Image Credit: Chris Hatcher/PR PhotosAs Judd Apatow has noted, he’s “fanning controversy to help ratings for a show not being televised.” But still, it’s a good exercise in comedy. The host of Jan. 22′s Producers Guild of America Awards is a fan of Ricky Gervais, but appears to have been disappointed with his performance at last Sunday’s Golden Globes. “I thought Joan Rivers did a wonderful job hosting the Golden Globes tonight,” he tweeted after the ceremony. “Ricky Gervais should do an episode of Extras where he hosts the Golden Globes and is out of tune. Cut to female friend looking disappointed,” he followed. Then, the zinger: “The Santa Clause was better than The Invention of Lying.” When one of his followers seconded his praise of The Santa Clause – it was a legitimately good movie – he answered her, “That’s my point! As was Toy Story. Mean is too lazy for RG.” (In a PopWatch poll yesterday, 22 percent of readers thought Gervais went too far.) READ FULL STORY »
Tag: Judd Apatow (11-19 of 19)
Judd Apatow solicits jokes to top Ricky Gervais at PGA Awards: Pitches?
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Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann to reprise 'Knocked Up' roles: What other supporting characters deserve the star treatment?
Image Credit: Suzanne HanoverPaul Rudd and Leslie Mann are getting back together for a movie! I adored them in Knocked Up! His boys’ night out to Vegas. Her girls’ night out to dance. Her flirtation with Jason Segel. His flirtation with fantasy baseball. But … there’s more! Variety reports that the duo are actually reprising their Knocked Up characters for Judd Apatow’s next project, set for the summer of 2012. Holy Aldous Snow!
I wasn’t a huge fan of the Not-a-Forgetting-Sarah-Marshall-sequel-but-sorta, Get Him to the Greek, but I’m open to this idea. Their married couple was sweet, hilarious, and real, and if Apatow, who’s writing and directing, has more for them to say and do, I’m more than willing to take this trip with them. But spinning off a sequel, instead of making a straightforward follow-up about a hit’s main characters — Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen are not confirmed for this go-around — made me think, What supporting characters from my favorite comedies would I most like to see (or have seen) get the star treatment?
Since you (or I) asked, here’s my list: READ FULL STORY »
Judd Apatow gets celebrities to support American Jewish World Service: Challah!
Wanna hear a secret? Tracy Morgan is not Jewish. But of course, you don’t have to be Jewish — or any other religion for that matter — to support a good cause. Writer/director Judd Apatow recently collected some of Hollywood’s funniest and most notable celebrities for a mock public service announcement (“not approved by AJWS”) in support of the American Jewish World Service‘s 25th anniversary. The tongue-in-cheek video features non-gentiles and gentiles alike poking fun at Jewish stereotypes. Highlights include Lindsay Lohan’s own dig at her financial woes (“These things pay well, right?”) and Brian Williams quoting our friend Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. READ FULL STORY »
Excess Hollywood: Judd Apatow's next film expected in 2012
- Expect the next Judd Apatow film in two summers, fellow freaks and geeks: Universal announced the director’s upcoming unknown comedic venture will hit theaters June 1, 2012. [Deadline]
- Speaking of Apatow, Jemima Kirke, Adam Driver, and Allison Williams — a.k.a. Brian Williams’ daughter — have been cast in an HBO comedy pilot executive produced by the director. The pilot follows three 20-somethings in New York. I can’t wait to write about it in Brian’s Diaries. [Deadline]
- Vh1 has greenlit a reality series set in West Hollywood’s Saddle Ranch Chop House, a restaurant known for its reality star clientele and a mechanical bull. The real protagonists of the series? Saddle Ranch’s janitors. [THR]
Judd Apatow back in TV business with Lena Dunham pilot
Judd Apatow is heading back to TV. Well, it’s not TV. It’s HBO. Which is where he belonged from the very beginning. His early attempts in the medium, the brilliant but tragically short-lived Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, featured oddball characters who were misfits on network primetime. According to Deadline.com, Apatow, and Jenni Konner (Undeclared) will executive produce a comedy pilot from Lena Dunham. For those who haven’t seen Tiny Furniture, a festival hit about an unfortunate woman who finds herself living back at home, Dunham is a 20-something woman who would fit right in with Apatow’s eclectic company of talented outsiders. Check out the trailer for a taste: READ FULL STORY »
Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann headed on 'Business Trip'
Image Credit: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic.comAre the husband and wife team ready to work together again? Universal confirms that Judd Apatow is attached to produce Business Trip, a comedy about three women on a corporate trip that’s currently in development at the studio. Apatow is looking at it as a vehicle for his wife and frequent leading lady Leslie Mann (Knocked Up, Funny People). Apatow is also working on the comedy Bridesmaids, and the Jennifer Aniston-Paul Rudd comedy Wanderlust, so he may have his hands full right now, but the thought of him working with very funny Mann again should be enough for a preemptive chuckle or two, right?
Kristen Wiig is not the maid of honor in a movie just kidding she is and Rose Byrne is a bridesmaid
Image Credit: Sylvain Gaboury/PR PhotosRose Byrne, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O’Dowd have joined Kristen Wiig’s untitled bridesmaid-themed comedy. Judd Apatow will produce; Paul Feig will direct. Wiig wrote the film and will star as a maid of honor competing against a bridesmaid (Byrne) for the attention of the bride. Isn’t it usually the other way around? The wedding party just loafs around while the bride competes for their attention, and when it’s clear they’re more interested in pre-ceremony cocktails than arranging the folds of her needlessly complicated veil, the bride snaps and screams at one of them that she can’t believe that’s what her feet look like post-pedicure and your ogre feet are going to ruin my wedding, bitch! Ah, memories. [Variety]
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'Get Him to the Greek' trailer: Jonah Hill channels Michael Cera
In Get Him to the Greek, Russell Brand plays the same obnoxious rock star character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but this time he gets to have a lot more fun.
Check out the trailer for the summer comedy, starring Jonah Hill.
Funny? I wonder if Michael Cera has called his Superbad pal and said, “Dude, um, you’re doing me,” since Hill’s music lackey is full of awkward Cera-nosity. Awkward cheek kissing, awkward bathroom sex, and very, very awkward airline carry-on packing. (“If he wants you to put the candy in the jar, you put the candy in the jar.”)
What did you think? What would be your ideal flushtone? I’d be happy with the “Charge” anthem that the organ plays at sporting events. That, or “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
'Funny People': Three ways it's not your regular Judd Apatow movie
Like many of you, I saw Funny People this weekend, and I had some mixed feelings about the uneven film: parts were high-larious, other parts a lot less so. Even though Judd Apatow is famous for blending low-brow humor with substantive emotional themes, the tonal inconsistencies in the film definitely threw me, as did three notable changes from the rest of the Apatow oeuvre. These aren’t complaints so much as observations, and there are some mild spoilers ahead:
1. A lack of weed smoking and stoner humor
Herbal refreshments have played a big part in other Apatow comedies: Weed is basically a character Knocked Up, and the dudes in 40-Year-Old Virgin smoke a ton. Unless I missed it, there’s only one scene of a character partaking (Jason Schwartzman’s Mark takes one hit) and one tossed-off pot-smoking joke at the very end.
2. A love-interest girl who’s one of the guys
Historically, Apatow’s female characters haven’t been cut from the same cloth as his male ones: In Virgin, Catherine Keener’s Trish is a mature, upstanding parent, more of a good sport than an actual jokester. Knocked Up has taken some heat for its portrayal of women, though it played more to me as a story of contrasts — sometimes women can be controlling, uptight, and unpredictable; sometimes men can be lazy, self-absorbed, and unreliable. But Funny People‘s ostensible romantic pairing — Adam Sandler’s George and Leslie Mann’s Laura — didn’t really do it for me. The romantic heart of this movie was Seth Rogen’s Ira and his adorable deadpan neighbor, Aubrey Plaza’s Daisy (pictured). She’s as detached and ironic as Ira’s roommates, as sexually liberated as they are (or claim to be), and she’s a comedian, just like them. READ FULL STORY »
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