I remember the night I first walked in to see “Virgin” back in 2005. I thought that it would just be one big sex comedy poking fun at the titular character. But as written by Apatow and the film’s star, Steve Carell, the film actually turned every convention one might have expected upside down.

Carell’s Andy had the “problem” of being a 40 year-old virgin, but after initally laughing at him and trying to get him laid, Andy’s co-worker friends slowly start to respect him. One who brags about cheating on his girlfriends winds up turning monogamous when he sees his impending baby on an ultrasound, while another may find his perfect match with a kinky gal but by the end it’s true love nonetheless.

More pertinently, Andy’s journey into true love with a divorced mom played by Catherine Keener involves him hiding his sexual neophyte status by challenging her to have 20 dates together before they have sex. She finds it unusual, but as a cute montage winds up showing, the film shows that getting to know each other well is more important to a healthy long-term relationship than casual sex.
 
Along the way, the film also takes sharply pointed stabs at our sexually saturated culture, both in a scene where Andy tries to run from a giant bus ad featuring a couple in the throes of passion only to stumble across other sexual images everywhere else around him, and in a particularly strong scene that takes dead aim at how Planned Parenthood-style clinics would rather push an anything-goes-with-a-condom message at teens than to encourage abstinence.
 
Ultimately, Andy and his beloved wait until after they’re married to have their first joyous moments of ecstasy together, and he’s so happy by the end result that he and the entire cast burst into a surreally funny dance routine to the strains of the giddy hippie classic “The Age of Aquarius.” And the movie broke both Carell and Apatow into the mainstream bigtime by scoring $120 million in the US alone, with my opening-night audience walking out at the end in excited discussions about the film‘s refreshingly different attitudes.
 
How many other films with those kinds of messages would have been played outside of a religious event?
 
Leap forward two years, and Apatow took on unplanned pregnancy in “Knocked Up,” where a stoned slacker played by Seth Rogen impregnates an ambitious young TV personality played by Katherine Heigl during a one-night stand. Heigl’s character’s mother tells her not to blow her new on-camera career and that she can have a “real” baby later – and that moment is what propels her to keep her baby and sets the movie on its exploration of how the stoned dude is ruining his life with his irresponsibility and shows him the joys of putting down the bong and picking up a relationship.
 
Apatow took some heat for the film’s stance on abortion, with the liberal newspaper LA Weekly grilling him about the scene between Heigl and her mother. The Weekly writer asked him why he took the pro-life route and compared his film to the Romanian drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which depicts a woman’s search for an illegal abortion in the former Communist nation. Apatow pointed out that if an abortion had occurred, “Knocked Up” would have been 15 minutes long and that while there’s a place for “4 Weeks” in the market, he doesn’t have to make a  film that way.
 
“Knocked Up” even took a strong whack at the stoner lifestyle, as  Rogen’s character has to learn to put away the pot and get a job in order to step up and truly be a good man for Heigl and their baby. As the LA Weekly noted in a Scott Foundas article on the film:

That extends to the film’s laissez-faire depiction of drug use and alcohol consumption – a subject about which Apatow has mixed feelings. He is himself strongly anti-drug, he says, “but at the same time, as a filmmaker, I just need to show things exactly as they are. I hope, on some level, I’m indicating to the audience: You probably shouldn’t do  this, that you can’t be the high guy when the earthquake happens and you have to figure out how to shut off the gas.”

And now we have “Funny People,” which doesn’t directly address a moral quandary in its title, but which explores the attitude of entitlement some people have in which they think they can pursue whomever they want romantically, damn the consequences. When Adam Sandler’s lead  character, superstar comic George Simmons, overcomes a bout with cancer  (I didn’t spoil it – that’s revealed in the trailer) he sets out to get the Girl Who Got Away, not caring at first that she’s now married to another guy and has kids.
 
(SPOILER ALERT) Simmons does have a quickie with his dream woman, but ultimately he comes to realize that her husband isn’t a jerk and his dream girl and her husband opt to forgive each other and stay together, while Simmons walks out of their way.
 
Once again, marriage is upheld as the ideal and traditional values win. The fact that the film’s packed with dick jokes still doesn’t change  that, and helps lead people who might be looking for a naughty night out at the movies to have a morally sound one as well.

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.

Adam Sandler is George Simmons, a comedian/movie star as wealthy and popular as Sandler, but having turned his back on his family and cheated on his one true love, Laura (Leslie Mann), he’s now left with only “show-biz friends,” which means he has no friends at all. In-between making films like “Merman” (“Splash” with a guy mermaid) and private-jetting to corporate standup gigs that pay $300k, this desolate 40 year-old haunts a Malibu mansion and looks to fill his emptiness with willing groupies and everything money can buy.

After being diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia, George is given an 8% chance of survival and put on experimental medicines that only seem to quicken his deterioration. He has no one, so he tells no one, but for some element of human contact he returns to his roots in the L.A. comedy clubs. This is where George meets Ira (Seth Rogen), a struggling comedian much better at writing jokes than delivering them. Needing a joke writer, an assistant, and even a friend, George hires Ira to be all three and a fascinating, complicated and unpredictable relationship is born.

The film’s first half takes us into the ultra-competitive world of show business and standup comedy, using Ira and his two roommates as a microcosm. The three of them are close but always simmering just below the surface is a fierce rivalry. Mark (Jason Schwartzman) is a sitcom star who leaves his $25,000 paychecks lying around, Leo (Jonah Hill) is just starting to make money as a performer, but Ira’s relegated to grabbing open mic nights and working full time behind the deli counter of a grocery store. Apatow obviously understands this world very well because the relationships feel 100% authentic, especially the tensions that never leave these three, even in the best of times.  

The narrative takes an abrupt turn in the second half, way outside the world of Hollywood and into suburban family life, when George re-enters Laura’s life. Though it’s been twelve years and Laura’s now married with two daughters, imminent death stirs up old feelings between them and George decides he wants her back. Because her Australian husband (Eric Bana) is unfaithful, George proceeds under the assumption all’s fair. But things aren’t as black and white as he thought, and this includes his own feelings.

Apatow’s genius is how effortlessly he pulls two completely different worlds into one cohesive film without breaking the spell. You have to credit the director’s skills as a screenwriter, but the whole show is the single and separate emotional journeys of George and Ira, and both actors playing those roles deliver revelatory, career-high performances.

Sandler’s always shown promise as a dramatic actor; the problem has been the films themselves. Even more than the under-appreciated “Punch Drunk Love,”  ”Funny People” gives Sandler a showcase any serious actor would kill for and boy does he deliver. George is alternately pathetic, cruel, charming and despairing, and Sandler hits each note perfectly. Never once do you catch him acting. Never once does he stoop to pathos. Rogen, an actor I’ve never warmed to until now, is just as good. Finally he shakes off the cold hostility that’s undermined everything he’s done thus far and delivers an accessible, average guy (though driven) worth rooting for. Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) is, as always, fetching and compelling.

At 146 minutes, the pacing is certainly deliberate and measured, but the butt never numbed and I was sorry when it ended. The language is crude. Everyone’s obsessed with sex, especially the male member, but unlike Apatow’s other films these moments don’t feel look-at-this-iconic-moment forced. The world’s so perfectly realized that, coming from these characters, the “dick” stuff is more charming than off-putting and feels as natural as breathing.

Without giving anything away, what’s most impressive about this terrific film is how difficult and troubled George’s journey is. When he remembers he’s dying, he really is a changed man. When he forgets, the closed, self-involved “star” quickly returns. This is why the film, length and all, works so damn well. From moment to moment, you never know (especially in the second half) which George you’re dealing with. It’s a perfect thread of emotional tension that tightens until the very last scene, which, for my money, is one of subtlest, sweetest and best of the year.

I was wrong about Apatow, I was wrong about Rogen, and when it comes to movies I love being this kind of wrong.

You could feel it in the air as Apatow basked in the glow of his 2006 double whammy, the hilarious “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.” By the time 2007’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” rolled around, the backlash was gathering steam.

I told a friend I’d seen it.

“Is it just more of the Judd Apatow formula,” he sniffed. It was, I admitted. But I like the formula. I like it a lot. And not to get too Harry Knowles on everyone, but I’ve liked it for a long while.

I liked “The Ben Stiller Show,” loved “Heavyweights” and what I saw of “The Larry Sanders Show.” Heck, I even chuckled at “Celtic Pride” and saw “The Cable Guy” opening weekend. Aside from the latter, most people didn’t see much of Apatow’s work, but those who had loved most of it.

He got a chance to stretch his wings with “Freaks and Geeks,” probably my favorite show ever this side of “The Andy Griffith Show” (pre-departure of Don Knotts), “Cheers,” and “The Honeymooners.” Paul Feig created F&G, but Apatow nurtured it and, if my admittedly shoddy research is true, was the master at injecting sweetness into some of the storylines. That sweetness, honed so well in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” is what separates his vulgar comedies from other, more obnoxious vulgar comedies. And it’s about to bite him in the ass, I think.

“He has his cake and eats it too,” I’ve heard people say of Apatow. An hour and a half of homophobic, sexist comedy, and it’s all wrapped up in the end with a phony moral message. Sorry, but I call bullcrap on that.

What’s interesting is that I hear the sexist card being played from both sides on “Knocked Up.” Katherine Heigl is a shrew, I’m told, for expecting Seth Rogan to clean up his act. That’s sort of what she said, I think, in an article in a magazine I don’t read. But, but, but…I didn’t think she was a shrew. I thought she was right. I never thought she was the bad guy. I thought we were laughing at Rogan and with him. So I guess Apatow was having his cake and eating it too.

John Nolte pointed out that he doesn’t empathize with the characters. I’ve also heard the complaint that Rudd’s character was doing nothing wrong, and the women made it out to be terrible that he would sneak off to a fantasy baseball league meeting, or whatever the hell it was. The fact that Rudd’s character felt guilty about it didn’t go over with some people I’ve talked to (I corner people and bring up the awesomeness of Judd Apatow, which is the extent of my shoddy research). Again, I disagree. I totally empathized with Rudd and his wife, the hilarious Leslie Mann. Why? I feel guilty when I go to a movie and my wife’s alone with our insane kids. I get where Rudd’s coming from, and picture my wife being as mad as Leslie Mann was.

Ultimately, I’m wary anytime someone calls a movie sexist or racist. I rarely, if ever, think that the characters in a movie are meant to symbolically represent all men, or all women.

As for the charge of homophobia, leveled by none other than “Freaks and Geeks” writer Mike White, here’s the rub, and it won’t go down easy. No matter how accepted homosexuality becomes in this society or just about any other, dudes will always crack gay jokes. The resurrection of Prop 8 could fail by a hundred percent, and dudes will still crack gay jokes. My son is six. He’s never cracked a gay joke, I’ve never told him what gay means outside of  the context “The Wiggles” or “Barney” saying something is happy and gay. But when we were at open house at his school in West L.A., he warned me not to use the middle urinal in the bathroom, “Because Mark told me it’s the gay one.”

“So what, what does Mark know?” I asked, stepping up to the urinal.

“Dad! He knows! He’s in the third grade!” my son exclaimed as some other kids came in, laughing and pointing. I’d like to say that I acted like a grown up in this situation, but I’d be lying. Instead, I bellowed, “I’m not gay! You are!”, zipped up before I was finished, and ran back to the open house, my pants stained with pee, their laughter echoing in my head.

Apatow’s swinging for the fences with his next movie, “Funny People”, starring his one-time roommate Adam Sandler, along with Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and some Coppola. The trailer looks funny, but again, I have to confess something else as it relates to this self-indulgent post: I’m a big Sandler fan. Always have been, since his sporadic appearances on “The Cosby Show” and “Remote Control.” For several years, I worked at Blockbuster on Sunset Boulevard. When customers would ask me if they should rent a new Sandler movie, say “The Longest Yard,” I’d think, “Just pick a movie, what do you need my help for, you friggin’ Democrat,” but I’d smile politely and gush, “It’s the best movie ever! They never should have remade it, but it’s still the best movie ever.”

About that time, my buddies would say, “Wait, customer. He’s an irrational Adam Sandler fan. Don’t listen to him. It’s a terrible movie.”

A fist-fight would ensue. But anyway, Apatow’s never made any secret about his love of James L. Brooks’ movies (I’m guessing he missed “I’ll Do Anything”), and “Funny People” looks suspiciously like Apatow doing James L. Brooks. With dick jokes and potheads.

I so cannot wait.

But the backlash is just a wave right now, in the distance, crashing tsunami like to the shore in a couple of months. I’m predicting I’ll be defending this movie for the better part of the year, provided I can get a guilt-free trip to the multiplex in the books. I don’t think Apatow can win here, he’s due for a huge backlash. Setting aside my irrational love of his movies, and Sandlers, and Rogan’s (I’ve bored you enough) — if this movie’s only pretty good, KA-BLOWIE! Apatow’s gonna take it on the chin, a victim of his own success.

He’s gotten too big. Alot of the people who claimed to like him before he was popular are upset that he’s popular. He was theirs. And if I’m right that he’s ambitiously entering “Terms of Endearment” territory, with fouler language, many of those same people are going to turn on him.

In the interest of fairness, I get that Apatow has glutted the market lately, but you know what? I don’t blame him. People are finally watching, it’s time to crank’em out. He made it on merit, and he’s earned a little over saturation. It’s like how Hall of Fame NBA star Dominique Wilkins described his offensive philosophy: “Shoot ’til you get hot, and then keep shooting.”

Who’s looking forward to “Funny People”, and who thinks it’s going to be a stinker? I think you know my answer: Bring it on, Judd. I mean, Mr. Apatow.