Funny People

[Neil]

Executed poorly?  I'll take that.  And the faggy comment was sarcasm.  i'm definitely in agreeance that none of those things make it great storytelling, I was just in defense of all of those comments in order to clear it up like you have.  Are you speaking of larry sanders stand up or what?  I'm not really sure about the guy?

[picolas]

the larry sanders show. an hbo sitcom from the 90s about the behind the scenes of a talk show. apatow was a writer for it and his first directing gig was an episode of it. apparently his relationship with garry shandling was a major inspiration for the rogen/sandler relationship. and the show in general taught him about how to make good/real/autobiographical stuff. you can see the influence on freaks and geeks etc.

[Stefen]

This movie is a sprawling mess. It feels like a whole movie compiled out of deleted scenes. I think Apatow got a bit too ambitious for his own good.

It's not that bad, it's just not very good. It basically feels like a learning experience for them. Something Apatow and crew can learn from.

[socketlevel]

i downloaded the most popular torrent of this movie and it was cut to shit. and not cut in a way that was intended, something happened to the file.

[Alexandro]

I definitely admire the ambition this film shows, but it certainly fell a little short.
During the first half I actually kept saying to myself "wow, he's doing it, this is an amazing movie". I felt Apatow was really going out there with this. It was moving, darkly funny, very true emotionally. Really, it was near perfect.

But there's no way to deny that once everyone arrives in the exgirlfriend's house this thing just drags for no real reason at all. A lot, and I do mean A LOT of the stuff that happens during this long sequence is repetitive and uninteresting, but worst of all, you can feel it clearly as a member of the audience. I, for one, didn't find the first scene between Sandler and his ex to be contrived or easy, it felt very true to that kind of feeling between two people who had it and lost it, and who know it but will do nothing about it.

But in the second half all this is thrown away, and a new movie, a more conventional, silly and safe movie begins. There are great moments during this sequence, but they are mixed up with some bad ones and some really forgettable ones. Too much shit going on, too much explanation. The film feels this unhealthy urge to tie every knot. The subplot involving Seth Rogen's love interest is very lame and as someone else said, tacked on, and it was just boring. I had no interest in seeing what would happen with those two. Their scene at the end...unnecessary.

This contains Adam Sandler's best performance, and its a shame that it loses it's way. I liked it a lot but this had the potential to become a masterpiece. It chickens out on the big issues of death and the world of stand up comedy and transforms itself into ANOTHER film about some fucked up creative guy dealing with being an asshole in his mid life crisis. It turns into corny shit. This  is what comedians always do and I can't understand why.