A very talented Hollywood family

Mid-week this week I learned there was a new Judd Apatow movie hitting Netflix on Friday. Exhibit Q of how I have had my head in the sand when it comes to news about upcoming movies.

Since I went the whole week without reviewing anything on ReelGood, I wanted to make sure to see The Bubble as soon as possible. (It's been a schizophrenic time on ReelGood. Three weeks ago, I reviewed no movies. Two weeks ago, I reviewed four movies. Last week, I reviewed no movies again.)

But I actually took it one step further than that. I decided to get myself primed on Thursday night by rewatching my #2 of 2020, The King of Staten Island, which I've decided (after one viewing) is my favorite Apatow-directed movie, especially after The 40 Year Old Virgin came up short on a revisit last year. 

I always suspected I have might like Staten Island more than I should have, though I do know some other people who think it's the bee's knees. A second viewing -- to confirm or reverse my initial impression -- had been in the back of my mind for a while now, and the Friday debut of The Bubble made a good excuse to finally get it on the docket.

Nope. I still loved it. Great movie.

The Bubble is actually a very different sort of movie for Apatow, a Hollywood satire that resembles something like Don't Look Up or (way back when) Wag the Dog in tone a lot more than it resembles something like This is 40. It's also a COVID-era satire more explicitly than any movie that has yet been made, or at least that I've seen.

And you know what? I really liked this too. A friend threatened to set me off on the wrong foot by messaging me, just before I started, that it was so bad he had to turn it off, but I laughed a lot and really enjoyed the absurd spirit of it.

I'm not here to talk in depth about either of these movies (there will be a review of The Bubble up, presumably on Monday), but rather, to talk about four key participants, who all happen to be in the same family.

Apatow has long been an ardent practitioner of nepotism, but as it turns out, he's one of those who gets away with it given the quality of what he's working with. When he casts his wife, Leslie Mann -- an actress before she met him -- and his daughters Maude and Iris, it's no Adam Sandler casting Jackie Sandler situation. These are three talented women, and they make his projects immeasurably better.

First let's start with Mann. I have been fond of her ever since I first saw her, in another personal favorite, The Cable Guy. Mann met Apatow while she was auditioning for the film. I'll admit I find her adorable, but she's also frigging hilarious. She has a real knack for comedy that has been on display in both Apatow's films (Knocked Up and This is 40 in particular), and those with which he appears to have no involvement (such as The Other Woman and Blockers). She can also bring it in scenes that are played more as drama, though examples do not immediately come to mind. And though she has made an appearance in many of Apatow's films, he's got a judicious sensibility for how to use her -- for example, she's not in either Trainwreck or The King of Staten Island. She's a spoiled actress in The Bubble, and Mann gets the perfect balance between going over the top and grounding the character in something familiar. She takes a lot of the ways we would expect her to play the role and flips them slightly, which is a strength of the film on the whole. 

The family member who is in Staten Island is their older daughter Maude, who is currently 24. (They got planning that family pretty quickly after Cable Guy, though it should be noted that they obviously didn't rush things too much, as they've never looked back.) Maude Apatow has become known to people who watch Euphoria, though I am not one of those, so I know her from The King of Staten Island. (And about four other of her father's films in which she played children of varying ages, though I wasn't focusing on her work when I watched those movies.) The work she does in Staten Island is really strong. She takes a role that could have been a throwaway -- the main character's sister, who leaves for college early on in the narrative -- and gives it an incredible amount of specificity. She's a straight talker who shows equal parts love and annoyance with her wayward sibling, and she's got that New York attitude without overplaying it. The strength of her character shines through without her seeming like a saint, and it's one of a handful of smaller performances that gives this film its enviable verisimilitude.

The remaining daughter is Iris, who is 19, and who was also in those earlier Apatow films. I came to really notice her in the Netflix series Love, in which she played a child actress, and did so with a real -- here's that word again -- specificity. She was bratty but had a heart, and it's something she must have seen a lot in her peers, if not displayed herself, growing up in such a family. (The bratty part at least; the heart part is not so certain.) In The Bubble she plays a vapid Tik Tok star who is hired to appear in the film within the film not because of any acting ability, but because she has 120 million followers. There are a lot of ways to overplay a vapid Tik Tok star, but she resists all of those instincts to give us what a real 2022 19-year-old Tik Tok star looks like -- flat affect, above-the-fray attitude, and a way of dismissing you that is all the more eviscerating for its lack of effort. It's one of the funnier low-energy performances I have ever seen -- Steven Wright would be proud. 

Nepotism most often annoys us, and rightly so. But some people who started their careers as favors to family members -- Sofia Coppola and Jason Schwartzmann within the Coppola family alone -- really blossom.

Others, like the Apatows, had it all along. 

Forcing interest that isn't there

I keep looking at this poster and I keep not wanting to see this movie.

Am I wrong about this? Please tell me I'm wrong.

It's directed by Judd Apatow, so wanting to see it should not even be a question. I mean, I don't love everything Apatow has done. I only feel truly affectionately toward less than half of the five movies he's directed. Funny People and Trainwreck were pretty much misses for me, and while I like This is 40 more than most people, it's not what you would call great. Really, I'm hanging on to The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, 13 years after the latter was released.

But considering the size of his footprint on comedies made in the last 20 years, when you factor in his writing and producing, I am all about being a Judd Apatow completist. Which means watching this movie.

But I just can't get past this poster.

I know I'm not supposed to "like" the character played by Pete Davidson, as he seems to be the flawed protagonist who has fronted every Apatow movie to date. I figured, though, that I should at least be willing to spend two hours and 30 minutes with him, which is pretty much the standard length of an Apatow comedy. (This one clocks in at "only" 136 minutes.)

Honestly, I can't see that happening. I mean, look at that guy.

It doesn't help that I'm fresh off a screening of one of Davidson's other movies from 2020, The Jesus Rolls, which was actually shot in 2016 but is only just this year slithering its way into our living rooms. It was my worst movie of 2020 so far until it was surpassed only two days later by Fatal Affair, which I wrote about yesterday. And though Davidson's role was pretty small in it, it did not help the movie.

I'd be able to kick the can down the road on this one if it weren't for the fact that I find myself needing to make a decision on it right now.

See, the Australian theatrical release of The King of Staten Island was on Thursday. That doesn't mean squat here in Victoria, where theaters are closed as we endure another lockdown. But there are five other states in Australia, none of which have had the same recent spike in coronavirus numbers, and all of which have their theaters still open.

Although it's staffed in Victoria, the website I write for and now run is not specifically billed as a Victorian website. It's not even specifically billed as an Australian website, though it does have a ".au" at the end, which is a dead giveaway. And homegrown talent has been interviewed on this site in the past, as well as local film festivals hyped.

If I wait until the movie is available in Victoria for my Victorian readers, it would be an acknowledgement that I really am here to serve Victorians at the expense of other Australians. I needn't do that, even if practicalities about where myself and my writers are located do dictate certain things we cover.

Now, it wouldn't be an issue if I simply had no access to this movie. That would just be that. I sometimes get advanced screeners, but not in this case. I'd have to wait until it was available in Victorian cinemas if I wanted to review it at all.

But my U.S. iTunes account does give me access to it. If I so choose, I can pony up for a rental and review it from that.

And when I say "pony up," I mean "pony up." This movie is priced at the premium rental price, a price I have only previously paid for Trolls World Tour -- and obviously you can understand why that would be the exception. (Ha, it was for my kids, and see here for my tale of buyer's remorse.)

I had planned to spend $19.99 on other things, but had not yet pulled the trigger. Scoob didn't seem like my best next opportunity, I gotta be honest.

And I don't think The King of Staten Island does either. I mean, look at that guy.

But if I do want to review it on my site, now is the time, and in fact, this weekend is the time, so I can get the review up next week, after less than a week has passed since it opened. Too much longer and it starts to go stale.

And I do like having a strong natural "in" on a potential review, that being Judd Apatow behind the camera. It can be a big help to have someone like Apatow involved with a movie, as it gives you a jumping off point for your review, even if nothing else is coming to mind.

Truth be told, I should probably give "that guy" another chance. Just because Pete Davidson appears to be playing a total douche here -- I'm not judging the tattoos, I'm judging the shirtlessness and outstretched "are you not entertained?" arms -- it doesn't mean that he is a douche, or that it's not a good performance. It might be nice to be a bit delicate with him, anyway, as he made headlines in late 2018 for an Instagram post about contemplating suicide that prompted the NYC police to do a wellness check on him. Maybe if he's a success, some of those thoughts will subside.

I guess you'll be able to tell from my Most Recently Watched section to the right what I decided.

Tonight's probably the night, if any.

The funniest person in Hollywood?

On the eve of the release of Funny People, I thought I'd ask a question that my more savvy readers will certainly know the answer to:

How many films do you think Judd Apatow has directed?

Ten? Fifteen?

How about three?

That's right, Funny People is only the third film directed by this comedy giant. For even casual fans, the other two should jump readily to mind: The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

Yet it feels like Apatow has had his distinctive stamp on almost every comedy released since 2005, when Virgin came out.

Truth be told, the list of films on which he received a writer or producer credit is a heckuva lot longer. Which goes to show, of course, that directing is not the be-all and end-all of cinematic achievement behind the camera.

But what really amazes me is not how few films he's directed, but how many films we feel like he's probably directed, or produced, or written, or in some way birthed into existence. In short, almost every comedy with a certain feel to it that comes out these days seems like it should be credited to him, even if his greatest contribution was watching a screener copy of it in his living room.

Strangely, though, of the list of films he's actually worked on, many of them are considered duds: The Cable Guy (producer), Celtic Pride (writer/executive producer), Kicking & Screaming (the Will Ferrell one -- executive producer), Fun With Dick and Jane (writer), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (writer/producer), Drillbit Taylor (producer), You Don't Mess With the Zohan (writer) and Year One (producer). (I have to add an asterisk on The Cable Guy, which is one of my all-time favorites -- but it's quite true that at the time of its release, it was considered a massive dud.)

If I'm going to list the duds, I should also list the movies that were mostly considered a success: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (producer), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (producer), Superbad (producer), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (producer), Pineapple Express (story by/producer) and Step Brothers (producer).

There are a couple interesting things about these lists:

1) Other than the three movies he both wrote and directed, most of his actual screenwriting credits are sort of duds. Does that mean he's the only one who can translate his own vision, or were they just bad scripts?

2) Many of them do not feel like what we consider to be "Judd Apatow movies." Celtic Pride? You Don't Mess With the Zohan? Year One?

So what is a "Judd Apatow movie," anyway? It seems in his three directing hits (ha -- I'm already assuming Funny People will be a hit), he's established a certain template. Namely, ordinary shlubs get into generally ordinary jams that are made more funny by the extraordinary prism through which Apatow observes them. Funny People may diverge from that a bit -- Seth Rogen's character is ordinary, while Adam Sandler's is a famous comedian. But it's the Seth Rogen part that really feels like bona fide Apatow.

When Apatow goes high concept, on the other hand, he flames out. (I discussed this a bit here.)

Now let's look at another list, one that I've come up with, of movies that seem to owe their existence to Apatow, and we see how big the phenomenon really is. The Hangover. Observe and Report. The Promotion. Sex Drive. Tropic Thunder. I Love You, Man. Old School. Miss March. I'm probably missing a few obvious ones, but you get the idea.

Yeah, some of those are mostly because they feature Apatow regulars -- Rogen is the star of Observe and Report, Ferrell appears in Old School (though that was released before Apatow got big, so it's cheating to include it), and Tropic Thunder featured Apatow collaborator Ben Stiller as director and star. In fact, Tropic Thunder is kind of like the high-concept Apatow, only good -- and if we're going there, we could include films like Get Smart (featuring Virgin star Steve Carell) and Land of the Lost (featuring Ferrell).

But am I crazy, or do you automatically look for Apatow's name on IMDB when these films come out? Like only a handful of other creative talents of his time (such as Steven Soderbergh and, to a less interesting extent, Tim Burton), Apatow has developed a posse of actors with whom he regularly works, which we identify with him. And because that posse is both ever-expanding (in quantity) and extremely successful (in quality), Apatow's influence fans outward likewise.

I don't know if these scattered collection of thoughts have produced a coherent point. But if there is one, it's this: Apatow has reshaped comedy in his own image, and like no single person who's been working this decade, his very name gives a project instant credibility -- instant wanna-see-ability. And we tend to forget/overlook/forgive how many of them actually failed to deliver.

Sure enough, I wanna see Funny People.

Meet you in line this weekend?

Comedic prehistory

It's Michael Cera week, for all you Michael Cera lovers out there. This is the second straight post where his face has adorned the artwork. However, you may not love what I'm going to say about him.

Comedies have been on a roll the past few years, in my humble opinion. I guess I don't have to be humble about it, because a lot of people agree with me. Ever since Judd Apatow has become the primary driving force in comedy (a post for another time -- in fact, I may time that post for the July 31st release of Funny People), there have been a lot more hits than misses among comedies loosely defined by Apatow and his interests. Namely, shlubs dealing humorously with everyday problems -- losing your virginity, going through pregnancy, surviving a bachelor party, dealing with a breakup. It's the absurdity that's built in to the normalcy that makes us connect with these movies.

So why, pray tell, would Jack Black, Michael Cera and writer/director Harold Ramis want to go back to the high concept days of Mel Brooks?

(Oh crap. I just looked at the production credits for Year One, and Apatow is a producer. Nonetheless.)

I get why they thought it would be funny, I guess. They're going to apply the quintessentially modern comic shtick of Black and Cera to the stone age, with the certainty that just saying the lines with a contemporary inflection will make them funnier. Which I simply don't think will be the case.

It's no surprise that Year One reminds a person of Mel Brooks' A History of the World Part I. That too tried to shoehorn modern vernacular/attitudes into a variety of ancient periods of history. And yeah, I laughed when one guy's using the word "Christ" in its modern sense, as the substitute for a swear word, while the actual Jesus Christ is sitting across the room, thinking he's being addressed.

But that was 1981. We filmgoers barely even knew what a parody was back then. And even that movie was more stink than fresh.

Everything that's old is new again, so 28 years later, we're probably ready for another movie like this. But then again, the comedy world has shifted in another direction. High-concept comedies just don't have the power to lure us like they once did. We don't want to see Three Amigos updated, do we?

I'm also pretty sure it's going to be the 10,000 B.C. of comedies, where time periods are haphazardly mixed together so that "everything old" can co-exist in the same movie. Are they cavemen? Are they Romans? Are they Roman cavemen? Who knows. And this doesn't matter as much in a comedy -- we're not supposed to care. But I have a feeling this might be the kind of movie that would cause me to nitpick.

And I'm a little over these two stars as well. Many comedy stars are overexposed -- I'm looking at you, Will Ferrell, and surprisingly, you already Danny McBride. And I have the feeling Year One could make us even more tired of Jack Black, and freshly tired of Michael Cera. It's hard to speak ill of Cera, because he's so essentially sweet. But his eye-contact-avoiding, nervous shy guy is starting to seem a little played out, isn't it? What's more, I'm getting a whiff of self-satisfaction from these two. I recently happened to catch a promotional bit they did on Jimmy Kimmel, where they were both caught in an elevator for the length of their appearance on the show. It left them both to relentlessly peddle what they do -- Black being outrageous and over-the-top, and Cera being the exact opposite. I felt like I needed a middle ground.

These are scattered thoughts, in part because I started writing this post several hours ago, and am now trying to finish it on the same day I started it, before going to bed.

But let's just say I greet Year One with wariness. It's the kind of throwback I don't think we need right now.