • You have to admit, for a woman of any age, much less a woman of 40, Jennifer Aniston looks pretty damn good. Why can't poor Jenn find love?! [Daily Mail]
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<![CDATA[Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You]]> If you're thinking about seeing the light-hearted Seth Rogen comedy Observe & Report, you may want to watch this R-rated trailer first...or maybe not.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it. This is how The New York Times review describes the scene, which you can watch in the final 20 seconds of the trailer above:

In another scene [Rogen] forces himself on a makeup-counter saleswoman after a date of heavy drinking and drug use. (Before the scene is over she indicates that she had given her consent.)

In the scene, Brandi has thrown up on herself and appears to be totally unconscious as Ronnie is pumping away on top of her. He stops for a second, and then she murmurs the line that The New York Times says indicates her consent, "Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?" before passing out again.

Dan Kois writes on New York Magazine's Vulture blog:

The movie doesn't mitigate that sex scene at all. In fact, it makes it even more clear than the trailer does that when Brandi and Ronnie get home from dinner, she's unbelievably trashed on antidepressants and tequila. Not only does she throw up all over the place, she can barely walk - and she certainly can't give any kind of informed consent. She's way too wasted for her yelling at Ronnie to mean anything.

But Kois doesn't get is that it's a dark comedy. People are so disturbed by rape that the fact that Brandi is too out of it to give any kind of consent what makes the scene so hilarious. Anna Faris told New York Magazine, "It's like date rape - that's funny, right?" Seth Rogen agrees in this interview posted by the Washington City Paper. He says:

SETH ROGEN: When we're having sex and she's unconscious like you can literally feel the audience thinking, like, how the fuck are they going to make this okay? Like, what can possibly be said or done that I'm not going to walk out of the movie theater in the next thirty seconds? . . . And then she says, like, the one thing that makes it all okay:
BRANDI: "Why are you stopping, motherfucker?"

Rogen explains that everyone in the theater then lets out a good long chuckle. See, even though she's probably blacked out and has no idea what she's saying, it isn't rape. (And Brandi's kind of a dumb slut anyway.) In the beginning of the trailer, a flasher is exposing himself to women in the mall parking lot and it looks like he's masturbating in front of Brandi. In this interview Anna Faris says:

It is the most traumatic event that's ever happened to her, which is funny because I always imagined that she's seen a bit of male anatomy and it wouldn't normally scare her.

Women who have many sex partners obviously love penis, so they'd welcome a stranger jerking off in front of them on their way to work.

And if you aren't already laughing at the idea of a pervert exposing himself to women and someone getting date raped, Sady points out on her blog Tiger Beatdown (via Shakesville) that the film will be even more entertaining for women with history of sexual assault. Sady writes:

"The incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see [the movie], and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives."

An Auteur of Awkward Strikes Again [The New York Times]
Does Seth Rogen Rape Anna Faris in Observe & Report? [New York Magazine]
Observe and Report's Date Rape Apologism [Washington City Paper]
Um. [Tiger Beatdown]
Quote of the Day [Shakesville]

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<![CDATA[Yes, Seth Rogen Has Lost Some Weight]]> This week in press tours: Seth Rogen! Poor guy's been doing the rounds all week promoting his new movie Observe & Report and all anyone wants to talk about is that he lost some weight.

Though we hear that the movie is darker and stranger than you'd imagine, really that's secondary to the fact that, probably because of The Green Lantern Hornet!! It's Hornet!!! I'm sorryyyy!!!!!!, the once-portly comedian has slimmed down to a more Hollywood size. And now he'll have to talk about it for the rest of his life.

(Thanks go to intern Whitney Jefferson for the clip.)

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<![CDATA[Green Hornet to Look a Lot Like a White Stripes Video]]> The departure of director Stephen Chow from Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet suggested the project might be postponed indefinitely. Thanks to Michel Gondry, however, the Hornet flies (stings? What does the Hornet do, anyway?) again.

Variety reports the director—an unabashedly quirky filmmaker whose lo-fi, kinetic visual flourishes have influenced everything from Coke commercials to Oscar opening numbers—will be taking over. What does that portend for the project? Look for Hornet to sacrifice Chow's jokey, action-heavy Hong Kong cinema aesthetic, replaced instead by Gondry's decidedly more meta flights of fancy. His touch could ultimately prove to make all the difference in bringing some of the script's more static scenes alive, however, such as when the Hornet kicks back with a bowl of Funyuns next to bong-hogging sidekick Kato, the two unmotivated crime-fighters giggling hysterically at a Sweded version of their own misadventures.

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<![CDATA[Spot The Real-Life Allusions in Judd Apatow's 'Funny People' Trailer!]]> Here's the trailer for Judd Apatow's Adam Sandler starrer Funny People, which looks like it will be hailed as the director's most mature, personal film yet. How personal? Let us count the ways:


Sandler plays a successful comedian who moves the less-successful Seth Rogen into his house to write additional jokes for him. In real life, Apatow once lived wth Sandler and wrote jokes for him and other comedians after realizing he had no future as a stand-up.

One of the Sandler character's posters bears a strong resemblance to this real-life poster for Going Overboard, which starred a pre-fame Sandler and is always inexplicably facing outward on the DVD rack whenever we go to Best Buy.

In Knocked Up, Rogen's character worshipped at the altar or Eric Bana's ass-kicking Jew in Munich and announced, "If any of us get laid tonight, it's because of Eric Bana and Munich." Who, then, would Apatow pick to play Sandler's impossibly perfect romantic rival in Funny People? Bana—ironically, a former comedian Down Under.

Yup, Apatow's real-life daughters with Leslie Mann are once again featured as Mann's on-screen children (after stealing the show in Knocked Up).

Rogen and friends are spotted numerous times in the trailer hiking up and down Runyon Canyon for exercise. Poor guy—even on a big-budget, well-catered film like this one, Rogen has to keep slimming down until he's the size of a toothpick-waisted hipster standing in line for MGMT at the Echoplex.

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<![CDATA[Seth Rogen Becomes Ninth Male Playboy Cover Model]]> Trimmed-down Seth Rogen finally lands Playboy cover. [Page Six]

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<![CDATA[Sanitized Trailer Scrubs Humor From 'Observe And Report']]> We're on the record anticipating Seth Rogen's mall-cop comedy Observe and Report as the moody anti-Blart for thinking adults. But the new green-band trailer has us wondering if Warners has us all fooled.

Obvious as it is, there's always room for amazement watching what a few creative edits, realignments and tweaks can do to a story. And the shorter the piece (a two-and-a-half-minute trailer, for example) the more jarring the impact: Slashing a few dirty jokes here and there has diminished first impressions of Observe from those of a ribald, radical dark comedy of insecurity to more of a mopey, emasculated Rogen dramedy. Sure, it withholds some gags you'd probably want saved for the theater. The downside, naturally, is that who's to say this would get you to the theater if you didn't know better?

Which of course gets us into the nature of what a trailer should or shouldn't do, etc. etc. Debate that one among yourselves (the original, NSFW red-band trailer is below), but at least give Observe and Report some credit going forward: At least there's no Segway.


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<![CDATA[Seth Rogen's Anti-Blart Shines In NSFW 'Observe and Report' Trailer]]> The NSFW redband trailer for Seth Rogen's Observe and Report resolves a few lingering issues around the rapidly developing mall-cop comedy subgenre. First up: "Comedy" might be stretching things.

Sure, you've got Anna Faris refining dizzy drunkenness to almost molecular purity and a fearlessly multi-ethnic showcase led by Aziz Anzari's brown-dick rejoinders. That's funny, but Rogen seems to have more substantial motivations than love and duty, and higher ambitions than retail rectitude. "The world needs a fucking hero," he growls, and we believe him, if only because of the existential terror anchoring every gag here. Who'd argue? Keep your $100 million and your script-ownership issues, Paul Blart; violent, cold-blooded, pitch-black revenge is no doubt the future of mall-security cinema. [YouTube]

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<![CDATA[35 Celebrities Who Smoke Pot]]> Over the weekend, a picture of Michael Phelps smoking a bong was made public. What's the big deal? It's not like he's the first (or last) celeb to toke.

This morning on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was all bent out of shape about Phelps' bong hit, giving the tired spiel about how he's a role model and he's setting a bad example, blah blah blah. She went on to claim that since he's willing to use illegal drugs to have a good time, maybe he's open to using illegal drugs to advance his career, as though weed is a gateway drug to steroids or something. Whoopi shot her down pretty quickly, and admitted to enjoying pot.

Elisabeth's argument hinged on the fact that Phelps accepts money to endorse products. One of those is Rosetta Stone, the language-learning software, which is just about one of the most sedentary activities a stoner could enjoy, aside from watching The Wizard of Oz on mute while playing The Dark Side of the Moon. (I should know, since I've been using the program to learn Spanish.) His other sponsors, like Omega and Speedo, totally don't give a shit.

And they shouldn't, because it's silly — in my opinion, anyway — to pass judgment on those who take part in something as innocuous as pot smoking, which many believe is lot less harmful for one's body than alcohol. Besides, despite the fact that it's technically illegal, so many people smoke weed recreationally that it's not all that taboo. Here's a list of celebrities who have either been caught smoking marijuana, or admit willingly to doing so.

Woody Harrelson



Woody is an activist for the legalization of marijuana and hemp.

Willie Nelson



So is Willie Nelson.

Frances McDormand



Frances McDormand was on the cover of High Times in May 2003, in which she said, "I'm a recreational pot-smoker. There has never been enough of a distinction between marijuana and other drugs. It's a human rights issue, a censorship issue, and a choice issue."

Seth Rogen & James Franco



The pair stared in Pineapple Express together, and shared this maybe real/maybe fake joint on stage while presenting an award during the MTV Movie Awards last summer.

Cameron Diaz & Drew Barrymore



Also friends who share.

Justin Timberlake



Timberlake, who used to date Diaz, has been very open about how he smokes weed, sometimes even with is mother. He also admitted that he was stoned out of his mind when he was Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher.

Kimora Lee Simmons



Kimora Lee Simmons took one of the stoniest mugshots after she was arrested in 2004 for possession.

Nicole Richie



Nicole admitted to having smoked pot, as well as taking a Vicodin, when she was arrested for a DUI charge in 2007.

Paris Hilton



Nicole's buddy Paris' reefer madness has been well documented.

Michelle Phillips



Former singer from The Mamas & The Papas said as recently as 2001 that, "Marijuana should definitely be legalized. I think we should let everyone smoke it without fear of being thrown in jail. It's the greatest drug in the world!"

Snoop Dogg



Duh.

Redman



We'll be here all day if we start listing rappers.

Lil Wayne



But we'll mention Wayne for good measure.

Mariah Carey



Mariah is such a goody-two-shoes that she'd never publicly admit to marijuana use, but on her most recent album, she made plenty of weed references.

Charlize Theron



Academy Award winners like their weed, too.

AARP



In the summer of 2005, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) hosted a smoke-in to promote the legalization of marijuana. Celebrities that participated: Willie Nelson, Woody Harrelson (obvs), Bette Midler, Santana, Chicago, David Crosby and Graham Nash, Rod Stewart, The New Jefferson Starship, Tony Orlando, Ringo Starr, Tommy Chong, Snoop Dogg, and Robert Downey Jr.

Matthew McConaughey



When McConaughey gets loose, he does so with bongos.

Dionne Warwick



Her work with Burt Bacharach was way too mellow to not be under the influence.

Whitney Houston & Bobby Brown



They've got "Something in Common."

Sarah Silverman



Sarah speaks favorably about weed in her act, and smoked with Doug Benson in his movie Super High Me.

Doug Benson



Comedian Doug Benson has centered much of his career around pot.

Oliver Stone



He has the perfect name for someone who's been busted for pot on numerous occasions.

Dawn Wells



Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island was arrested last year for possession.

Dave Chappelle


The Pointer Sisters



Oliver Hudson tells a story about his first concert-going experience, during which the Pointer Sisters were getting blazed.

Paul Dinello



It's hard to watch this Strangers With Candy clip about smoking pot without thinking that writer/actor Paul Dinello believes what he is saying.

Barbra Streisand



In a 1972 Rolling Stone interview, Babs said, "I'd take out a joint and light it. First, just faking it. Then I started lighting live joints, passing them around to the band, you know. I was great, it relieved all my tensions. And I ended up with the greatest supply of grass ever. Other acts up and down the Strip heard about what I was doing - Little Anthony and the Imperials, people like that - and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out."


Phelps Backed by Sponsors After Marijuana Photo
[TCPalm]
Elisabeth Hasselbeck disses Michael Phelps; Whoopi Goldberg: 'I have smoked weed' [EW]

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<![CDATA[Seth Rogen Didn't Drink Those Slim-Fast Shakes For Nothing!]]> If there's one thing we know from nature videos and the Faultline during Lent, it's that you don't provoke a starving bear. Just ask the dieting Seth Rogen, who insists Green Hornet is still on.

Drew McWeeny at Hitflix had alleged that in the wake of director Stephen Chow leaving the film, several Sony sources had confirmed that Hornet had been permanently swatted. Rogen, however, wasn't pleased by the rumor that he had shed all his pounds for a project in turnaround. McWeeny recounts what happened next:

I had sourced the article from several directions, but there was one person I hadn't spoken to when I published, and that was Seth Rogen.

Let's just say he wasn't pleased. And he has a very different take on things.

"'The Green Hornet' has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc.," he said during our e-mail exchange back and forth. "[The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we're able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibilty, it should still hit the release date."

Otherwise: aborted wrap party at Fatburger's! Apatow's paying.

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<![CDATA[Was Seth Rogen's Transformation From Bear To Otter All For Naught?]]> Though Seth Rogen's been rapidly shedding weight for his unlikely superhero role in The Green Hornet (a facial mask always sits better on well-defined cheekbones), Hitflix reports that the project may be doomed.

Says Drew McWeeny:

Ever since [costar/director] Stephen Chow started to waffle about his participation in the film, I've been hearing rumors that there were major hesitations at Sony. Then at Sundance, I heard several people say that the film was off completely. I spoke this afternoon with a source close to the film, and while they didn't call it completely dead, they did say it is "highly unlikely" that the film will shoot in 2009 at all.

Too bad Rogen didn't lock down all the necessary Hornet talent before he started eschewing cheeseburgers for lettuce slices and cross-training. Still, there is one potential save: time to swathe Katherine Heigl in latex for a role-reversal sequel to Knocked Up!

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<![CDATA[Ray Liotta Will Fart In Your General Direction]]> Here's a tip for all those Young Turks out there who think they can tell Ray Liotta what to do in a scene: he has a nice, juicy rebuttal all ready for you.

Slashfilm interviewed actor Ben Best about his experience on Observe and Report, a mall cop comedy starring Liotta and Seth Rogen (directed by Jody Hill, who made The Foot Fist Way). According to Best, Liotta does not take kindly to simple blocking:

One day, we’re lining up a shot, and we’re standing on these courthouse steps, Seth is there, and Jody tells us to move down. And Jody says, ‘Hey Ray [Liotta], why don’t you go here.’ And Jody’s literally talking about the next step down, and Ray’s like ‘…Why?’

Seth and I just look at each other, like ‘Uhhh?’ So, Jody thinks for a second, and goes ‘Why not?’ And Ray goes, ‘Well, I just don’t think my character would stand on this step.’ And Jody just goes ‘Fuck It.’ So, after it’s over, Ray says to me, ‘You know what I think about that?’ And he just goes [makes ginormous fart noise—-an IRL wet fart]. The smell….it was the most disgusting thing ever. He’s crazy in a good way. [laughs]

Crazy, or crazy like a fox? Sure, Liotta's behavior might seem outrageous and out of line, but give the guy a break: he probably just came off an "I" bender that would send a lesser Apatow alum to Cedars Sinai.

[Photo Credit: AP]

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<![CDATA[Is It Possible for Funny People to Be All That Funny?]]> It's hard to think of a comedian who it hasn't happened to. Once pigeon-holed as a laugh-getter, the comic's desire to be taken seriously grows and grows. And for some strange reason, Judd Apatow's current project Funny People wants to have it both ways: the yuks and the tears. This "hilarious drama", as Apatow refers to it, has a high profile cast that includes former standups Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Eric Bana, and while Vanity Fair is already on the movie's jock over a recent table-read, history tells us that Funny People will be more sad than hilarious.

Since the sad part is already in the script, Sandler and Rogen were practicing their in-character stand-up routines from Funny People (mostly about masturbation) at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater last month in anticipation of honing material for the film. But Funny People isn't just about a bunch of hilarious folks — it's about how much they learn.

From what an early draft of the script for Funny People revealed, we know that Adam Sandler's character thinks he's dying from a blood disorder, and hires Seth Rogen to be his friend/assistant. Sandler's journey brings him to the doorstep of his lost love, a depressed housewife played by Apatow's wife Leslie Mann, where he competes for her affection opposite husband Eric Bana.

You see, Apatow can't stop at being hilarious, he has to make everyone to know how deep he and his friends are:

It's a comedy, but it has more drama in it. A hilarious drama is what I'm going for. Every movie, I'm trying to find a way to go deeper, to tell stories about subjects that are important and make them less and less broad while making them equally as funny. [This film is] another step in that progression.

As he works on the film, Apatow is getting the full hagiography treatment from Vanity Fair, the kind of word-love they usually save for glamorous stars, or Twilight: "He is made for humor the way certain people are made for speed. It’s a humor perfectly tuned to the moment, which is fearful and diminished and small, so in terrible need of belly laughs." It's all part of Apatow's desire to be taken sooper-serious — unfortunately, there has never been a film about stand-up comics that's been anything but depressing at portraying the tears of a clown.

In his 1982 fameball epic The King of Comedy, Martin Scorcese cast a dramatic actor, Robert De Niro, as comedian Rupert Pupkin. Pupkin's sad quest to get known and stay known is the darkest of dark comedies, channeling the introverted, violent desperation of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull (Pauline Kael famously called Pupkin "Jake LaMotta without fists") in a more extroverted form. If the film is funny, it's by accident — it's mostly scary and sad.

The Weitz brothers (American Pie) tried to make a sentimental fantasy about a stand-up comic wanting to play the Apollo in the Chris Rock vehicle Down to Earth, a roundly panned project that was a re-make of the more successful 1978 movie Heaven Can Wait, in which the comic was a football player instead. Down to Earth is a wistful post-death fantasy with no actual jokes to speak of. Even the 2002 documentary Comedian about Jerry Seinfeld and aspiring stand-up Orny Adams was so depressing as to be unwatchable.

These films have one thing in common — they're sad, and they're not funny. When people go to an Apatow film, they're first and foremost expecting to laugh.

Of course, Seinfeld was the all-time greatest story about the real life of a stand-up comedian, and Larry David and Co. portrayed his existence honestly: Jerry was an empty, womanizing wannabe that spent more time making inside jokes to his friends than working on his material. Seth Rogen, Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill as hapless comedian roommates do have some potential along those lines. Since we have no desire to start an Apatow backlash, we will reserve judgment and hope that by the time Funny People is finished, they have at least 40 of the best 50 masturbation jokes ever told in the final cut to make up for all the gooey stuff.

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<![CDATA[Seth Rogen Boned Plenty of Hot Girls When He was Fat and Unknown, OK?]]> Sure, Seth Rogen used to be heavier and hairier, but you shouldn't take that to mean he had no luck with women. While divulging his diet secrets to his Zack and Miri director Kevin Smith for Myspace's "Artist on Artist" series, Rogen rebutted the oft-heard critique that he's far too schlubby to pull Heigls and Bankses in real life. "I dated girls who were way hotter and outside of my range, always!" he protests, decrying the skinny minnies who would take their sexual frustrations out on his on-screen persona. Duly noted, Seth — let's just hope that extra girth you're losing doesn't hide Samson-esque powers. [Myspace]

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<![CDATA[ Animal Magnetism: Seth Rogen's had to make...]]> Animal Magnetism: Seth Rogen's had to make some mainstream concessions to get in fighting shape for The Green Hornet, but they're nothing compared to how he responded to the threat of a Zack and Miri sex scene. "I shaved my back just in case," he told WENN. "I went fully bare, like a two year old. I was ready. I didn't want to be too real for the world. I don't think the world is too ready for a hairy back in a love scene." We'd make an easy Robin Williams joke here, but Rogen beat us to the punch: "Has there ever been a sex scene with Robin Williams? People don't want to see that. That would border on bestiality." [OK!]

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<![CDATA[Shellshocked Weinsteins Find New Enemy in the 'Zack and Miri' Aftermath]]> The only words you'll hear more than "It's your fault" today at Weinstein Company HQ: "It could have been worse," the unofficial new TWC battle cry after Zack and Miri Make a Porno opened over the weekend to a disappointing $10.7 million. Indeed, it probably will be worse — Universal and Lionsgate accused the Weinsteins of inflating their gross by as much as a million dollars, and just for fun, another potential lawsuit threatens the brothers' follow-up this week. So who is to blame, anyway, and what's next?

As director Kevin Smith told the LA Times today, "If [Zack and Miri] dies at the box office, I don't think we'll see another porn-related comedy for a long time." We have a better idea: Make all the porn comedies you want, just don't release them on Halloween behind a campaign featuring sanitized TV spots and stick figures of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. While the latter star still remains a relatively unknown box-office quanity, Rogen has done nothing but open one R-rated comedy after another since last year. Zack and Miri, not so much: It's Rogen's worst opening by far, collecting less than a third of Knocked Up's $30.7 million draw in May '07 and contorting his agent into insisting Rogen doesn't need fellow UTA-er Judd Apatow behind him — as with Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express — to deliver a hit.

Smith, meanwhile, probably won't even beat his opening for Clerks 2, triggering critics to ask how much demand — if any — remains for his digressive brand of raunch. But don't take our word for it: He anticipated it himself, pushing the script for his terrorism drama Red State during the press rounds for Zack and Miri. The Weinsteins didn't want it then and definitely won't take it now; their parting ways with the filmmaker (for now) has less to do with taste than insolvency, particularly with the backlog of films piling up next to the mop in their utility closet. It was fun while it lasted. Except the Jersey Girl part, of course, but they're over it.

Which leaves the Weinsteins themselves, having failed once more in their attempts to stir up ratings and title controversies, looking to Zack and Miri's Flopz™ eternity for a little nickel-and-dime magic for years to come. There's always this week's Soul Men, though, right? Not so fast, says R&B legend Sam Moore, who told The Independent this weekend that he may seek a share of the gate for the Sam Jackson/Bernie Mac comedy he thinks ripped off his life story. And it didn't even do it well:

The film infringes trademark rights over the duo's most famous song, "Soul Man", Moore alleges. It also wrongly portrays them as constantly swearing, making liberal use of the "N-word" and indulging in casual sex with groupies, he complains.

"The film is sexist, racist, and embarrassing, and that's not what Sam & Dave were about," said Moore, who is seeking "significant" compensation, together with a disclaimer distancing him from the narrative. [...]

"The Weinstein Company says the film's fiction. In that case, I'd like them to tell me what part's supposed to be fiction," said Moore. "I'd like them to tell me which two black soul musicians, signed to Stax Records, who worked with Isaac Hayes, it's meant to portray."

Oh — so that's why they wanted to share this one with MGM. Things may be lean around the office these days, but at least Harvey and Bob won't have to face a jury alone.

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<![CDATA[Zack and Miri Opening More Kevin Smith Than Judd Apatow]]> The early returns on Zack and Miri Make A Porno aren't what Harvey Weinstein was hoping for. After fighting over how explicit the film's promotional materials and title could be, the Seth Rogen-Elizabeth Banks romantic comedy didn't explode at the box office this weekend. The film netted an underwhelming projected $10.6 million even after a really slow Friday night opening. It looks like all the free publicity and feel-good endings in the world couldn't turn a frog into an Apatovian prince.

Apatow's R-rated fare usually does a decent job crossing over to younger audiences, and Smith may have been hoping that pattern would continue with so many recognizable actors from Judd's films in Zack and Miri. Parents may have been especially wary of their teens seeing a film with 'Porno' in the title. Even the dour Changeling might have more legs than Zack and Miri, as Nikki Finke argues. In any case, the film's gross so far is more in line with Smith's past results than Apatow's: even Forgetting Sarah Marshall brought in $17.7 million on its opening weekend. Good word of mouth could help, but the film hasn't been a critical favorite so far either.

Update: That early estimate may be a tad high. From The Hollywood Reporter:

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" followed with $10.7 million, said closely held distributor Weinstein Co. Other studios, however, said that estimate was at least $1 million too high.

"There's no question that we're being a little bit aggressive," said Weinstein Co. distribution chairman Steve Bunnell, referring to the studio's estimate of Sunday sales. Final data will be issued on Monday.

The larger impact is on the struggling Weinstein Company. Harvey can't be pleased to see this film underperform. Click here for the full results from the weekend.

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