Funny People [Blu-ray]

Judd Apatow's Funny People is going to divide audiences (it certainly has divided critics). Those going in expecting a comedy along the lines of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up or any other of the films in the Apatow-verse will enjoy it but not love it. But that reaction may be more a product of the misdirection in the marketing of the film than anything else. Funny People is going for something more emotionally complex, and it succeeds on that count.Without dwelling on plot, the film focuses, by and large, on the professional and personal lives of a group of comics and comic actors at various rungs of the show business ladder, from Adam Sandler's George Simmons, a hugely successful film comedy star who came out of the stand-up comedy world, to Seth Rogan's Ira Wright, a novice comic who is drawn into George's world, to Ira's friends, who are his roommates, who are his competitors.The common thread running through these characters is anger and aggression, both explicit and sublimated. They steal jokes, jobs and women from each other (listed here in order of importance to the comics). The relationship between the performers and their audiences is similarly complicated (it's become a cliched observation that comics talk about "killing" the crowd).Interestingly, although all the comedians share this anger and aggression, it's only those who ride those dark emotions into similarly dark comedy that have preserved their spark. The farther the comics stray from their anger, the worse their comedy - as evidenced by Sandler's character, who churns out family-friendly claptrap and co-star Jason Schwartzman's Yo, Teach!, a self-important sitcom (both brilliantly captured in clips woven into Funny People).In Funny People, comedy is the universal language by which these emotionally-constricted characters communicate. There are awkward hugs and half-hearted attempts at compassion, but the most tender moment, coming late in the film, involves one character expressing love by writing jokes for another.All this aside, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this is a funny, entertaining, emotionally-involving film. But that said, in an odd way, Funny People echoes Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Both films are about angry and aggressive people who channel those drives in socially acceptable ways. (Even more oddly, Billy Crystal's horrific and mawkish Mr. Saturday Night attempted more overtly to be the Raging Bull of comedy, and the less said about that effort the better.)It wasn't until the ride home from the movie that it occurred to me that the "funny" in the title Funny People could have two meanings; there's funny ha-ha, and funny-odd. Here, the people are intentionally, compellingly both.

I think this film was hyped up a bit to much when it first came out...I think I might have enjoyed it even more if I know less about it ahead of time. That being said, I definetly enjoyed it regardless of the hype. I especially enjoyed the chemistry between Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. While some points in the movie had diologue that sounded forced, they were few and far between and the rest of the film completely made up for that. Ultimately, my biggest complaint that there wasn't more stand-up comedy. Having a number of DVDs of stand-up specials, I enjoy those very much and would have liked to see more in this film...in fact, they ought to make full-length comedy specials for all the characters...they've got the film somewhere, I think. But at the end of the day, this was a great film with a good story and plenty of much...in all honesty, it was more than I initially expected from the pairing of Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. So I'd happily recommend it (especially the unrated version.) Enjoy.

After the success of "40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" the honchoes allowed auteur Judd Apatow to indulge himself here. "Funny People" as at once ambitious, epic, and borderline self indulgent. I was going to dismiss this flick as a noble failure but something about it resonated in my self-conscious. My main gripe was that the film's main character, George Simmons(Adam Sandler), was an overbearing narcissistic heel. But it dawned on me that this was purely intentional and that Apatow and Sandler are taking a leap in expecting their audience to accept this reality. This is a hard film to like but ambitious viewers should admire what Apatow is attempting here. In this epic of sorts Apatow gives some choice parts to the immensely talented Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill and they run with it. It's kind of like Sandler is passing the torch or at the very least sharing the spotlight with these newcomers. Debits here are possible overlength, too much scatalogical humor, and a touch of nepotism in the casting(Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife, and his two daughters are prominently cast. Lot's of delicious cameos my fave being Ernest Thomas, "Raj" from "What"s Happening" as a television school principal.

People seem to be giving better reviews of late, but overall this movie doesn't have good reviews. I don't write reviews, but I'm going to for this movie because I just don't understand the bad reviews. Regarding the humor, it's a typical Apatow movie, so if you don't like that brand of humor, don't watch. I found the story to be very creative, and I loved how they weaved in actual stand up in the storyline of the movie. I saw some reviewers who said they didn't laugh once during this movie. If you didn't laugh once during this movie, then you either have zero sense of humor, or your sense of humor is SO obscure and demanding that you shouldn't write reviews in which you advise other people. Yes, it's crude; yes, there's a lot of cussing. Apatow has made enough movies now where one would think the viewer would know what they are in for. It's also rated R. This movie is hilarious and the story keeps you interested the whole time. This movie is well over two hours and I didn't even notice.

When I tell people that I like the work of Adam Sandler, they often look at me as if I've suffered a traumatic brain injury. If this movie was the only one of Sandler's films they had seen, I'd know why. It also raises the question, "what would modern comedians write jokes about if they couldn't use reproductive organs as source material?" Oops, should I have given a spoiler alert? You can also tell they used a laugh track in this film, as most of the jokes were not funny. Sandler and Rogen have starred in genuinely good films. This is not one of them.