Third time’s the charm – The Movie Filter
On July 31 Universal Pictures will release Funny People, the third film from writer and director Judd Apatow. The reason we know this is his third film is because it’s printed in bold letters right there in the very center of the promotional poster. That tagline is an unusual detail from the studio, but then, these are unusual times. Film fans have attributed about a dozen movies in the past few years to Apatow even though he served only as a producer for all but two of them.
Maybe moviegoers are just responding to the current comedy lovefest.
Recently Saturday Night Live stars Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader beamed about the back-slapping fraternity all their comedy peers are enjoying of late. “The comedy world’s in a good place right now,” Wiig told New York. “It’s not competitive,” Hader chimed in. “It’s this big group—everybody on The Office, Parks and Recreation, the 30 Rock people, the Apatow crew—”
“It’s one big family,” Wiig said, both finishing Hader’s sentence and proving their point. For better or worse, comedy is in sync.
Time was when claiming a favorite comedian was like picking political parties. Cosby or Pryor. Murray or Chase. Chappelle’s Show or SNL. But now audiences crave this cross-polination. So we have Funny People uniting Adam Sandler with Apatow regulars like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and his wife, Leslie Mann. If that group seems odd, it’s not. Sandler and Apatow are former roommates. Sandler plays a stand-up comic who learns he has a terminal illness. Wanting to establish meaningful connections before he dies, he decides to take on a young performer, played by Rogen, as his opening act and his friend.
Funny People could be great. Or it could bomb. It could be the Beaches of bromantic comedies. Can a comedy be as funny as it can be when the cast is such close friends with the competition?
Sandler went head-to-head with Rogen last summer. He lost. Pineapple Express creamed You Don’t Mess with the Zohan critically and financially. But that was 2008. It’s 2009, and Sandler and Rogen are co-stars. Comedy now is all about camaraderie. Punk’d is done. MTV’s jokes-as-scornful-shout-downs series Yo Mama is gone, too. Last Comic Standing judged comedians as winners and losers. Yep, NBC cancelled it in March.
But less competition always means fewer winners. And everybody loves a winner. All this intermingling of talent from different comedy circles, styles and eras means the torch isn’t being passed. It’s being passed around.
But if comedy’s figurative love fest isn’t enough for you, there’s a literal one coming, too. On August 14 Jon Stewart’s squire, former Daily Show correspondent Demetri Martin, will debut in Taking Woodstock, a comedy about history’s most famous three days of peace, love and music.
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