Weak ‘Funny People’ Box Office Shows What Audiences Really Want
by S.T. KarnickWeighed down by a depressing premise made all too apparent by the theatrical trailer and advance publicity which made the film’s title too obviously sarcastic, Jud Apatow’s Funny People opened relatively poorly at the U.S. box office, taking in only $23.4 million. That was good enough to finish at the top of the heap for the weekend, but was the lowest number one opener since Yes Man last year.
Funny People showed much less audience draw than the great majority of Apatow’s and actor Adam Sandler’s previous efforts, and its failure to connect big with audiences cannot be blamed on any recent disappointments. Apatow’s Knocked Up and Sandler’s Bedtime Stories were both excellent films that did very well at the box office.
The magnitude of the disappointment for the Funny People writer-director and its star was summed up well by Reuters:
* This will likely be the eighth straight movie that Apatow produced that failed to top $100 million. (”Step Brothers” and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” the latter of which he also wrote, just reached the mark but didn’t surpass it.)
* Opening weekend has been a hallmark of Apatow in his robust years. But only two of these past eight films opened to at least $30 million — after the three previous pictures all did.
* This month marks exactly two years since Apatow Prods. had a bona fide breakout along the lines of a “Talladega Nights” or “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” — the Greg Mottola-directed “Superbad,” which earned $121 million.
* After “Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” Apatow was touted for his rare ability to bring overseas audiences to U.S. comedies. That was then, this is now. Outside of “Zohan,” none of his previous seven pictures have topped $150 million internationally. “Funny People” isn’t likely to change that.
I haven’t yet seen the film, but it seems likely that this is a misstep on Apatow’s part and not a portent of inevitable things to come. It’s always tempting for comedians to attempt overtly serious projects, but Funny People is nothing like Woody Allen’s lugubrious and overwrought Interiors.It’s clear that Apatow tried to be funny in this film, and the inclusion of serious themes is certainly in line with the other films he has directed, The Forty-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.
Sandler, of course, has done films such as Punch-Drunk Love and Spanglish but always managed to get back to what he does best. Both Sandler and Apatow have exemplified the contemporary habit of conveying positive ideas and moral messages through works of culture employing vulgar and trashy surface elements. The shortcoming of Funny People was an evident failure to assure audiences that the vulgarity and messages would be placed in an enjoyable dramatic and comic context.
That suggests that Funny People is more of a bump in the road for both filmmakers, and that they’ll both be able to move forward from the relative disappointment of their current film. However, the trailers and other publicity for their next project will have to make it clear that it offers audiences the same sort of enjoyment and edification their previous films have given.
Filmmakers in general must learn that vulgarity, explicit sexual content, absurd story lines, mad violence, and the like are not what appeal to most of their audience film-goers attend movies with such content because of the other good things in the films, specifically the positive messages and aesthetic enjoyment to be found behind the trashy surface nonsense. Emphasizing the former is the way to both artistic and audience success.
In a culture that openly celebrates vulgarity, mistaking it for authenticity, it’s difficult for artisans and audiences alike to see what really makes for good culture, including good popular culture. But the market sends strong signals, and filmmakers and other culture-makers do well to listen and learn.
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71 Comments
The core problem for "Funny People" was that the central plot element involved the Sandler character attempting to romance his ex-girlfriend, the "one that got away" (Leslie Mann) from her husband. Even though she has two kids by the husband.
It seems audiences find this less than amusing or dare I say, funny. Considering the ongoing collapse of the nuclear family. Only in Hollywood would this seem funny. Which to me says that Apatow is unlikely to turn things around, being too much of Hollywood and not enough of America (two very different places) to appeal to a broad audience.
Watched Zohan the other day and it was vulgar and had explicit sexual content, yet Karnick seems to celebrate that as a success. I am trying to find an Apatow movie that does not sound like it was written by a horny 16 year old; Sandler has delved into that territory, but never to such depths as the level he does with Apatow.
Shame, because I like his wife, and think that she and Sandler have chemistry—at least they did in Big Daddy, where they traded barbs.
I'm really sick of seeing Adam Sandler.
His retirement would be a God-send in my opinion.
I'm really sick of seeing Adam Sandler.
His retirement would be a god-send in my opinion.
I'm going to say because it just wasn't very good. I went in not expecting to be blown away like I was with The Hangover but the entire thing to me just felt dry and forced. One of the things that I really liked about Apatow's other direct efforts was the fact that all of the dialogue & witticisms seem to come naturally, while here it was all forced and remarkably unfunny.
I agree with the Big Daddy comment. Watching them go back and forth was one of the movie's best elements.
As the boomer population ages "we" will put up with LESS trash from Sandler. He peaked at Good Daddy.
Forty Year Old Virgin had its moments but I refused to pay money or even rent Knocked Up.
I do not believe that I am alone.
This type of common, pointless, witless vulgarity just gets lost in the great yawp that American popular cinema has become. Why, pray, would it succeed?
This movie looks like a collection of everything I don't like in movies these days. All it seems to be missing is a guest appearance by Will Farrell.
"The commitment I want you to make to me is more important than the commitment you made to your husband and your kids to be full of love and keep the family intact."
Is that the theme of this flop? I am seriously asking out of ignorance. It didn't look interesting of a movie to me.
I nearly walked out in the first 15 minutes but stuck around to find the film (underneath its admittedly pointless excrescence of vulgarity) original, rich, amusing and humane. There should be a place for it in American cinema. Sandler's flat but biting affect leadenly laid over his hidden pockets of humanity was perfect, and the second half in which he vainly pursues his lost love was exactly the right way to go, necessary to complete his bittersweet journey back to earth. I admire films which honor yet also push and play with formula, which this did. Worthwhile.
I'm curious that since this movie was pushed heavily as an Apatow movie if things might have been different if it had been promoted more as an Adam Sandler movie.
Just an open ended comment.
And I tend to be an Apatow fan but haven't paid any attention to Sandler since he left SNL.
This doesn't have a lot to do directly with Funny People, but it is a question about the box office. Is there any validity to the notion that the harder a film is promoted, the greater it's gonna suck? I just wasted part of my life watching Tarentino's Death Proof on cable. It was truly a bad movie. He has a new one coming out toward the end of the month, but already they are promoting the crap out of this thing, lots of commercials, buying time to show sneak peeks on USA network–am I completely off base thinking that this Inglorious Basterds (really clever to spell it wrong, eh whot?) is going to suck bilge water and leave me wanting to punch out the projectionist?
You know what might be good for this director? Some new scripts that aren't coming out of Hollywood or UCLA filmschools. Maybe he could have his 'assistant' read something that comes from somewhere outside of the East or West coast…
it's funny that you make so many assumptions and you haven't seen the movie, it's hilarious, people aren't smart and they want to tell the world not to see it. so that's what happens. it's like the ending to No Country For Old Men, "the ending sucked," is what people would say…no you're just not bright enough to understand what's going on. just like people aren't bright enough to grasp how funny, Funny People is. There's 100 times more sex and vulgarity in Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Yes but Andrew if thay had Will Farrell make a guest appearance
Then the movie would be a Tragedy
So far, every Judd Apatow movie has struck me as a film that would be good if I was watching it on an airplane. The funniest parts of the movies don't have anything to do with the omnipresent foul language and vulgarity. "Knocked Up" in particular suffers from this because there is a scene where Seth Rogan's character gets angry at the doctor and screams epithets into the phone…which would be a powerful scene if he didn't talk like that while shopping, or having dinner in a nice restaurant. I think part of the problem is the same thing that made "Blair Witch Project" so bad: relying on the improvisation of actors who have poor vocabularies and filthy mouths. Watch that restaurant scene in "Knocked Up" and you'll realize that it must be improvised, because the extras in the background never flinch or cast an eye in Seth's direction as he loudly goes on about sexual acts using a lot of four-letter words. In real life…or a well-written film… a waiter would have come over and asked him to please lower his voice or watch his language, because other patrons would be noticing his crass behavior.
As for "Zohan", mentioned above, I was charmed by the trailers about this Israeli superspy who is trying to start a new life in New York, only to find that the film is primarily about his bulging groin and rampant sexual antics. If most people knew what they were in for, the box office take would have been lower.
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you are not alone..these movies are trash aimed at 13 year olds
at least Blair Witch was original..
if they re released Bill Murray's "Quick Change" it would do better than most of the junk out there…
Adam Sandler/George Simmons, despite being the main character, is not a good guy. He is not meant to be a good guy. He is a bad person whose soul has been completely poisoned by Hollywood. Apatow gets this. Sandler, who is a conservative Republican, also gets this, which is why he gave a killer performance.
This is a drama. The plot is complex. You're allowed to disagree with the protagonist. You can think for yourself and decide that you don't like his actions. If having a flawed "hero" prevents you from enjoying a movie (and it does for a shocking number of people), then I suggest you stick to classic Disney.
I'm going to call your bluff on this one, chief: "No Country for Old Men" just sucked.
And while I appreciate your using that tired, tired gambit of calling me "stupid", let me point out something: I read and enjoyed McCarthy's "All the Pretty Horses". But I thought the movie adaptation was pretty bad. So I would love for you to explain to me how I'm so "stupid" that I could "get" the book but not the movie. Did the moving pictures confuse and frighten me?
NCfOM wasn't over my head. It was just a bad story poorly told. If you like it, great. But art is not an absolute.
Disregarding the awful implementation, the basic story for "Knocked Up" was pretty obnoxious, too. I generally despise the modern romantic/comedy angle of constantly making the male out to be a man-boy buffoon and the woman the composed poster-child of modern feminism. There's something inherently hateful, or at least disrespectful, in that trope.
Sure it can lead to a good show. But you have to be original and witty, and it has to not be beaten into the ground. And that theme is everywhere, from movies to TV shows to commercials. It's a bizarre feedback loop: Hollywood makes movies to this narrative because they're terrified of upsetting the special interest groups; indies make them this way because they're loopy left-wing morons who have been cowed into believing it.
It's possible that Adam Sandler has simply run his course. In all his films (with the very possible exception of "Punch Drunk Love") he is always playing Adam Sandler and the goofy man-child schtick has been wearing thin even for his core audience. Both "Zohan" and "Click" were not only flops at the box-office but made most critics lists of the "ten worst films of the year." There's nothing wrong with being one-dimensional but that dimension should at least be likable. It's probably just me but most of Sandler's characters always verge on the
mean and spiteful. He may not be the bully from your junior high days but he is certainly one of the guys who egged the bully on.
"Sandler's flat but biting affect laid over his hidden pockets of humanity"
Wow! Really? I just say he can't act his way out of a paper bag and the screen plays are hastily written for jr. high girls and leave it at that.
First a prayer
Good Lord protect us from these movies!
Now: Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Had to hear the vomit details on this movie ~Tx.
Not precisely, but it nicely sums up the (by default) antagonist's central motivation.
SEMI-MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW
The main "theme" at play is the difference between a comedian's "act" and their actual life and persona. We see throughout the movie that Sandler's character specializes in the sort of moronic "family comedies" were a guy undergoes some sort of transformation-ordeal that automatically teaches him a life-lesson AND gets him what he wants. In reality, he's going through a REAL transformation-ordeal (rare fatal disease and experimental treatment) and both he AND his buddy seem to share an unspoken assumption that this will work out the same way – i.e. because being close-to-death has "taught him" that he shouldn't have let his one-true-love get away, he assumes that coming through the ordeal "clean" means he now gets to swoop in on her like a romantic hero and get his reward for "learning his lesson." Except he hasn't learned anything and is almost-certainly going to damage this woman AGAIN along with her family, the realization of which causes a moral-crisis for his sidekick/buddy.
This is neither surprising or fundamentally meaningful. A big-ish opening followed by a massive dropoff was ALWAYS going to be the ultimate fate of this (excellent) film due to the simple rules of demography.
The big-ish opening comes from Sandler and Apatow's combined massive fanbase. Sandler having an all-time lock on moronic fratboys and Apatow being the king of too-ironic-for-the-room hipster. But those same fanbases were doomed to leave dissapointed and tell their buddies that it "sucked" – Sandler's because there aren't enough funny voices and poop jokes, Apatow's because there's not enough near-NC17 humor.
Openly-intelligent films can almost never hope to succeed in either the modern American cinema – where the dominant audience is, well.. stupid – OR in the international market where less-talk-more-flash is preferable because it translates easier.
How 'bout a Gene Kelly singing and dancing movie?
I guess I am the dissenting voice here I actually like the movie. Honestly I can't see how a movie like Superbad should get a better review but then again I am coming to dislike bathroon humor, maybe I am getting old.
White the theme was dispicable I did not see it as celebrating someone trying to take a mother from their kids and husband. The emphasis to me was not the Sandler character but Seth Rogen;s character. He is the guy that I thiought the film was about. It shows how he ends up working for Sandler who is totaly corrupted by his Hollywood fame. In the end it was due to him that the "affair" was made public and ended. The film ends it seems to me with Sandler coming back to apologize and one gets the feeling is is grown up more.
I will say that I like the fact that Sandler is taking more serious roles such as Funny People and Bedtime Stories. He has comedic talent in my mind that can transcend juvenile humor but has until recently not explored it. I also liked Spanglish. His earlier bathroom humor movies I usually disliked.
jack black, sandler, rogan, farrell..I have to keep saying it only because every other week they have new "comedy" released..these guys are mediocre at best.
Once the movie got to the trip to San Francisco, it died a slow, boring death. A few people in the theater actually got up and walked out.
I don't often agree with MovieBob, but I agree with him on this one.
When I stop to think about films of the past 50 years that have made me laugh (or still do), they all seem to run from the '70s to early-'80s: "Arthur", Zucker/Abrahams ("Airplane!"/"Naked Gun" films), Mel Brooks ("Young Frankenstein" & earlier), "The In-Laws", Woody Allen ("Sleeper" & earlier).
Some filmmakers that have *genuinely understood comedy* have also pushed the boundaries of 'good taste': Mel Brooks broke ground – or wind – in 1973 with the campfire scene in "Blazing Saddles"; "Slap Shot" pioneered language in such a way that many observers postulated that Paul Newman's career was OVER! At the root of comedy is a "can you top this(?)" attitude, and of course, movies will go to a well until it is past dry. (How many cheesy sci-fi flicks did "Star Wars" spawn?) But more than these films, it seems that – for the past 30 YEARS(!) – we have been living in the shadow of National Lampoon's "Animal House"…
From the (sorry guys) dreadfully unfunny "Porky's" to films like "American Pie", "There's Something About Mary", and more recent stuff, too many less-talented filmmakers took from "Animal House" the idea, not that comedy can be crude, but that crude *equals* funny. But then, a generation raised on Kricfalusi would have a different sensibility than one raised on Clampett, Freleng & McKimson…
"The emphasis to me was not the Sandler character but Seth Rogen;s character."
Right and he was vocally against Sandler/Simmons over that. It was touching.
"I am coming to dislike bathroon humor, maybe I am getting old." Welcome to the club, my friend. I began to realize I wasn't 14 years old around the time Kingpin came out.
Yes. Calling him a conservative Republican (what, just "Republican" isn´t good enough now?) smacks of desperation. Same as calling every movie which features some ass-kicking and a shot of a flag "conservative" or "pro-American". I understand how starved people are for such messages. But the fact is, the underlying values of these movies are often not conservative. And most regular people are neither crazy liberals, libertarians or true conservatives.
If you market something as something different from what it is, you will have a problem sooner or later. And yes, I am talking about Barack Obama.
I´m not optimistic about "Inglorious Basterds" because I didn´t like Kill Bill and I positively hated Death Proof. I hate that whole "let´s invent some characters and come up with ways to torture and kill them" sub-genre.
The only memorable things about Death Proof are the "Chick Habit" song over the end credits and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in that yellow dress.
I fear "Basterds" will be a pointless, bloody cartoon. But you never know.
Those are exactly the comedies that I find funny and that´s exactly why I many of today´s comedy hits make me yawn. And my taste isn´t exactly high-brow. I must have seen "Three Amigos" about 15 times – underrated masterpiece, that one.
[...] Andrew Breitbart’s conservative Big Hollywood blog wasn’t as impressed, but there is a good read here. [...]
We don't agree. To look at Happy Gilmore, Punch Drunk Love and Funny People is to see an actor of comedic and dramatic range and sureness. Punch Drunk Love is especially interesting in the sense of his transformation, from passive-aggressive squirreliness to a full-bodied force of love. In Funny People, he is the least actorly but the most interesting, that is, unwilling to be fully human in order to protect what makes him successful. I don't think this is easy to pull off. His charater was full of cold truth and hidden humanity.
Raven,
We don't agree. I am very put off getting "a teachable moment" from the likes of Adam Sandler.
I'm only 26 and I do like Apatow (I find myself more a fan of the films he's produced like Superbad than the ones he's directed). However, I find some of the aforementioned films (Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, etc.) infinitely more watchable than Apatow's stuff. I can't even explain it. Maybe the pop culture references date his films whereas Airplane!, Ghostbusters, etc. are relatively timeless movies. And with these movies, I laugh not at the profanity but the clever gags and puns. Hell, I smile when I think of George Kennedy saying, "Ted… why?" in The Naked Gun after getting shot with the cufflink dart.
Sorry, but I do think Porky's is funny
but the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. American Pie was great in its day (ten years ago) but I find it's a bit dated (I liked the second one better for some reason). There's Something About Mary I thought was totally overrated but I should probably see it again.
My thesis is this: will people still be talking about and quoting from 40-Year Old Virgin (which I liked but it DIDN'T deserve the four stars my local paper gave it) in twenty years the same way we talk about Caddyshack, Animal House, and the various Landis/Reitman/Brooks/ZAZ films?
Sandler's career for a while has been similar in trajectory to Bill Murray's 20 years earlier, and Bill was trying to get into more substantive roles starting just after "Ghostbusters" came out, but needed eight years to find the right sort of balance between comedy and drama with Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day".
Sandler's looking for that type of movie as well right now, but it's not as if you can just conjure a premise like that out of nowhere, and the premise for "Funny People" just comes across as less creative and more like something that could have come out of Hollywood anytime in the last 35 years with any number of actor/comedians in the key roles.
Bedtime Stories was an excellent film?
Again – take the crudity out of "Porky's" and what have you got left – anything? For me, "Caddyshack" was another outing too reliant on 'schtick' – notably, Dangerfield's, Chase's, and Murray's; not "laugh-out-loud" funny (again – not to *me*). I love "Ghostbusters": great performances, effects, quotable lines (a few of which are indeed very funny), a truly enjoyable movie. But do my sides hurt when I watch it? No.
Your final paragraph is absolutely correct. Great comedies have durability (in spite of the occasional dated gag). The Looney Tunes of the 1940's & 1950's are a prime example (though I'm less fond of the Chuck Jones stuff as many), as are the Paramount films of the Marx Brothers. Sometimes you revisit stuff and it doesn't hold up – like some '70s standup I saw recently, or episodes of Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In" (terribly disappointing). Sometimes stuff DOES hold up surprisingly well, though: I also recently have seen many of the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts and they KICK ASS on the trashy stuff that Comedy Central has done!
Tragedy for the human mind. . .
Agreed. There's no there there, so to speak.
Cris, We agree with you. LOL! Sandler has no range and nothing to teach us. Aptow is even worse.
I cannot honestly say it´s a classic – many say it´s stupid – but it just does it for me. Every time. "A sweater!" heh.
I can't say much about Funny People, but I rewatched Pretty in Pink last night and the dick jokes were hilarious. Truly timeless, as were all the explicit masturbation gags in The Breakfast Club, and I'd be crazy not to mention the rat-a-tat barrage of gay fellatio one-liners in Ferris Bueller. John Hughes just really understood young people, you know? That's why his films will last forever.
p.s. okay, admittedly, the conversation about anal in Home Alone was a little over the line, but you can't have hits without a few misses.
Adam Sandler, has he ever been funny, if so I don't recall it.
Zohan and Click each grossed over 200 million worldwide. Then came pay per view, cable sales and dvd. Anyone who say s they were bombs should not be allowed to comment about the movie business.
Skip Funny People and go see a perfect getaway. I went to see it because I did not want to deal with the lines for G.I. Joe and I wasn't expecting much. The movie surprised me. The characters played by Timothy Olyphant and the actress who played his girlfriend were surprisingly conservative in nature. There was some smoking of pot by the actress in the movie but at its core, their relationship was very conservative because their characters were. Everyone in the movie gave great performances and it kept your attention. But to go back, I think conservatives will find something to really like about the "american Jedi" and his girlfriend. See the movie and let me know what you think.
We want DUKE !!!!!!!!!!!
"Sandler, who is a conservative Republican"
I have no doubt that Sandler is a good guy with strong American values, but it isn't completely clear that he's actually a Republican, let alone a conservative one. I don't believe that he actually ever said anything along the lines of 'I'm a Republican', and his past backing of Giuliani and his support for the troops doesn't prove anything either way. He could simply be a non-brain dead Democrat, or a generally apolitical person who expressed views on certain issues.
Everyone used to say that Denzel Washington was a Republican for similar reasons, but last time I saw him on a talk show he had a bad case of Hope 'n' Change.
"Filmmakers in general must learn that vulgarity, explicit sexual content, absurd story lines, mad violence, and the like are not what appeal to most of their audience film-goers attend movies with such content because of the other good things in the films, specifically the positive messages and aesthetic enjoyment to be found behind the trashy surface nonsense. Emphasizing the former is the way to both artistic and audience success."
That is the root of it Karnick the Magnicent. I saw it Friday with my wife and I personally loved it for its empathetic characters and the glimpse behind the curtain of what comedians are like.
But my wife, who also liked the story, could not get past that every joke was about testicles or other related parts.
Really, if this was Apatow's coming of age movie, he should stop trying to amuse the 15 year old boys and reach his intended and more mature audience. I thought the movie was so good that I would have taken my daughter to see it as well (the promos on Nickelodon (Nickelodeon!!!) piqued her interest.) But there is no way I would take her.
Way too much push on hbo for this flick and it seems they gave it all away like a whole lot of trailers out there. NO WAY would I want to spend box office prices to see it now. It's like Obummer, OVEREXPOSED!
Hmmm… Maybe I'll have to give "the Three Amigos" a look-see. I've always avoided it as it stars three men who – in my admittedly-jaundiced opinion – made *perhaps* one funny movie apiece. (In retrospect, I should have included "The Jerk" in my prior list.) Most SNL/SCTV alumnus films are amusing, at best. "TV Funny" and "Movie Funny" are not the same, and I generally don't favor films that rely on one particular comedian's 'schtick'…
I'm only 26 and I do like Apatow (I find myself more a fan of the films he's produced like Superbad than the ones he's directed). However, I find some of the aforementioned films (Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, etc.) infinitely more watchable than Apatow's stuff. I own them on DVD and/or Blu-Ray yet I have no interest in owning Apatow's stuff, except for Superbad. I can't even explain it. Maybe the pop culture references date his films whereas Airplane!, Ghostbusters, etc. are relatively timeless movies. And in Apatow's movies, I can tell when the actors are improvising which is practically a sin. With the other movies, I laugh not at the profanity (for the most part) but the clever gags and puns. Hell, I smile when I think of George Kennedy saying, "Ted… why?" in The Naked Gun after getting shot with the cufflink dart.
Sorry, but I do think Porky's is funny
but the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. American Pie was great in its day (ten years ago) but I find it's a bit dated (I liked the second one better for some reason). There's Something About Mary I thought was totally overrated but I should probably see it again.
My thesis is this: will people still be talking about and quoting from 40-Year Old Virgin (which I liked but it DIDN'T deserve the four stars my local paper gave it) in twenty years the same way we talk about Caddyshack, Animal House, and the various Landis/Reitman/Brooks/ZAZ films?
Quite right. And the premise of the thread itself is rather silly. People don't know what they want until they see it and studios don't really know what people want until the people lay down their sheckles for it. And furthermore art is about trying and sometimes failing. Funny People is a decent human comedy and will do fine, and so will Apatow and Sandler. Not everything can be a blockbuster.
Happy Gilmore is great. How can you not find something to snicker over in that one?
I like Sandler and Apatow, but haven't had time to see Funny People. Is it just me, or does it seem odd for a blogger to critique the appeal or lack thereof of a film he admits he's not seen? I'm reminded of the travel agents in "Waiting for Guffman" who've never actually left their small Missouri hamlet.
You are not alone. There was a time when comedy was about humor and not the latest fart or sex jokes. Sadly, I have to watch "Wizzards of Waverly Place" and "Spongebob Square Pants" to get a hint of that anymore. You know, shows for kids in order to get sometimes adult-minded humor.
I completely disagree. Open-intelligent films, especially comedies, aren't made and haven't been for some time. The dominant stupid audience has been created by Hollywood be not making enough openly-intelligent films, ergo audiences don't expect a movie to be that anymore. I also vehemently disagree that this film would be in that category anyway.
Critiquing Judd Apatow's or Adam Sandler's movies is like trying to find plot and coherence in kindergarden playground exchanges (a place where language is noticeably more adult).
Films like the "Forty-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," and "Funny People" are aimed at pick-pocketing adolescent audiences, to whom sex is still just dirty words, fantasy, and masturbation.
Hollywood needs a new ratings system, in which Apatow-like films are labeled "suitable only for DDIQT" (Drooling Double-Digit IQ Teens).
Different take at the NYT, but similar themes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10douth...
And let's be real: clearly what audiences want movies based on 80's cartoons & toy lines! And talking guinea pigs!!
Different take at the NYT, but similar themes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/opinion/10douth...
And let's be real: clearly what audiences want are movies based on 80's cartoons & toy lines! And talking guinea pigs!!
"Apatow’s Knocked Up and Sandler’s Bedtime Stories were both excellent films that did very well at the box office."
Uh, huh. This is exactly why I rarely see a film made post-1965. There's nothing excellent about vulgarity, and nothing funny about it, no matter what alleged values it tries to smuggle in. I'll save my dollars for a copy of genuinely excellent, funny films like Adam's Rib, The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, or even Monkey Business.
"Filmmakers in general must learn that vulgarity, explicit sexual content, absurd story lines, mad violence, and the like are not what appeal to most of their audience film-goers attend movies with such content because of the other good things in the films, specifically the positive messages and aesthetic enjoyment to be found behind the trashy surface nonsense. Emphasizing the former is the way to both artistic and audience success."
Well said.
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