Funny People

FUNNY PEOPLE is no 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN or KNOCKED UP. The key thing to know about that: it isn't trying to be. Some have called FUNNY PEOPLE a failure because it fails to live up to the sheer comedic bliss those two movies provide. While it is VERY funny and has thrice the laughs that most comedies provide, it has a bit more serious business to attend to.VIRGIN was a comedy about a shy man who was almost deathly afraid to get to know women because of this giant "virginess" hanging over his head. The movie was mostly funny, but succeeded because their were genuine moments of tenderness and understanding.KNOCKED UP was a comedy about two VERY different people who get drunk, conceive a child and then decide, against all odds to not only bring the baby into the world, but to try to be a couple for that child. It showed, in a side story, the on-the-edge marriage of another couple, who were filled with seeming unstoppable bitterness at each other. There were some sobering moments, but overall, it was a feel-good film that explored some tough subjects but found generally congenial ways to move on.FUNNY PEOPLE refuses easy answers and "happy" solutions. It deals with heavier subject matter, and doesn't shy away from them. Therefore, it is sometimes less "fun" that Director/Writer Judd Apatow's other films (above). It is sometimes uneven in tone, and there is a bit too much wallowing in the old idea that behind the mask of a comedian lies the face of sadness or tragedy. Any film that asks us to feel sorry for a wildly successful, famous person has a bit of an uphill struggle.But Apatow still mostly pulls it off. He's got a tough juggling act, and seldom looses sight of the balls...although his act goes on about 20 minutes too long (the film is two hours & 25 minutes long, and doesn't quite earn the "extra" time).FUNNY PEOPLE stars Adam Sandler as a highly successful, very famous stand-up turned movie star (much like a certain Adam Sandler in real life). He's made a lot of terrible movies, but they've given him a luxurious and decadent lifestyle, one that has also isolated him a bit from the world. When he receives a poor diagnosis from his doctor, and seems almost certain to die soon from a form of leukemia...he starts to take out his feelings on one of his audiences at an amateur improv night that he has crashed. The unknown comic who follows him (Seth Rogan), ends up making up some jokes about Sandler's meltdown...and he slays the audience and gets the attention of Sandler, who hires Rogan to write jokes for him and to serve as his assistant.Rogan essentially becomes Sandler's confidant...because Sandler has no friends. While he lives a hedonistic lifestyle, he clearly pines for the "one who got away," Leslie Mann. Mann is now married to Eric Bana, has two lovely daughters (Maude & Iris Apatow...essentially reprising their roles from KNOCKED UP), and is unavailable to Sandler.The growing relationship between these two men makes up the first half of the movie, as Sandler goes through various ways of coping or planning for his demise. Rogan is also able to ride Sandler's coattails a bit, and begins to mature as a stand-up himself.Into this mix we also have Rogan's two roommates, Jonah Hill, playing another aspiring comic, and Jason Schwartzman, another friend who has just landed a starring role in what looks like a terrible sitcom on something like ABC Family or Disney network. The dynamics between these three roommates are hilarious, believable and would almost make their own movie. In fact, it's easy to say that they should have been left out so that the film could focus more...but this would make the movie TOO insular, too isolated & lonely. Rogan HAS a life...a dysfunctional one, true...but a life. Sandler, by contrast, has STUFF.Things take a probably not too surprising turn at roughly the midpoint of the film. (If you've seen the trailers, you know what I mean.) And thus, it is required to take off in a different direction. Sandler's character, in particular, is given some real opportunities (Rogan is something of an afterthought for awhile)...and his opportunities sure look like they're going to play out in a very predictable manner. But Apatow has some genuine surprises hidden up his sleeve.In the end, almost no one gets quite what they expected, and yet everyone HAS been given a gift of some sort as well. As the film wrapped up, the mood was somber, sad even...but not without hope. As our two leads trade crude jokes across a dining table, the film fades out on our laughter...laughter that we're glad to use to cover up the sadness we're feeling.As I mentioned, the idea of the comic as some sort of tortured soul is a bit hard to buy hook, line & sinker. Apatow and his whole team are very funny people, and they want the audience to "feel their pain," I suppose. And we do, as we become engaged with the characters, but still, I always felt just a little removed from the idea that blistering, funny comedy can only be masking ancient hurts and raw emotions. Isn't anyone funny just because they're happy? For every tortured comedian out there (Richard Pryor, Jackie Gleason), aren't there some who are a little more stable (Bob Newhart comes to mind)?Yet Apatow is also pretty daring in some ways. He makes us feel a bit sorry for Sandler, but he also lets us see that Sandler is an a**hole. We think that underneath the exterior we see of a jerk, there must lie a gentler, more human heart. And there does. But truly at the core, there is still an a**hole. Sandler doesn't shy away from that reality...and in the end, it is his performance that makes this film work. Everyone is very good in the film...but it is Sandler whose journey we're really following, and he knocks it out of the park. One can argue that his role is within his comfort zone, but from what I understand, Sandler is actually happily married and has been for some time. He even has friends. So he's playing the version of himself that COULD have been...but however you care to characterize it...he's allowing himself to show some raw emotion that is occasionally very effective.Leslie Mann is always a welcome, sparkling presence...but her character also goes places we might not expect. Jonah Hill & Jason Schwartzman do riffs on their usual personas, but in the end, they reach just a little deeper and find something true. Rogan (thankfully skinner & healthier...although still a schlub) reigns himself in when appropriate and feels more like a real person than he has before. And Eric Bana, in what should have been a cardboard role, is allowed to both have fun at his own expense and to show some real emotion. (And James Taylor makes a brief cameo in which he is given one of the funniest lines in the film.)So there is much to admire, indeed. But I can't quite give the film my most enthusiastic embrace because it's a bit too long, and that length feels like unneeded navel gazing. I recommend it, but I doubt I'll be returning to it very often in the future.

I pretty much bought this just for RAAAAAAAANDY and was very disappointed that the disc didn't include that material

Judd Apatow's Funny People is going to divide audiences (it certainly has divided critics). Those going in expecting a comedy along the lines of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up or any other of the films in the Apatow-verse will enjoy it but not love it. But that reaction may be more a product of the misdirection in the marketing of the film than anything else. Funny People is going for something more emotionally complex, and it succeeds on that count.Without dwelling on plot, the film focuses, by and large, on the professional and personal lives of a group of comics and comic actors at various rungs of the show business ladder, from Adam Sandler's George Simmons, a hugely successful film comedy star who came out of the stand-up comedy world, to Seth Rogan's Ira Wright, a novice comic who is drawn into George's world, to Ira's friends, who are his roommates, who are his competitors.The common thread running through these characters is anger and aggression, both explicit and sublimated. They steal jokes, jobs and women from each other (listed here in order of importance to the comics). The relationship between the performers and their audiences is similarly complicated (it's become a cliched observation that comics talk about "killing" the crowd).Interestingly, although all the comedians share this anger and aggression, it's only those who ride those dark emotions into similarly dark comedy that have preserved their spark. The farther the comics stray from their anger, the worse their comedy - as evidenced by Sandler's character, who churns out family-friendly claptrap and co-star Jason Schwartzman's Yo, Teach!, a self-important sitcom (both brilliantly captured in clips woven into Funny People).In Funny People, comedy is the universal language by which these emotionally-constricted characters communicate. There are awkward hugs and half-hearted attempts at compassion, but the most tender moment, coming late in the film, involves one character expressing love by writing jokes for another.All this aside, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this is a funny, entertaining, emotionally-involving film. But that said, in an odd way, Funny People echoes Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Both films are about angry and aggressive people who channel those drives in socially acceptable ways. (Even more oddly, Billy Crystal's horrific and mawkish Mr. Saturday Night attempted more overtly to be the Raging Bull of comedy, and the less said about that effort the better.)It wasn't until the ride home from the movie that it occurred to me that the "funny" in the title Funny People could have two meanings; there's funny ha-ha, and funny-odd. Here, the people are intentionally, compellingly both.

Weird movie. Not really sure of the point of the movie. But there just a weird comedy. 2 stand up comedians out for some fun I guess.

After the success of "40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" the honchoes allowed auteur Judd Apatow to indulge himself here. "Funny People" as at once ambitious, epic, and borderline self indulgent. I was going to dismiss this flick as a noble failure but something about it resonated in my self-conscious. My main gripe was that the film's main character, George Simmons(Adam Sandler), was an overbearing narcissistic heel. But it dawned on me that this was purely intentional and that Apatow and Sandler are taking a leap in expecting their audience to accept this reality. This is a hard film to like but ambitious viewers should admire what Apatow is attempting here. In this epic of sorts Apatow gives some choice parts to the immensely talented Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill and they run with it. It's kind of like Sandler is passing the torch or at the very least sharing the spotlight with these newcomers. Debits here are possible overlength, too much scatalogical humor, and a touch of nepotism in the casting(Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife, and his two daughters are prominently cast. Lot's of delicious cameos my fave being Ernest Thomas, "Raj" from "What"s Happening" as a television school principal.

Funny People is about stand-up comedian/actor George Simmons (Adam Sadler) who learns he is dying of leukaemia and, obviously not feeling that in the mood to be funny, enlists the help of struggling comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) to help out with some of the material.With plenty of soul-searching and wondering where his life went wrong Simmons and Wright's exploits may not seem like the ideal source for a comedy movie. As with other Judd Apatow movies, it's quite long (over two hours). The first half manages to be pretty funny - helped along with various scenes of stand-up comedy and allowing the performers to be funny.However, the second half takes a more darker tone (cue the inclusion of Eric Bana). There's nothing wrong with this change, but, if you're expecting a straight happy-go-lucky comedy (ala 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up) this may surprise you.I'm not much of a fan of Adam Sadler. Normally he annoys me, but I found him actually quite good at playing a more unlikeable character. His and Rogen's parts were written especially for them and it shows in their interaction, which does elevate the movie and carry it all the way through.All in all, not your average comedy, but certainly funny enough to get a fair few laughs in. Then, once you've stopped laughing, there's enough human emotion to finish it off with to make it so you actually care about the characters.Overall 4/5.

Made by Judd Apatow, the man who brought us '40 year old virgin' and 'Knocked up', this is a slightly less commercial, more thoughtful film. George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a successful comedian who discovers that he has a fatal blood disease. At the same time he is told of his condition his path crosses with Ira (Seth Rogen) an ambitious stand up comedian. the film charts their friendship and George's coming to terms with his condition.The film is entertaining and there are some funny moments. My problem with the film was its length. With a bit of editing this could have been a satisfying experience. As it is it outstays it's welcome and by the end some of the jokes about bodily parts were getting a little tiresome. I am not an Adam Sandler fan, but I thought he was very good as a man coming to terms with his mortality and reflecting on his fame.If you want a laugh you could do worse.Check out if you like:Hannah and her sistersKnocked up

Not watched it yet but watched clips and from what I saw was good film plus Jonah hill and Adam sandler are there usual funny

Dear sir or mademThis movie is very good and I'd tell everyone to order it's for sure

Great dvd