Judd Apatow has become the King Midas of Hollywood, any project he puts his hands on becomes a huge hit, like magic. He has Given us a 40 Year Old Virgin, a Knocked Up obsessed television personality, and now he has sets his sights on standup comedy. In "Funny People" Apatow brings us an inside look at just the sort of life our super stars of entertainment really have.
George Simmons (Adam Sandler) learns he has a terminal, inoperable health condition, and takes a closer look at his life, he has all the money he will ever need, he has so many staff members working at his house he hardly notices them, nor do they pay much attention to him. George realizes that he is missing two very important things, the one woman he has loved his entire life, Laura (Leslie Mann) and a best friend. One night George decides to go back to a comedy club, he wants to get back to his roots, he wants to do more standup instead of the mindless movies his agent has gotten for him. When he gets on stage his routine is so dark and different that no one applauds and when he leaves the stage the next comedian goes up. Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) is an aspiring comedian and his standup is a little awkward to say the least, George listens to a little of his routine and then leaves, when Ira is leaving the club, George is in the parking lot, and tells Ira that his act was funny. The next day while Ira is at his apartment - one that he shares with two friends, Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman) and Leo (Jonah Hill) - George calls and offers him a job writing some jokes for him for a standup act that myspace has hired George to do. Ira accepts right away, but doesn't share the news that George has also offered the job to Leo, his chubby friend.
After the standup act George offers Ira a regular job as his assistant for fifteen hundred dollars a week, as a struggling performer Ira gladly accepts this as well. What he doesn't understand at first is that George expects him to be his best friend as well as his assistant. George is cool to work for at first, but when things for George don't go as he wants George gets cranky and takes it out on Ira. George does give Ira a chance at more standup, Ira opens for George as well as writes most of his jokes. Mark meanwhile is getting famous in his own right, he has a hit show "Yo Teach" and no one understands why, it is really a dumb show, but it's doing so well that Mark is able to get Leo a job on the show. When Leo finds out that George wanted him to write his jokes as well as Ira, their friendship is strained to the breaking point. George finds out from his doctor, Dr. Lars (Torsten Voge) that some of the experimental medicine from Canada he had been taking has set his disease in remission.
George decides to contact Laura and tell her about his fight, the two meet and she invites both George and Ira to her home for dinner, when they arrive Laura introduces them to her two daughters, Ingrid (Iris Apatow) and Mable (Maude Apatow), these two girls are so cute they steal every scene they are in. When Laura tells George she is tired of her husbands lies you know bad things are coming. Clarke (Eric Bana) travels to China so often that he is seldom at home and has had more than one affair, so it is inevitable that Laura and George will end up in bed again, and when it does happen, Laura decides she has had enough of Clarke and his lies. She decides she is going to confront him and tell him not to come home, Ira tries to stop her, more afraid to be killed then the fact Laura may be making a mistake, what Ira does, convinces Clarke something is going on with Laura and George more than anything else. The two men confront each other and Clarke at first is rather mad and beats George up. He does calm down and decides that he can't take his anger out on anyone else, he can only be mad at himself. George is of course mad at Ira for getting involved and fires him. Ira returns to the job he had before his shot at stardom, and George visits him one day and offers him some jokes he wrote.
Funny people is a more sober look at comedy by one of the new superstar directors, this is also the first time Sandler played straight to another mans goofiness and it works. The jokes are kind of raunchy but tasteful, the many cameos are by some of today's funniest people, along with some music stars. Its hard to find any major faults in this movie, so I won't try. It is funny and sad, but as tasteful as grown men talking about farts and penises can be. Don't let this stop you from going to see some of the brightest comedians in one film, Funny People is funny stuff.
I give Funny People a 3 and on my avoidance scale a 0, this is a movie that you can enjoy with your friends or with your family, there is no nudity and the jokes are not of the Bruno type. So enjoy this movie it showcases talents old and new. It also gives us a look at how hearing bad news effects people, George decides that he wants to amend his past mistakes, the sad thing is that he only does this after he thinks he is dying.
Funny People is rated R for Language, and Crude Sexual Humor Throughout and Some Sexuality
Running time is 1 hr. 56 mins.
No comments:
Post a Comment