Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Team Apatow can do no wrong at the moment... can't wait for PINEAPPLE EXPRESS and YEAR ONE, which are on their slate, but they also have this flick... It is called FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (not DUMPED like it claims on IMDB). TheNorthlander saw a test screening and has some thoughts on it, from the point of view of a non-Apatow fanboy. Keep in mind this is an early screening and what he saw was not the final version of the film. There are a few spoilers so be warned.

Hey guys. TheNorthlander here.

Should have sent this in a few days ago while I was still in LA, but internet access, or lack thereof, forced me to wait until I got home.

Last week I caught a screening of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I now see is called Dumped on IMDb, probably a better title. This is the new movie from producer pair Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson who made Superbad, Knocked Up, 40-year-old Virgin and Anchorman.

The premise to this movie is simple:
Boy gets dumped but can't get over girl, so he takes a vacation and ends up on the same hotel as her and her new rock star boyfriend, while he starts dating the desk clerk - hilarity ensues.

So now, considdering who made it and based on that premise, you should have a pretty good idea about what kind of movie this is. It's exactly what it sounds like, and if you liked the other aboved mentioned movies you're gonna love this.

Me personally, I was never too much into either one of those movies (although Superbad was pretty fucking funny at times), but I still managed to enjoy this one. There are some brilliant performances all around, but especially from Russell Brand as Sarah's new Jack Sparrow type brittish rockstar boyfriend. Some of the things he says and the way he says them are brilliant.

I wish the humor from these guys' movies would be based more around this kind of humor, and less around either pubescent sex jokes or the recycling of old star wars jokes (I'm looking at YOU, Knocked Up). But that's me. I just don't get shocked by it so to me it's not that funny. Maybe it's because I'm scandinavian.
I know a lot of people like that stuff though, and as a movie with lots of "shocking" nudity jokes I suppose this is as good as any.

The version of the movie I watched would most likely be R-rated.
One running gag is to show Peter nude full frontal, over and over and over again. It's kind of like Anti-Austin Powers, if you know what I mean.
Don't know if that will be in the final release of the film, but that was the level it was on when I watched it.

To be honest though, the only real problem I had with Forgetting Sarah Marshall was when...

***SPOILER***
...the main character Peter confronts Sarah when he finds out she's been sleeping around on him for a year before she dumped him. She starts telling him off for stuff like wearing sweatpants for a week and he ends up apologizing for himself even though she's clearly the villain here.

I lost a lot of sympathy for him right there, which is a problem but not one that can't be fixed in post production with some easy editing so let's hope they change that.
***END SPOILER***

All in all, this is without a doubt an entertaining date movie or something you can watch with some friends. It's not the funniest movie ever - it's not Monty Python & the Holy Grail - but it works, mainly due to the performances. Pretty much all the actors know exacly what they should be doing with their material, and hilarity does ensue.

/TheNorthlander