Movie Pick of the Week

Judd Apatow and his band of merry men pretty much own comedy at this point. If you’ve laughed at a movie in the past three years, odds are pretty good he had a hand in it. His production credits include: Anchorman, 40-Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up and now Superbad.

It’s gotten to the point where the studios are attaching trailers to his films that use the new film to promote the even newer film. The trailer for Walk Hard, another Apatow production due out at the end of the year, promotes itself as being from the guy who brought you Knocked Up (which just came out a few months ago) and Superbad, the movie you’re paying to see. Nice. I don’t begrudge the guy his success either. As coach Larry Brown might say, he’s doing it “the right way.” All his movies have a healthy dose of humanity in them. This goes back to his television work on the under-seen “Freaks and Geeks” and almost not-seen-at-all “Undeclared.”

Apatow’s comedies are not very elaborate. They don’t rely on set-ups that are too preposterous or contrived ala the Farrelly or Zucker brothers. Not knocking those guys—they’ve made some of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. His films don’t really contain “homerun”-moments. There are no “hair gel” moments like in There’s Something About Mary; no “double premature ejaculation shown on the internet” like in American Pie. His movies are just consistently funny, mining humor out of the mundane situations we all find ourselves in on occasion (actually the Will Ferrell movies are an exception to that, but Will Ferrell is…well, Will Ferrell). But Apatow’s movies stick. It’s like the difference between being told a funny story and being told a hilarious joke. The joke might make you laugh harder the first time, but the story is something you can hear again and again because you identify with it somehow.

I can definitely identify with Superbad. The premise is familiar: high school is ending; last chance to score; figuring out how to say goodbye to old friends. Almost ten years ago, this movie was called American Pie and nearly twenty years before that it was called Porky’s. But that’s irrelevant. High school is an inexhaustible source of comedic material, because 1.) it’s an almost universal experience and 2.) it is the most awkward time in most of our lives. Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse play a trio of friends who are getting ready to graduate and move on to the next phase of their lives. Seth and Evan (played by Hill and Cera respectively) are best friends who are on two different paths: the sincere and intelligent Evan headed for Dartmouth, the obnoxious but loyal Seth headed to some state university. Mintz-Plasse’s Fogell (aka McLovin) rounds out the group, but he's mainly a (hilarious) comedic device like Stifler (honestly, if Mintz-Plasse goes on to make other movies, I see his career taking the same arc as Seann William Scott's or Jon Heder-welcome to typecasting purgatory).

The film's plot is fairly threadbare: guys need to score booze to score with a few girls. The introduction of two cop characters played by (co-writer of the film) Seth Rogen and Bill Hader give the film a bit more meat (for better or worse). The strength of the film is its dialogue which is often laugh-out-loud funny and its subtle observations of interactions between pubescent boys and girls. The film is also fairly poignant as we watch Seth and Evan come to grips with the fact that their lifelong friendship could likely be coming to a close. The McLovin storyline will either make you laugh or roll your eyes (or likely both). It does wear a little thin after a while, but I never looked at my watch or anything. The movie starts strong, coasts a bit and then finishes strong. I enjoyed the characters so much (especially Cera's Evan) that I didn't really care though. Time will tell if the film goes into the Pantheon of Great Teen Comedies (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Can't Buy Me Love, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Breakfast Club, etc.). In the meantime, congrats Mr. Apatow, you've done it again.