Judd Apatow

It's 2 AM and you awake with a jerk, alone in your fully-lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some movie you've already seen a billion times are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. And we know, because we're just like you: single.

Need a movie to keep you company until you literally can't keep your eyes open? Join us tonight when we pass out to Knocked Up [starting @ 12:05 a.m. on HBO Comedy]

Why we'll try to stay up and watch it: One of our favorite random bits of movie trivia has to do with Annie Hall. It goes something like this: the archetype of every single serious-minded romantic comedy made in the last thirty years (we're not including things like 27 Dresses in this conversation) was originally called Anhedonia and it was supposed to be a murder mystery. Only during post-production did Woody Allen and his editor, Ralph Rosenblum, realize that the crux of the film was the relationship between Alvy and Annie. So instead of a sprawling, two-and-a-half-hour shaggy dog, audiences were treated to a taut, 94 minute gem. For Mr. Allen, the course of history was changed forever.

We're reminded of this story whenever we see Knocked Up.  read more »

Proving that it's never too early to peer into the future, the Times Online has published their list of the 50 most anticipated films of 2009. We're onto next year already? We still have to catch up on all the things we missed this year! (When is Eagle Eye coming out on DVD?) A cursory glace leads us to believe that 2009 will look a lot like 2008. If you're a fan of sequels, big budget action spectacles and comic books, Hollywood has you covered.

Accordingly, the Times lists Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince as the biggest movie in 2009. Originally scheduled to be released around Thanksgiving, the sixth film in the series was pushed back to July so Warner Brothers could have a summer tent pole.  read more »

As part of the New York Post's Sunday Fall Movie Preview, there was an interview with Kevin Smith about his upcoming film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, starring the ubiquitous Seth Rogen and the soon-to-be ubiquitous Elizabeth Banks (she's also appearing this fall in the David Wain comedy Role Models, and, of course, she's Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's W.) Smith talked about the usual things: his wardrobe ("hoodie sweat shirts, basketball jerseys"), his hobbies (poker, comic books) and his family. It was all well and good--fluffy, and just about what you'd expect.

But one comment stood out as so completely obtuse and ridiculous, that it caused us to stop eating our morning breakfast mid-chew.  read more »

Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler are doing their research for their current project, Funny People. The movie is to be set in "the world of stand-up comedy," Mr. Sandler revealed last month. "I haven’t done stand-up in, like, ten years," Adam Sandler recently complained in an interview with MTV.

Not only is Mr. Sandler doing sets at various LA comedy clubs, writer and director Mr. Apatow is also hitting the LA comedy scene and appearing at the annual Just for Laughs festival in Montreal this month. He knows the scene well: he was a stand-up comic for seven years before realizing that his talents lay elsewhere.

Mr. Apatow said he changed directions once he discovered that he "lacked something very specific: charisma."

If you stumble across either of them on their comedy tour, be kind….

Olivia Thirlby has been busy since her appearance as Ellen Page's best friend in Juno.

There is her role opposite Ben Kigsley and Mary Kate Olsen in The Wackness (out July 3rd), Safety Glass with Steve Coogan and The Dream of the Romans with Lauren Graham, both in post-production, the delayed Kenneth Lonergan drama, Margaret, and the yet-to-be-greenlit Jack and Diane, a lesbian picture to be done with Ms. Page.

But then there is also Judd Apatow's Pineapple Express for which Ms. Thirlby was briefly cast and then dropped.

In an interview with New York Magazine this week, Ms. Thirlby says, “I don’t know if I’m going to see it.  read more »

What Judd Apatow backlash? For every New Yorker who happily proclaimed the end of the producer/director’s run of luck after the flops of Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor, there was one (if not two, three or four) who ran out to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall (no. 1) this weekend. The comedy racked in $382,590 dollars of its total $17.5 million take here in the city with an incredibly strong $42,510 per screen average. Those are 21 numbers!  read more »

We could go into an oh-so-increasingly-familiar rant about the fact that Prom Night—a movie whose tag line is “It’s midnight. Everyone’s ready to go home … but someone has other plans”—was the most popular amongst audiences last weekend (lesson learned: people cannot resist the horror flicks) … but what’s the point?  read more »

Judging by box office—and the box office never lies—the one thing Good Friday was good for was taking your kid to the movies. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! (No. 2) hauled in $25 million in its second weekend, easily winning the top spot nationally. And Manhattanites were equally irreligious, though marginally different in the object of their sin. Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (No. 1) earned 25 percent more than Horton in the city, making it the most popular movie by far on the island. Take that, God!  read more »

Bloody jeans. Boob punches. “These Eyes” by The Guess Who. “Samsies.” “Blow js.” “McLovin.” “What the fuck?” It’s Superbad, this year’s most quotable, and irresistibly charming comedy (by 20-something year olds’ standards) and it comes out on DVD this week.  read more »

Good guy John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights, The Hours) may be getting thirsty for blood. He is in negotiations, along with Bridge of Terabithia kid Josh Hutcherson and Chris Kelly, to sign on to Cirque du Freak, an adaptation of Darren Shan's children's book series. Paul Weitz (About A Boy) is directing, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The story follows two best friends (Hutcherson, Kelly) who visit an illegal freak show, where an encounter with a vampire and a giant deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices that result in vampire servitude and vampirism itself.

Reilly would play Larten Crepsley, the centuries-old vampire and owner of Madame Octa, the spider.

Reilly has lately been in a comedy phase, appearing in such movies as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Year of the Dog and Judd Apatow's upcoming Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

 read more »

Take your ratings and stuff ‘em, Jack!  read more »

Uh-oh, she’s preggo! The follow -up to The Forty-Year-Old Virgin is perfect summer entertainment. Plus: Is Crazy Love necessary?  read more »