redtornado

Mainstream fave vs Indie fave.

Apatow - 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Super Bad (Producer), Funny People

Anderson - Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums, Life Aquatic

It looks like a mismatch, but will the Jonah Hill fanbase show up and push things in Judd's favor?

FRwL

Wow those films from Apatow were apocalyptically unfunny so Anderson just for Tennenbaums.

Supermallet

Well, this is easy. As a director, Apatow isn't in the same league Anderson is. Anderson mines loneliness and emotional turmoil like a master, while Apatow just throws melodrama at things in an attempt to ape emotion.

MrSmearkase

I've never been able to get into Anderson's films, so my vote goes to Apatow.

astrochimp

I like Apatow's stuff so far but i love Anderson's.

Quake1028

I'm a BIG Apatow fan, but it's Anderson by a wide margin. Rushmore and Life Aquatic easily trump anything from Apatow.

Travis McClain

Judd Apatow has brought a level of humanity to his comedies that I find unlike most other comedic storytellers. I've heard him say that he likes his scripts to be written as dramas, and trusts that the naturally funny nature of his cast will find the humor in their characters and situations. I don't flock to see something just because he's produced it, but I take notice when he's directed a picture. Still, it's hard to evaluate anyone based on a mere three films.

Supermallet

It's easy when they get steadily worse each time.

I love 40 Year Old Virgin. Perhaps the best of the Apatow productions. Knocked Up turned out to be surprisingly mean and unfunny. Funny People was a slog.

Travis McClain

I disagree about Funny People being "a slog," but I get why you'd characterize it that way. I caught it on the right day, and it clicked for me, but I was conscious the whole time that on a different day I might not have enjoyed any of it.

But Knocked Up...I won't argue "unfunny," since that's a reactionary thing; but what was so "mean" about it? Personally, I loved the entire subplot involving Paul Rudd's character. I totally related to the guy who needed alone time, but felt guilty asking for it, and I absolutely loved that they tracked him to what appeared to be a mistress but was in fact a fantasy baseball draft.

Although, it bugs me because he confesses to having gone to see Spider-Man 3 the week before, which opened on 4 May. Any self-respecting fantasy baseball league would already have had its draft, since the season starts in April.

Supermallet

That whole subplot was a married couple being viciously nasty to each other. When she breaks down and cries in front of the house they track him to, I was wondering what kind of marriage Apatow had with that chick to put this on screen. It felt too raw for the kind of movie I was watching.

Joe Buck

Funny People was such a piece of trash. I fell asleep for 20 minutes during it and didn't miss a thing. What an unfunny, overlong BORE. I did enjoy 40 Yr Virgin and Knocked Up, though. But c'mon....Rushmore and Life Aquatic are wonderful films that touch the heart and the eyeball. I like Tennebaums and Bottle Rocket as well. Unsure about Darjeeling. Fox was cute, very well crafted, but not really my cup of tea.

Travis McClain

I think that's the whole reason I loved it, though. I went in expecting some quick laughs about a stoner guy being incompatible with the girl he impregnated, and instead, I found myself practically spying on real people. That's what took the film from being just another comedy to something that resonated with me.

I was really impressed with Leslie Mann in that role, because when she pulled out the tears it felt real. And all of a sudden, this shrill character who'd sucked the life out of the party up until then became someone vulnerable and multi-dimensional. When she says, "I like Spider-Man," it's the saddest thing I think I've ever heard in a movie. Is it funny? No. But did it reach me as a person in the audience? You better believe it did.

Supermallet

You know, I can see where you're coming from on that. But if that's true, then it makes the main plot feel incredibly trite by comparison. And the two of them are also genuinely mean to each other in a way that turned me off. The best sequence in that film is the Vegas trip.

It also doesn't help that I hate Leslie Mann.

Travis McClain

If nothing else, you'd have to go back and see those 20 minutes to confirm that you did not actually miss anything of any value.

I think part of the appeal of the film was that it wasn't actually funny. That movie was much, much darker than advertised. I dig dark, though, so it was fine with me. I do agree about the "overlong" part, though. I think there's easily 20 minutes that could have been excised to expedite the story without sacrificing the deliberately uncomfortable vibe of the film.

MrSmearkase

That's my favorite scene in the entire, actually. I definitely identify with Rudd as a husband too embarassed to admit his nerdy hobbies, while being forced to realize that he is being a selfish partner.

Supermallet

It's not really dark, though (Funny People). We discover Sandler isn't dying in the trailers. The rest is just...pathetic. The giant megastar who can fuck any chick he wants tries to steal a shrill married woman from her caring husband? Why do I give a crap about that?

Travis McClain

The main plot really is trite by comparison; that's what I loved about the film. I felt like I'd come for the stoner comedy, but stayed for the drama. I can see where it would be off-putting, but maybe it's because I've been around enough couples that really did go at each other like that that I hung in there. One of my oldest friends was married to his high school girlfriend, and man if you thought Leslie Mann's character was a needling bitch, you should see this girl sometime. She would berate him in front of his own mother--and I mean that literally. Damn, was I happy when they divorced!

As for the Vegas sequence, yeah, that was fun to watch. So much so, in fact, that the "Now that's how you get pink-eye!" payoff justified that incredibly contrived set-up from the previous scene.

Can't help ya there.

RocShemp

Neither for me. I find Anderson boring and unengaging. Apatow is just plain unfunny. I never so much as crack a smile at any of his films.

Travis McClain

That, I think, is the darkness. We see how empty and pathetic he is, but he character never really does. He reacts out of fear early in the film and tries to set things right, but the moment that fear passes he mistakes it for a license to be an even bigger jerk than before. You shouldn't give a crap about him. Eric Bana's character? Yes. Seth Rogen's character, even Leslie Mann's...but not Sandler's. It's a story where you get to see someone completely miss the point of their own ordeals.

And you know what? That happens in daily life all the time. Chances are you've got a story just like it of watching someone learn exactly all the wrong things from life. For me, it'd be my cousin. That kid is headed for a miserable adulthood, and every step he takes toward it, he takes thinking he's ten feet tall and bulletproof. I think it's good every now and again that a story doesn't show us everybody learning the moral.

I think it also did a pretty good job exploring the question of, "How much goodwill do things like bad health create for a person?" Our society is quick to give get-out-of-jail free cards to anyone who's been dealt a bad hand and I think it's important to remember: having a sickness doesn't make one a saint. I've got Crohn's disease, for instance, and I know the temptation is always there for it to be used as an excuse or a shield of some kind--by others as well as myself. I might lash out unfairly because I've been pumped full of steroids for a month straight, but that doesn't mean that when I'm bitchy on a "normal" day that someone shouldn't call me out on it.

Also, I hear Lance Armstrong eats puppies and he shouldn't get away with it because he's had cancer.

inri222

Wes Anderson for The Royal Tennenbaums

PopcornBandit

Wes Anderson. I like Judd Apatow quite a bit but nothing he has done has topped the brilliance of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Hokeyboy

Anderson by such a wide berth, it's hardly a fair competition.

Even me least favorite of his films -- Royal Tennenbaums -- is leagues ahead of Apatow's best (Knocked Up). And Fantastic Mr. Fox had more genuine emotion in a single frame than in all 876 hours of Funny People.