“FUNNY PEOPLE” (Adam Sandler & Seth Rogen)
I keep saying it every time I suffer thru another crappy Adam Sandler movie – This is the last time I put myself thru this torture - but there I was in Bellingham with 3 films to choose from; Julie & Julia, Something Getaway, & Funny People. The latter won because it was playing at the ‘little’ 3 screen theatre I like the most up there (Sehome)
When I heard that there were several comedians in the film, playing themselves & making hilarious cameos, I thought for sure I would see an Adam Sandler movie with twice as many laughs as his previous high (2)...I didn’t. It seemed as though the cameo comics were told to not use material that would upstage the ‘star’ of the film, so they were all pretty bland.
Sandler did make me laugh for the first time ever by using an X-rated bit about fellatio. It was actually funny & I was shocked that it came from the mouth of the least humorous comedian ever.
Sandler plays George Simmons (AKA Adam Sandler) a stand up comedian who graduates to a film career full of embarrassingly bad movies. When George is told that he has an incurable disease that will eventually kill him, George decides to return to his roots & put together a stand up act. He sees hopeful comedian Ira Wright (Rogen) sputtering thru unfunny routines that remind George of his ‘best’ material & asks if the guy would write him some jokes. Ira becomes George’s assistant while shutting out his buddy Leo (Jonah I’mnotfunnyeither Hill) whom George also thought funny enough to provide him with material.
Since he’s dying, George looks up the ‘one that got away’ (Leslie Mann) & decides to break up her marriage & ruin the lives of her two young daughters in the process. Not that George is an uncaring selfish jackass – he’s actually an uncaring selfish jackass who thinks he’s funny.
An equally unfunny subplot involving Ira’s other room mate, Mark (Jason Schwartzman) & his unfunny TV series, ‘Yo, Teach’ added 0 points to my laugh-o-meter (Which, by the way, did reach a new high for an Adam Sandler movie – 3 & 1/2)
Just to give you an idea as to how scared Sandler was at being upstaged by people who actually ARE funny – the ‘comedian’ with the longest cameo was Em-and-em (The unfunny untalented white rapper – the ‘Adam Sandler’ of the rap world, if you will)
A week earlier my dog’s girlfriend, Amy (she’s human, she just happens to be in love with Duffy) asked if we were going to see ‘Funny People’. I said ‘No.’ She asked why.
I responded “Because there’s no one ‘funny’ in it.”
I must have psychic powers, eh?
4 comments:
It was underwhelming. I can't believe there are movie sites out there that think he has a chance for an Oscar nod. Gimme a freaking break you psycho's ! One had top 10performances of the year and they had Sandler # 5 ahead of Day-Lewis at # 6. What in the hell are these people smoking ? And I'll tell you what. If DDL even does his role and singing halfway decent, he's a lock.
You are correct dbm. I bet Day-Lewis is a lock and that website that has Sandler ahead of him are plain stupid or crazy.
This movie doesn't know what it wants to be. At times you feel it's a drama sort of, then you have the comedy gags.
The parts that were serious I actually thought were the best parts. Maybe Apatow should take a shot at drama ?
I think Apatow should take a shot at a vacation & spare us for a year or two. But if Tyler Perry can make millions by making 4 or 5 crappy movies a year, who am I to complain about Judd who at least averages one decent film out of the 4 or 5 that he makes a year...
As far as the DDL film, '9' goes, does he play the little penis with a zipper & glasses?
Yeah I know, there's Distict 9, 9 and Nine and something else with 9 in the title. And it's 2009 !
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