Hola all. Massawyrm here.

I still remember the first time I saw MAN ON THE MOON. Walking out I was marveling at the performance, stunned that I was finding myself looking forward to seeing another Jim Carrey movie. Between this and THE TRUMAN SHOW I was sold. Carrey was a hell of a lot more than weird hair and jokes involving him talking, quite literally at times, out his own ass. He was the real deal. And as I was turning to my wife to share my newfound admiration, a loud, burly redneck was walking out with his mumu wearing wife in tow behind us, bellowing “Well, that’s the last time I see one of them Jim Carrey movies. He used to be funny. Now he just owes me six dollars.” It took all the strength I could muster not to turn around and ask him what the hell he was thinking. I mean, what could he have doing in the theater that had distracted him from what we were watching?

That was the first time I really remember seeing firsthand the disconnect between a casual filmgoer and an avid one. I’ve seen it a hundred times over since then, but tonight I was taken back to that particular moment because I’ve seen a very similar film and had a very similar experience. Tonight I saw FUNNY PEOPLE with a crowd of people hoping to see I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY only to be delivered a very personal, emotional and deeply satisfying film about friendship. Sure, there were dick jokes, fart jokes, gay jokes; the whole shebang. But it wasn’t about funny faces, mistaken identities or confused sexuality. And with Adam Sandler playing a central role, I can understand the confusion.

Sandler’s made a career out of zany, madcap, and unfortunately decidedly lowbrow comedies that appeal to the type of person I try not to sit next to on public transit. He’s also made a million-zillion dollars doing it. But here, he’s satirizing himself; playing an alternaverse version of Sandler named George Simmons. Instead of the retarded son of the Devil or a functionally retarded Waterboy or a juvenile manchild, he plays something more akin to Tim Allen’s career: a merman, a baby with the (digitally added) head of a full grown man, a guy with a robot for a best friend. You know. Dog shit.

And in this alternaverse, George Simmons learns that he is dying and begins to realize that he is surrounded by celebrity acquaintances, but no real friends. Which is when he meets young, pathetic comic Ira (Seth Rogen). After a disastrous and depressing walk-on at the Improv, Simmons is followed by Ira who has to save the crowd (and himself from bombing) by mocking Simmons and in turn catches Simmons attention. What follows is a buddy movie. Not a buddy on an adventure movie. Just a film about friendship.

With dick jokes. LOTS of dick jokes.

What makes this film incredibly interesting is that it is set in the underground scene of up and coming comedy in Hollywood; a scene that Sandler and longtime friend director Judd Apatow came up in together. This is both their expose on and critique of the scene as well their love letter to it. Every major character in the film is a comedian. From the douchebag roommate headlining a shitty sitcom, to the joke writing stand up best friend, to the girl next door who has material of her own. There’s walk-ons by a dozen different comedy greats and a genuine sense of what the scene is like out there – and how tough it is to break in. It even exposes one of the open secrets of the industry: that the big guys use young talent to help write material for them when they’re dry. And while all of this is fascinating to anyone interested in seeing the behind the scenes of an industry – it’s going to stray a bit from what the mainstream is looking for. Because this movie is not THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN or KNOCKED UP.

I’ve been a bit rough on Apatow in the past. Both of his previous theatrical directorial efforts felt like hollow, disingenuous fluff. And over time I came to realize my biggest problem was with his method. While I can appreciate the fun of sitting in a room with your closest friends and doing twenty different takes of each moment - looking for the comedians to mostly write their own jokes to find the funniest – I hate how superficial it makes each joke. None of them matter. They certainly never pay off later. They are flash in pan, fire and forget moments that are funny one moment and completely forgotten the next. And with each of his films’ plots virtually the same (socially inept, romantically non functional men falling in with women way out of their league) they come across not as real stories, but as vehicles for his buddies dick jokes.

But this is very, very different. This is his James L. Brooks movie. FUNNY PEOPLE is very much about something. It’s about Apatow’s youth, his career, his longtime friendship with Sandler, his coming up in the industry he always dreamed of. It is about friendship and understanding. It is about being loved by people who don’t know you but not by those who do. Most of all, it is about the hollowness of success and the importance of loved ones. And he made the film with some of the people closest to him: his wife, his kids, his old roommate (Sandler) and a couple of the kids he discovered and made into stars. Everything about this movie feels personal, genuine, authentic - like Apatow is laying his heart bare and inviting us in for a stroll in his soul.

The effect is nothing short of stunning. It is Judd Apatow’s masterpiece. His great American novel. There is nothing hollow or inauthentic about FUNNY PEOPLE. Rather, it is the summation of everything Apatow has been trying to do and finally mastered. There are so many beautiful moments intermingled with outrageously funny banter. Sure, the jokes are very similar to those in his other films. But here they are being spoken by 3-dimensional characters - not cartoons - who are clearly drawn from the real world. And it feels like the real world talk of people who tell jokes for a living. Nothing feels forced. Nothing feels cheap. It is a very human story told with some very funny dialog.

If the film has one flaw that will surely draw complaints, it is the length. FUNNY PEOPLE is long. But it is never truly long in the tooth and it never overstays its welcome. By the time you realize you’re in for a longer haul than anticipated, you welcome it, because there is clearly more story to see. But at 2 and a half hours, it is nearly epic in length, especially for a film in which nothing but real life events occur.

I love the hell out of this film – and it will probably end up on my top 10 list by the end of the year. It is deeply moving and has this Cameron Crowe like connection to its music that had me staying through the credits meditating upon the film just to listen to whatever it was that Apatow was throwing at me next.

Do I think this is the end of the mainstream, Apatow style, R-rated dick and fart joke brand of movies? No, absolutely not. But now we know just what Apatow is capable of and how good he can really be. I want to see more movies like this out of him. This is the Apatow I really feel a connection to, that I really want to spend time with time and again. And I hope this Apatow returns every so often to grace us with something as transcendent as this. For now, at least, we have FUNNY PEOPLE – a film which took me from nearly two weeks of writers block and relit a fire under me to brew a pot of coffee and write all night. It was a reminder of why I love to do what I do. For the first time I really feel like I know Judd Apatow. And I like him. I like him a lot.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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