Unclusive Trailer: Judd Apatow’s “This is 40”
Only one real flaw… NEVER tell the audience that “this is about all of us.” Let them figure that out on their own. Seriously.
May 18, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Good trailer…but yeah, GOOD point Dave! Having an attractive white couple (where the wife doesn’t have to work even) in a very nice house and lots of free time….might as well just get Ann Romney to promote the film and tell the public this is “her” story.
And wouldn’t it just be fantastic if Apatow found a way to keep this at a 1:45 running time??
Oh Apatow won’t keep this at 1:45. It’ll be over two hours.
Why are there never any Armenians or Filipinos in JA movies?
Los Angeles is like 90% Armenian and 90% Filipino, with the other 90% being Hispanic. Where is this mythical, mystical City of Angels that like Nancy Myers, Judd Apatow and Lawrence Kasdan live where it’s 99% Caucasian?
This looks painful. Ive never been the biggest Apatow fan. I’m from the school of thought that he started out with a home run on 40 Year Old Virgin, hit a solid double on Knocked Out, barely got on base with Funny People. The law of diminishing returns tells me this is destined to be a strike out.
And yea, when the line came up “this is everyones story” I laughed. Yes, this is every middle class family where the dad works in the record industry and their biggest problem is hating each other. Yikes. God forbid an Apatow character have a real problem.
Sure, they gave Adam Sandler cancer for half an hour before th magic Swede cures him. Then his problems revert to being rich and lonely.
And maybe his films wouldn’t be so grating if he brought any other actors into the mix. The man is turning ‘reverting to form’ into an art.
Man, this “comedy’s gotta be under two hours” cliche has begun to drive me nuts over the years. Sure, it’s fine as a rule of thumb, and I suppose most of the Apatow films could lose a few minutes here and there, but so what? They’re comedies with a fair amount of improv involved, and it can be hard to trim things without losing either laughs or story. If the film basically works, a little fat can’t kill it.
Also, it’s easy to watch something and arbitrarily declare it could be improved by losing 10, 15, 25 minutes. If you’ve ever done any editing, you know that until you’ve actually made a cut and watched the result (probably multiple times), you can’t really know if it works (and even then, you might not really know till you see it with an audience). Trimming a line here and a beat there might improve the whole–or throw the pacing completely off.
I like Apatow but DO agree and have always said his stuff would be more relatable if it didn’t always have some Hollywood element. Like FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, why can’t Segel and Bell just be a normal couple from wherever? That he’s a MOVIE COMPOSER and she’s a TV ACTRESS put it into the realm of supernatural. KNOCKED UP, same deal, why did Heigl have to work for E!?
Funny People is an obvious exception, since it’s actually about the world of comedy. But the other ones, why can’t they just be ad execs or whatever?
Which is why 40 Year Old Virgin is his best movie. It’s about normal everyday people. There’s no weird celebrity component to it all. Its a bunch of guys working at an electronics store.
I agree with that, Lex. You know it’s a little skewed when the characters in This is Forty appear more grounded because Rudd is “only” mid-level music industry, rather than the 100k+ salaries some of the other characters pull down (Get Him to the Greek, oddly enough, also worked this angle pretty well, both because it was actually about the music industry and because Elisabeth Moss at least plays a med student… not exactly everyday, but something where they’re acknowledging tough hours).
Then again, I’ve seen so many movies that go absolutely tone deaf when having to depict the way working in an office at a regular job work, I do appreciate that Apatow doesn’t try to pretend he knows much about it.
And I agree with Yancy about the comedy’s-gotta-be-under-two thing. Funny People is my favorite Apatow movie and it’s also his longest. I saw The Campaign tonight, and enjoyed it, but anyone who prefers this barely-90-minute Ferrell comedy to the McKay movies that dare to stretch out to 1:45, 1:50 (although Anchorman and Step Brothers are really both normal-comedy length) cares more about running time than comic timing.
Surprised they didn’t find a way to squeeze Lena Dunham into the trailer.
(I’m assuming that she’s still in the film, right?)
I had a reasonably good time at “The Campaign,” too, Jesse, but it left me vaguely unsatisfied.
It also made me wonder why Jay Roach does his best work helming HBO movies (“Recount,” “Game Change”) rather than “feature films.”
Agree with Jesse that most Hollywood movies are so hilariously inept when it comes to depicting people with actual jobs (he’s an architect; she designs handbags), that it’s probably best that Apatow sticks to the showbiz milieu that he can at least write plausibly.
I wasn’t super-impressed with Roach’s HBO movies — or rather, they seem stronger when you point out that they’re by the guy who made Meet the Fockers than they do by their own quality, at least to me. I mean, they were fine: well-acted, interesting, tastefully done. But they both failed to transcend the TV movie stigma for me.
But it is fascinating to me how Roach can make some very strong big-hook mainstream comedies like Meet the Parents and Austin Powers, and then also make the crap sequels and crap non-sequels that followed. I actually don’t mind either Austin Powers sequel, but they don’t exactly display fantastic comedy direction, and Meet the Fockers is terrible (I’d say actually a bit worse than Little Fockers, which Roach didn’t make), and I hated Dinner for Schmucks.
So on that scale, I didn’t find The Campaign unsatisfying. But yeah, it did feel a bit like something McKay farmed out as producer/consultant and that would’ve been fantastic had he directed it himself. I love all four of his movies with Ferrell and think of them often while watching less ably-directed comedies.
Oh and movieman, while it probably would’ve gotten someone even more interested to see Dunham in the trailer (like me), Girls was watched by a whopping 850,000 or so people each week over the spring. That’s almost like saying why didn’t they show the guy who plays Jonah in VEEP a trailer. It’s because Rudd, Mann, McCarthy, Fox, Segal, and Brooks are all way way more famous than Dunham (who is amazing, though).
Roach’s feature films tend to go for broad strokes and easy laughs whereas “Recount” and “Game Change” felt more like a typical Fox Searchlight or Focus release: sophisticated, subtle, adult.
(Disagree w/ you about “Meet the Fockers” being worse than “Little Fockers,” though. While neither is anything to write home about, “LF” is truly beyond the pale.)
“Girls” got a helluva lot of ink (not to mention Emmy nominations).
You would have thought the “40” trailer might have at least given us a little glimpse of Dunham. Just seems odd, especially since Apatow is one of her major cheerleaders.
i dont know anyone who watches Girls, but ive seen so many magazine and articles online about it. You would think its this massive success or something so unique that it deserves an ungodly amount of coverage.
is it either?
It’s HBO’s latest zeitgeist show: a “Sex and the City” for the iPhone generation.
And Dunham is one of the most original and distinctive artists working anywhere today.
Dunham is in Side by Side
Anghus, on the other side of that, just about everyone I know watches Girls, and mostly love it. I imagine a lot of people like writing about it for that reason.
GIRLS is easily one of my favorite shows on television; it’s distinct, funny, personal, strange, and sweet. I love it, and will watch anything Dunham makes from this point on.
Remember the story a few months back about all those cable-less urban hipsters begging their parents for an HBO code so they could watch “Girls” on their phones?
I don’t. But again, id need to see the numbers of how many people are watching online. Sometimes the media overhypes to the point of insanity. I never mind hype behind good product, but if it doesnt catch on, after time it ends up becoming grating.
Sportsnight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc. How many years do you spend hyping poorly watched shows before people stop listening.
And there’s nothing wrong with being a clever little show with decent ratings. It’s the idea that it has to be talked up like its a massive hit and/or groundbreaking show. I can’t comment on the quality, I don’t watch it. But those numbers tell me its not a bona fide crossover smash. I don’t care how many stories they write.
I don’t know about massive hit or groundbreaking but given the amount of emmy noms it recieved it seems like it would at least add prestige to the network, which is more important to HBO’s bottom line than a regular network. And many shows that we look at as the cream of the crop started small. Breaking Bad took years to build its audience and its still not all that impressive a size. Friday Night Lights got dismal ratings for a network show but an outsized amount of ink and is currently the show I have people recommend me the most.
And I kinda love this trailer, excited everytime I see that Brooks is in something, Mann is often wonderful, and while sure they are not struggling to make rent, but the relationship and ageing stuff is pretty universal.
Lena Dunham could walk down any non-NY/non-LA street and go unrecognized for hours.
An HBO show getting Emmy nods is practically par for the course. I’m more surprised when an HBO show doesn’t receive widespread critical acclaim.
Ask AMC if they would rather have more shows like Breaking Bad or Walking Dead. Ratings are always more important than awards and critical acclaim unless you’re HBO. Which is why they carry product that doesn’t generate high viewership if it gets them ink. For some reason The Tracey Ullman show comes to mind. How many years did they finance her because she was a critical darling.
Whatevs, dudes. I just thank God there’s an economic model that keeps some of these low-to-modestly rated but critically acclaimed shows on the air.
Josh M: Snooki couldn’t walk down any street anywhere in the U.S. without being recognized within a minute. Where are HER Emmy nominations, dammit?
Well, if we’re talking cable — the really big news this weekend is, Longmire caps off a great first season, and Hell on Wheels is back for another season of hard riding and ass kicking. I’m ready.
And, yeah, I’m really geeked for tonight’s season finale of Dallas.
“Girls” returns for a second season in January.
As does HBO’s equally wonderful “Enlightened.”
Speaking of Emmys, I have no idea how Laura Dern and Diane Lane could have been overlooked for their brilliant work last season.
I don’t like women trying to be funny, in any form. (Exception is Emma Stone. Why can’t Apatow put her in this stuff?)
Women should be DEMURE, it’s gross when they try to be funny. No greater an authority than JERRY LEWIS said this once. So did Adam Carolla. So did Norm McDonald.
They’re correct. ONLY gay men and OLD DUDES who grew up on I Love Lucy enjoy female comedy. Most dudes I know get EMBARRASSED watching women go broad. It’s not sexy. And women are ONLY HERE TO BE SEXY.
Remember the days when a Dallas season finale was a nationwide and worldwide event?
This conversation seems to pop up a lot when Girls is mentioned, but we never seem to have it when someone mentions Louie (and that comes up somewhat frequently) even though they seem to get the same numbers despite Girls being available in half as many homes.
And Lex Carolla didn’t say that no women are funny, he mentioned Griffin for Christ’s sake and you can’t get less demure than that. He was saying he feels the bar is lower for women. Not that I agree with it but how that came to be that women aren’t funny was just for an attention grabber.
“So did Adam Carolla”
Currently reduced to actually touring with talk radio pious phony Dennis Prager — thrice divorced Tea Party doughboy who thinks women should be physically under their husband’s thumb. Nuff said.
Lex: Emma got her big break in the Apatow-produced SUPERBAD, of course; but yeah, I wish he’d put her front and center in something. Her dance card is probably pretty full these days though.
A LOT of HBO shows play for the coasts / City audiences. The Sopranos is a big exception. I don’ think Sex and the City really made waves until it was re-ran on TBS.
So yeah, I doubt if Lena Dunham held up a liquor store in Dallas, no one could ID her.
My wife’s obsessed with Girls. She connects it with her self-obsessed 23-year old self. I think it has some great moments, but it’s actually a pretty standard stuff. The season finale had a wedding for pete’s sake.
VEEP, on the other hand, I think’s flat out brilliant.