Film Friday: The Trouble With Harry (1955)

A couple weeks ago, I spoke about Topaz and how unsatisfying it was. Today, I want to talk about a Hitchcock film that I love and lament the fact that this film wouldn’t be made today. The film is The Trouble With Harry. What is the trouble with Harry? The trouble is that Harry’s dead.

The Trouble With Harry was one of Hitchcock’s few genuine comedies and it was, sadly, a financial failure. It then disappeared for a while, but is now available and has quite a strong following.

At its heart, this film is a romantic comedy that takes place against a sort of murder mystery where several characters believe they may have killed a man named Harry. The story takes place in Highwater, Vermont, and it begins with the discovery of a corpse on a hill top. The corpse is Harry, and it’s not clear who has killed him.

In fact, three of the main characters each think they may have been the one who killed Harry. Retired sea Captain Wiles (Edmund Gwenn) thinks he shot Harry with his rifle when he shot at a rabbit and missed. Harry’s estranged wife Jennifer Rogers (Shirley MacLaine) thinks she killed Harry by hitting him with a milk bottle on the head after he showed up at her home. And retired naturalist Miss Gravely (Mildred Natwick) thinks she killed Harry by striking him with her hiking boot after he came at her while still groggy from the blow he received from the milk bottle.

Bringing them all together is Sam Marlowe (John Forsythe), a proto-hipster artist. He is looking for something to paint when he stumbles upon these people trying to figure out what to do about the body. The problem is that none of them knows who actually killed Harry, and none of them knows what to do next – particularly as no one is going to miss Harry. As they sort this out through a series of missteps, love blooms between a few of the characters. Meanwhile, they need to avoid Deputy Sheriff Calvin Wiggs (Royal Dano), who seems intent on finding some wrongdoing.

So what makes this film so enjoyable? For one, it is a beautifully shot story that gives you a sense of how great Vermont can be when the leaves change. To me, this is a Fall movie, just like Something Wicked This Way Comes. For another, the actors are all fantastic in this. They have tremendous chemistry, which makes you want to spend time with them. For yet another, the film is exceedingly funny in a dry-wit sort of way. You won’t ever laugh out loud, but you will smile a lot and chuckle repeatedly.

Indeed, the humor is quite subtle. The humor in The Trouble With Harry comes from the setup itself, which is quite funny, and the group’s missteps in handling the body. It also comes from the indifference with which they are treating the death. Mostly though, it comes from the quirkiness of the characters.

What I like best though is the sensibility of this comedy. This film is good-naturedly pleasant. You just don’t see that anymore. Indeed, modern comedies are all about flying bodily fluids, absurd characters, and trying to shock the audience with the level of nastiness in which the characters engage. This is so different.

This film wins you over with the exact opposite. This film is about very normal set of people who find themselves in a bizarre situation and yet refuse to abandon their normal sensibilities when trying to figure out how to solve this. Modern comedies, by comparison, are about weirdos imposing their weirdness on the normal world. To me, this is the difference between Shakespeare and an internet novel. Hitchcock has taken on a truly difficult task and has masterfully given you a story you will enjoy and keep enjoying for years. It is complex, subtle and beautiful. Apatow and Sandler and their types give you shock that wears off often times before the film is even over. All they need to do to write their films is come up with something gross or offensive.

What’s more, Hitchcock avoids cynicism. Sure, on the surface it seems cynical, but the story quickly proves itself sentimental and hopeful. That is hard to write without the story becoming saccharine and phony. Hitchcock walks that line. Apatow and Sandler don’t even bother: they traffic in cynicism, which is the ultimate writer’s crutch.

Hitchcock also does something else you don’t see anymore: there’s no villain. I’ve mentioned this before, but most of the greatest films of all time actually don’t have a villain to oppose the protagonist. That is something you simply don’t find anymore, however. These days, all films have villains because they are an easy way for bad writers to create conflict. Compare that with this film, where the conflict comes from the consciences of the characters who each think they killed Harry. Could you image an Apatow film being about three characters genuinely struggling with their own consciences? Hardly. If this film were done today, one of them would be trying to frame the others and it would end in a shootout, and that would wipe out everything that makes this film special.

Ben Kenobi once described a lightsaber as “not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilize age.” That is this film. It is not clumsy or random as the comedies of today, it is an elegant film for a more civilized age. I highly recommend this film.

Thoughts?

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Film Friday: Fun With Dick and Jane (2005)

Continuing with Judd Apatow from Wednesday: he sucks. He’s an awful writer with no wit, no sense of storytelling, and most importantly, no grasp of how anything in the world actually works, which keeps his jokes from scoring meaningful hits. Well, Judd wrote the screenplay for Jim Carrey’s Fun With Dick and Jane, and let me show you just how bad Judd is by sitting with Judd and teaching him what’s wrong with his screenplay by doing a filmtopsy.

Before we start, the idea behind the film is that Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) and Jane Harper (Tea Leoni) are a yuppie couple who find themselves broke when Dick’s company, Globodyne, goes broke overnight. Unable to pay their bills, the couple turn to crime. This is a remake of a 1977 film and it has potential. Let’s see if Judd can exploit it.

Ok, I see you open with a generic Jim Carrey introduction. This feels like a rip-off of The Truman Show, but I know Carrey likes that, so I can’t blame you. Ok, now we switch to see his wife “Jane,” who is Tea Leoni. We’re seeing her at work as a travel agent. Huh. Judd, you have her on the phone with a client who is calling from the airport and he’s angry that he’s trying to board a flight to Russia for a vacation but he doesn’t have a passport and she didn’t tell him he needed one. Ok, look, when you travel to Russia or China or most places overseas, you need to get a Visa before you can book the flight. To get the Visa you need to present your passport at their embassy. So this couldn’t happen... not even close. Don’t whine, Judd. Yes, I know that not everything in a comedy needs to make sense, but Judd... some of it does.

On the plus side, I’m happy to see that both characters drank coffee without a hint of there being feces or human ejaculate in it. Nice restraint. One thing though, they are supposed to be a married couple and yet there wasn’t a single moment in their interactions which made them feel like more than acquaintances. Humans tend to show that they care about each other in their interactions. No, Judd, I’m not kidding.

Moving on. Ok, so here’s your idea. Jim gets promoted to VP of communications. Within minutes, they send him onto television, hand him some talking points right as the camera starts rolling, and then he gets sneak attacked by the journalist demanding to know why the CEO (Alec Baldwin) has sold 100% of his stock over the past year. As he fails to have an answer, we see the stock price fall from 140 to 0. There’s the set up.

//scratches head

Oh boy, Judd. First, a large company like this will have many qualified spokesmen and lawyers who are ready to deny this. And if they can’t, then they decline the interview. No company would send Carrey as an unknowing sheep to get them slaughtered. Secondly, the markets automatically halt trading in stocks that fall too much, so you can’t get to zero. Third, all insider stock sales are reported. So if the CEO sold 100% of his stock over the past year, as you claim, then this would have been well known both inside and outside the company, so how in the world could everyone inside the company be caught by surprise by that? Forth, skipping ahead, you say later that the CEO’s “plot” was to crash the company so he could “sell his stock.” That’s nonsense Judd. He can sell at any time. Crashing the stock only hurts the value of his shares as he tries to sell them. What you really meant was that he sold the company’s stock short... only, CEO’s can’t get away with that. Did you not know any of this? You didn’t? Seriously?

Ok, continuing, Jim goes home to discover that his wife has quit her job. Now you may not know this, but married couples tend to alert each other before they make monumental life decisions like this.

Let’s see, the next morning, their check bounces to the landscapers and they “repo” the lawn. Why would their check bounce? Most people have more than 0.5 days of savings, especially if they have contracted landscaping, which typically is paid in advance or after 30 days. So that’s cute, but that’s not going to happen either. Now his electricity and water get shut off. Again, that won’t happen. They can’t cut you off the moment a check bounces. Also, with them having no money, there are poverty programs that let them get it for free.

So now they’re selling all their stuff so they can keep the maid? Why? Why doesn’t Tea go get her job back? You don’t know? Ok. You do know that being a travel agent isn’t that hard and she could probably get a dozen other similar jobs, right? You didn’t know that. I see. So instead, you’ve got her deciding to become a human test dummy for a make-up company and getting paid $14. That’s, uh, stupid.

At least Jim is trying to get another job. Whoa! Why are they engaging in a foot race to get to an interview? Corporate jobs aren’t handed out first come first serve. You know that right? Oh, you’ve never applied for a job. I see. Ah, and it wasn’t even a real interview, they just wanted to mock him. Yeah, um, that can’t happen. Why not? Go ask a lawyer. Heck, go ask someone who has a job, they’ll tell you.

So now Jim is day labor and he’s standing among the Mexicans at Home Depot. And he gets punched... of course. Oh, and here comes INS, this is going to be obnoxious. Yeah, as I guessed, the guy who looks 100% white and nothing like the Mexicans around him and who speaks English without a Mexican accent can’t prove he’s an American. Oh, and they are letting some other Mexican go because he stole Carrey’s license and Carrey can’t convince them to compare the picture on the license to himself. Yeah, that’s retarded. Oh, even better, instant deportation... no arrest, no detention, no judge, no appeal, just dumped on the other side of the border. Yeah, that’s not how any of this works.

//looks at watch

Judd, we’re 47 minutes into this turd and you have yet to achieve the premise. You should have hit the premise about 10 minutes in, don’t you have even the slightest sense of timing? Ah hah! Wait! Here it comes. We can see the wheels turning inside his brain. Ok, now you’ve got Jim doing Jim. Ha ha, he desecrates a grave. Ha ha, a dog peeing. AND... WTF?! He steals grass to replace the grass he lost. That’s the idea?

Oh, that was just a head fake. Yeah, this movie needed a pointless head fake to slow it down. We’re now an hour in and he’s being evicted – final notice, 24 hours, and we see the wheels turning. One problem though, this can’t happen. The law doesn’t even come close to allowing this. You typically get 90 days in pro-bank states and 6 months in pro-borrower states, and that’s after three notices. I take it you didn’t know that either. Have you been living in your parent’s garage or something? Oh, you have.

At least he’ll start robbing banks now. Finally, let the humor begin!

Uh... he’s robbing a 7-11... a 7-11 which every human on earth knows has only $20 to rob. Yeah, yeah, brain freeze from the slurpee (at least there’s no human ejaculate in it), can’t get the gun out of his pocket, ends in disaster. When does the funny start? Now he robs an ATM and the guy he’s robbing knows him. Still not funny... just very, very predictable.

Hmm. Now his wife tells him “maybe you’re not badass.” So it takes his wife challenging his masculinity before he finds the courage to perform a “real” robbery. Welcome to the world of Judd Apatow. Of course, now that he’s done it, his wife can’t control herself and they have sex in the car. Yeah, you need help Judd.

Next robbery is a coffee-shop. Naturally, they grab a coffee and “low-fat” muffins to go. Saw that coming. Ouch... a montage: they’re wearing costumes so you can squeeze in cultural references, Jim is doing Jim in each scene, oh goodie a cross-dressing scene, why are these scenes stretching on to the point of being painful? Now Jim, in an unbelievable costume, walks into a bank and pretends to be “the vault inspector” and walks right into the vault. There’s no bank in the world where that would work except maybe a cartoon bank.

Oh hey, a twist. Another Globodyne couple is doing the same thing and they just happen to pick now to rob the bank. That’s almost interesting! Nice work Judd. That’s the first almost interesting moment in this film... after an hour and ten minutes of nonsensical pointlessness.

Well, that didn't last. This only caused Jim to realized that what he's doing is too dangerous and he wants to stop. But wait, the television news now mentions that Jim will be the next employee indicted in the Globodyne scandal for his role in spreading false information. //slaps Apatow Sorry, that’s a reflex. See Judd, first, as you may recall, Jim said nothing on television, he just mumbled nonsense. So he can’t be indicted for what he said. Secondly, his being appointed to the job minutes before the company failed makes this a dead case – he had no involvement. Third, indictments aren’t a surprise; if the government was interested in him, they would have seized his records from day one, teams of lawyers (paid for by executive and officer insurance) would be swooping in to defend him, and he would have testified in the prior trials. So this is 0.0% real.

Now we get to see Jim do Jim in a bar as he pretends to be drunk. At least there’s no excrement, masturbation or cross-dressing... though that might actually help this lame scene. Oh hey, the good bad-guy just happens to be here and he knows how to save Jim by stealing the evil CEO's money... which would do nothing about an indictment except add more charges.

Apparently, having crashed the company so he could sell his stock (wow, that’s retarded), the CEO hid all $400 million in a Cayman Island bank to avoid taxes -- of course, that can’t happen because the stock sales took place in the US. Anyway, knowing this, the plan is to create a fake transfer form listing Jim’s bank account instead of the CEO’s bank account as the deposit account. Then they will sneak into the US branch of this secret Cayman Island bank (excuse me: ha ha ha you don’t understand banking law do you, asshole? That would void their secrecy.). Anyway, they will sneak into the bank at the exact time the CEO comes for a visit to get his money. How they know the precise time is a movie miracle. They will wait for one bank employee to carry the form from one desk to another. How they know this will happen is another movie miracle. At that point, Leoni will collide with the employee and swap the forms and no one will notice that she's not an employee. A third movie miracle.

Of course, the form gets shredded by a lawnmower after Jim does Jim in the parking lot. Now they need to create a new fake form to substitute it. That means breaking into an office in the bank without being noticed, which only works if the bank employees have no idea who belongs there. Another movie miracle. Of course, Leoni now needs to delay the CEO and we need to hope that the CEO doesn’t spot Jim. More movie miracles! That’s genuine comic pyrite right there!

Oh oh, Jim gets caught. The CEO acts like a jerk, but they get his signature and can now steal his money... somehow. The movie ends suddenly with a declaration that they stole all $400 million and used it “to fund the bankrupt employee pension fund.” Now we’re seeing stories about how all the “thousands of employees” will get their life savings back. Oy. First, the film tells us this money is illegal, so the feds will take it. Secondly, putting the money into the pension fund will only fund pensions, it doesn’t provide relief for losses... no one is getting their life savings back. Third, while $400 million sounds huge, it’s not when you’re talking about thousands of employees. If there are 10,000 employees, then each gets $40,000 back, which is about 1/3 of Jim’s paycheck as an employee. Fourth, this is the type of mistake that can be reversed by the bank before it happens. Even hobos know this... too bad you don’t, Judd.

So let’s see what we have here, Judd. You failed to write anything to give a sense that the characters are real people. You completely misunderstood the stock market, how billing works, how jobs work, how banks and mortgages work, how INS works, how couples work, and how people respond when they lose their jobs. You set up obviously worthless robberies, obviously false evil schemes, and an obviously false solution. At no point in this film did you come close to reality on anything. There wasn’t a memorable line of dialog. There was only one half-interesting moment, and you squandered that. Your scenes were painfully long and it took almost the whole movie before you reached the parts that should have been comedic gold, and then you bizarrely chose to race through those scenes in an idiotic montage. Finally, after avoided all the moral questions your film raises, you self-righteously dump a moral message on the evil rich. Wow.

If you want my advice, Judd, stick to playing with ejaculate... that's more your speed.

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Film Friday: Bridesmaids (2011)

Bridesmaids was a monster hit in 2011, raking in $288 million. So when it came to HBO, I decided to check it out. How bad could it be, right? You might be surprised. And while humor is subjective and people’s opinions can vary, here’s why you shouldn’t like this film.

** spoiler alert **

Written by Kristen Wiig and produced by Judd Apatow, Bridesmaids is the story of the miserable and unredeeming existence of Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig), an intensely unlikeable woman who has been tasked with planning the wedding of her friend Lillian. . . sort of. The film never pins down her exact role, so I can’t give you more precision, except to say that she’s the maid of honor and she’s supposed to come up with ideas to entertain the bridesmaids. But Lillian has another friend, Helen (Rose Byrne), who seems to be doing the same thing plus whatever else is needed to make the jokes work. The rest of the story is Annie ruining all the wedding preparations as she alienates everyone in her life because she is, for lack of a stronger word, an asshole. Naturally, in a film this poorly written and conceived you know the ending already – it all works out, everyone becomes friends again, and Annie finds the perfect boyfriend.

The first problem with this film, the one which makes it so darn boring, is that it lacks a story arc. All good stories involve an arc, i.e. some journey where the characters begin at one place and make their way to another. This can be a physical journey where they change locations, an achievement journey where they try to accomplish some goal, or an emotional journey where the characters either resolve emotional needs or grow as people. Bridesmaids has no such arc. It thinks it does, but it doesn’t.

What the film thinks it’s doing is taking Annie on an emotional journey where she begins with a messed up life because she’s self-centered and she ends up winning her happiness by becoming a better person. Only, that’s not what really happens. Annie is a character who thrives on nastiness, self-pity, and jealousy. She should be primed for growth, but she never grows. Instead, she goes from scene to scene offending people without ever learning. Yet, the film isn’t smart enough to recognize this failure, so it has the other characters pretend that she’s grown, even though she hasn’t. That makes the whole thing feel faked.

What’s worse, she becomes even more unlikable after she’s supposedly had her epiphany moment. After losing her job, her apartment, her friends and her boyfriend, she finally declares that she has hit bottom. A scene or two later, her nemesis Helen comes to her for help. Helen is very upset that they can’t find the bride, but also begins to pour her heart out to Annie about her own life being miserable, BUT the supposedly reformed Annie mocks her. This was pure cruelty and it made me angry. Oddly, Helen seems to think she deserves to be mocked. Then Lillian forgives her for destroying the wedding shower, her boyfriend forgives her for things she’s done to him, and all the other bridesmaids forgive her for everything. And what has she done to earn this forgiveness? Nothing. They just decide this abusive jerk is someone they can’t live without.

This is nonsense and it’s deeply unsatisfying. This film went through the motions of a story arc to make her a better person, but didn’t bother improving her and yet still acted like she was a new person. This makes the film feel like a rip-off.

But even beyond that, Bridesmaids suffers from an all-too-common problem with Apatow-related films: it’s not funny. And the reason it’s not funny is the way it handles its characters. Specifically, the film is packed with so many whacky characters that they become distracting. In fact, almost every character in the story can be considered a whacky character. Yet none of them pay off.

Whacky characters are comedic gold. But they need to be used correctly. Typically, whacky characters introduce specific traits into a film which then become relevant in the plot at some point. Horrible Bosses and Dinner for Schmucks are excellent examples of this, as both introduced a small number of truly strange characters whose quirks would shape the plot throughout. Bridesmaids doesn’t do this. Annie lives with a freakish, incestuous brother and sister from England. Most of the bridesmaids are oversexed in the extreme. She sleeps with a man who openly uses her for sex. Her mother is crackpot who uses AA as a way to meet people. But not one of these characters ultimately affects the plot. Basically, their wackiness is gratuitous, as these characters are stand-alone jokes whose sole purpose is to show you something wacky. You could actually strip every single one of them out of the film without missing a beat -- compare that to Dinner for Schmucks which ends in a mind-control duel which provides a tremendous payoff for several of the characters. Even worse, these characters aren’t funny. The brother and sister are creepy. The bridesmaids are unoriginal. The mother’s lines are nonsense. They are jokes without a punchline.

The result of this combination of a story without a genuine arc and characters with no purpose except to be self-contained jokes is a movie that isn’t very strong and which relies entirely on the ability of Wiig to pull you in and make you feel the plight of her character. But since her character is malicious and oozes self-pity throughout, there’s little to like. In fact, the only character I truly liked was Annie’s eventual boyfriend, a Wisconsin State Trooper (Chris O’Dowd) who is inexplicably (again with no payoff) from Ireland. His story at least had an arc and his character seemed to have genuine feelings.

In many ways, Bridesmaids reminds me of The Green Hornet. You have a main character who is a total ass with a cruel streak, but we’re supposed to like them just because they’re the lead character. You have an assortment of strange minor characters, but they don’t contribute to the story, their purpose is just to be stand-alone jokes. And you end up with a film which feels flat and unpleasant. Clearly, a lot of people liked this film, but I think it benefitted from name recognition and the dearth of female-led comedies, and I suspect this film will ultimately lack staying power, like so much else associated with Apatow.

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Film Friday: Paul (2011)

I’m a fan of Simon Pegg’s work. Shawn of the Dead was incredibly witty, clever and funny. It was a brilliant homage to zombie films. Hot Fuzz wasn’t quite up to Shawn’s standards, but was still well done and had great moments. Paul is flat. It also suffers from a giant liberal sucker punch.

** spoiler alert **

Paul is the story of two nerds from Britain, Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), who run into a real alien, Paul (Seth Rogen), while touring the American southwest. Paul has been on earth for decades and has run away from the government. Pegg and Frost decide to give him a lift. Soon they pick up Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a Christian fundamentalist. The rest of the movie is a slow motion chase as they take Paul to a rendezvous point to be picked up by his own people.

Why Paul Doesn’t Work: The Sucker Punch

Let’s start with the sucker punch. Most of what people call sucker punches aren’t. For example, interpreting two groups of penguins helping each other as a message promoting collectivism and the United Nations is downright paranoid. And others are too weak to matter, like making an oil company a generic villain. But genuine sucker punches do bother me, and this film has one. Here’s why.

Paul was marketed as a comedic homage to science fiction, and no mention was made that this film would attack Christian fundamentalists, but it does, and it’s mean-spirited about it. Right after Pegg and Frost pick up Paul, they run across Kristen Wiig. Wiig plays an ignorant, closed-minded Christian fundamentalist who fights with the nerds over the issue of Creationism. Shortly thereafter, Paul implants his knowledge of the universe into her mind. Suddenly, she realizes there is no God and that she’s been wasting her life trying to be moral. For the rest of the film, she drinks alcohol, smokes dope, swears every other word, and become hypersexual. She also expresses disdain for other fundamentalists, whom she now views as stupid.

These are direct attacks on the beliefs of fundamentalists and on their intelligence. There is nothing good-natured about these attacks. Indeed, substitute “American Indian” for fundamentalist and then ask yourself if it would be considered good-natured for an American Indian character to suddenly realize that their beliefs are stupid, to adopt the exact opposite behaviors associated with Indian culture, and then to denigrate other American Indians for being stupid. Odds are, that wouldn’t go over too well, would it?

Further, Wiig’s father is presented as the typical Hollywood trope for fundamentalist Christians. He is a hateful man, who dominates and terrifies his daughter. When confronted with anything of which he disapproves, he literally reaches for his shotgun and his Bible. He is, of course, murderous.

None of this was good-natured. To the contrary, it is denigrating and insulting. None of this was necessary for the plot either. But more importantly, none of this was anything audiences would have expected from the topic of this film or the marketing of this film. That’s what makes this a genuine sucker punch. And so you know it was intentional, both Pegg and Frost are atheists who told the BBC they wanted the film to explore atheism.

Why Paul Doesn’t Work: The Humor

Sucker punch aside, this film is just flat. In many ways, Paul seems like the kind of film Judd Apatow would make if he were smarter. Indeed, despite the really broad topic Pegg and Frost have chosen with Paul, it is in essence an Apatow film with almost all the jokes being about swearing, being gay, or having sex. Further, the jokes are generic and are carried on FAR too long.

Swearing: About 90% of the jokes in Paul involve swearing. And I don’t mean that swearing is used to convey the joke. Instead, the fact that someone is swearing IS the joke. For example, it’s supposed to be funny that Paul swears. And the first couple times it is. But it soon becomes part of his character and just isn’t funny anymore. Yet, they keep treating each swear like a punchline.

Kristen Wiig swears too. In fact, she swears constantly. Here the joke is that being freed from her religious stupidity, she is now free to swear, which she does with reckless abandon. But, and this is supposed to be the funny part, she’s not good at it, so her swearing is awkward. This may have worked in theory, but it was very poorly executed. Wiig doesn’t come up with clever or creative lines, nor does she do anything interesting like speak hidden truths or say the inverse of what the rest of us would say. She just randomly tosses out words, e.g. “ok, penis milk.” It’s just not funny. Moreover, they never stop this joke. She swears in every sentence for the last 70 minutes of the film and it becomes tedious.

Compare this with Debra in Dexter. She has a lot of problems including inappropriate swearing. But the way Dexter handles it is hilarious because of the timing, the word choice and the reactions of those around her. Her outbursts are sporadic and so far over the top of what is appropriate that you literally can’t stop yourself from laughing. Wiig’s swearing, by comparison, is constant and without purpose. She might as well be adding a random word in every sentence.

Sex Jokes: Besides the constant swearing, Paul is largely a collection of sex jokes. Indeed, this isn’t the kind of film where you learn about an alien culture or get a new view of human nature. Instead, you get a series of jokes about anal probes and alien genitalia. You also get awkward jokes about sex with nerds, and you get a steady stream of gay jokes. Some of it’s funny, but it hardly lives up to the promise of an homage to science fiction.

Weak Referential Jokes: Finally, where this film does rise above Apatow’s work is in its homage to science fiction. Indeed, Paul is strewn with references to science fiction like a cowboy bar band playing the Star Wars cantina music, the use of lines like “boring conversation anyway” after a telephone gets shot, Blythe Danner punching Sigourney Weaver and saying “let him go, you bitch!”, and Paul sitting in the Raiders of the Lost Arc warehouse. In this regard, this film is very much like Shawn of the Dead where the references are well set up and used appropriately and creatively. The film also trusts its audience enough that it doesn’t try to point these references out.

That said, however, this film is way too shallow in this regard. Indeed, whereas Shawn of the Dead was tightly written, this film wanders and abandons the homage for large stretches as they revert to the sex and fart jokes. For example, the opening is great, as they begin at Comic-Con and they briefly lampoon many of the excesses and oddities of nerd culture. But this lasts only two minutes. Then they switch to gay jokes. Then there’s another brief montage of alien-conspiracy culture as they drive an RV through the southwest, which ends in gay jokes. At this point, you’re about five minutes into the film and beyond this point, the science fiction jokes become scarce until the ending. There certainly are references to specific science fiction movie moments throughout, but they aren’t the focal point anymore. Instead, the film becomes a chase film with occasional references to science fiction mixed in between the swearing jokes, the sex jokes, and the atheistic proselytizing.

That’s why this movie didn’t work for me. Whereas Shawn of the Dead was an incredibly smart movie which distills zombie films to their essence, Paul is a stupid Apatow-like comedy disguised as something smarter and with an obnoxious sucker punch running throughout.

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My Problem with Judd Apatow

By ScottDS

Whenever the media does a story on today’s “Hollywood comedy renaissance,” one name continues to crop up: writer/producer/director Judd Apatow. While I’m a huge fan of his earlier work in TV (The Larry Sanders Show, The Critic, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared), his cinematic offerings leave me wanting. I don’t believe The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Funny People deserve half the praise they’ve been given. I also want to stress that I have nothing against the man personally. He’s worked hard to get where he is and he is partially or wholly responsible for some classic television comedy. Also, I don’t entirely blame him for his reputation – that fault lies, as always, with the media.

The elephant in the room is improv comedy. Like anything else, it can be wonderful if wielded correctly but Apatow and Co. simply don’t know when to cut back. While filmmaking is a collaborative medium, there is a world of difference between a director asking his actors before a take, “Can you guys think of anything better?” and what Apatow does, which is to tell his actors, “We’re leaving the camera on for ten minutes. Go!” This is probably due (at least in part) to Apatow’s collaborations with Adam McKay, the co-writer/director of Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys (Apatow produced the first two). McKay is an alumnus of Chicago’s famous Second City comedy troupe (Apatow started as a standup comedian) and seems to belong to the “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” school of filmmaking. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this – I would say the same thing about the ZAZ team who brought us Airplane! and The Naked Gun – but McKay, like Apatow, simply doesn’t know when to stop. There are gags in Anchorman that look as if they were lifted straight off the improv stage, with the actors constantly trying to top each other with no payoff.

Let’s take the “You know how I know you’re gay” scene in 40-Year Old Virgin in which Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd ask each other this question for what seems like an eternity. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the story and it goes on for entirely too long. It’s telling that even critics who adore Apatow’s work think his films are too long, and the “unrated extended” editions that show up on DVD and Blu-Ray are even longer, with prolonged sequences that destroy the pacing and, in comedy, pacing is everything. To be fair, most of Bill Murray’s material in Caddyshack was improvised but director Harold Ramis knew when to rein him in and Murray is a much better actor than Seth Rogen. (On the other hand, I do credit Apatow with making me a fan of Paul Rudd.)

Technology also plays a role here. With digital cinematography becoming the norm, directors can let their actors go on without having to worry about how much film is left in the magazine. Likewise, with digital editing, directors and their editors can experiment, leaving things out, adding things in, etc. whereas they would’ve had to be more judicious in the past when the editor had to physically cut a piece of film – a laborious process if there ever was one.

Improv is also deadly for memorable dialogue. Quick, give me a line from Knocked Up! [waits five minutes] Yeah, that’s what I thought. Years later, we still quote the Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Woody Allen, This is Spinal Tap (yes, it’s improvised but with much greater discipline and within a mockumentary framework), the various 70s/80s films of John Landis and Ivan Reitman, not to mention classic sitcoms from The Honeymooners to Seinfeld to The Simpsons. While there are the occasionally clever lines in Apatow’s films, improv, like jazz, is often ephemeral. There is no lasting impact because there was no thought put into the joke – it was simply the first thing the actor said and too many actors Apatow works with (cough, Rogen and Jonah Hill) don’t know any better so they resort to an easy F-bomb (I’m no prude but it loses its shock value after a while) or an easy pop culture reference, which will only date the movie in the years to come. Improv is a skill that’s tough to master but there’s nothing like a witty, well-crafted line of dialogue. Again, improv can be a good thing (see: the films of Christopher Guest) but it’s too often used as a main course when it should be desert.

Apatow’s films are also boring to look at it. Don’t get me wrong – in comedy, nothing can get in the way of the joke, but a director can still make a comedy that looks good. Blake Edwards, Billy Wilder, Mel Brooks, John Landis and Ivan Reitman in their prime… they all made comedies that looked good and, as far as today’s filmmakers are concerned, I would include Edgar Wright, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, and David O. Russell in that category as well. Lighting, color, contrast, framing… they are all tools in the director’s bag of tricks, yet Apatow’s films all look as if they switched on one key light and said, “Okay, let’s go!” I’m not saying his films need to look like Blade Runner, nor should they, but there is something to be said about films that are pleasing to look at. One explanation I’ve read is that, due to the heavy use of improv, Apatow uses multiple cameras which means the lighting has to have a more uniform look (one camera can’t capture an errant shadow, for instance).

I want to like Apatow’s films more than I do. I sat in the theater watching The 40-Year Old Virgin with a grin on my face but I have no need to see it again, I can only quote two lines of dialogue from it (one is a David Caruso reference!), and I still can’t believe my local paper gave it four stars. Knocked Up fairs even worse in this regard and there’s one shot during the birth scene that is completely gratuitous. I know Apatow can do better. Whether it’s a case of dealing with the restrictions imposed by the TV world (including HBO) or perhaps a change of actors is needed, I don’t know. I hate to sound like I’m looking at the past through rose-colored glasses but it’s telling that I’d rather watch a 70-year old comedy than one made five years ago and since Hollywood studios all love to capitalize on the latest trend, every other comedy that’s released today is basically “Apatow lite.” (I don’t blame him for this, but it doesn’t help.)

To wrap it up, while I remain an Apatow fan (albeit a slightly disgruntled one), I remember watching The 40-Year Old Virgin and, five minutes in, there was a gag that involved Steve Carell trying to urinate with an erection. My first thought wasn’t, “This is funny,” but, “I’ve seen this before… and this is the new comedy god the papers are raving about?”

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