Cutie New York rich kid of E!'s The Daily 10, Ben Lyons has mentioned a lull in the series of comedic meteorites from Judd Apatow with star factory-releases like Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story (snigger) and Drillbit Taylor. I beg to differ. This is Hollywood Natural Selection 101. With all due respect to Messrs. Apatow, John C. Reilly, Owen Wilson, and Seth Rogen these flicks are merely necessary evils to appease the Sumner Redstones/Weinsteins clones of this Wal-world so they can go on doing the likes of Hard Eight, Darjeeling Limited, Superbad and/or this summer's Pineapple Express which thankfully brings bourgeoning leading man, James Franco back to to his Freak and Geeks origins as if f**in Tristan & Isolde never f**in happened. Anyway, all is well again in Apatopia with Forgetting Sarah Marshall wherein Apatow falls back on his own blue-ribbon recipe for box-office classicism of all-story and-no-big-stars. He utilizes his Freaks cohorts, writer Nicholas Stoller to direct and actor Jason Segel who starred in, wrote and conceived the tale complete with YouTube and Blogger back stories. In the vein of Isabel-Evans-versus-Izzie-Stevens Katherine Heigl, the film is serviced by TV pin-ups Mila Kunis (That 70's Show & Family Guy) and Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars & Heroes) who are both a fair balance of Maxim popularity and geek cult-dom. In this world, the heroes are averagely cute, adorably funny in their typically clueless manhood. The heroines on the other hand are typical creations from the mind of such men in real life-- impossibly gorgeous and fit both in actuality and in the Wii; a dude's girl he can both hang and have sex with. The shrill, cliched bridezillas most of this men are likely to end up within real life are satirized into the background or as villainess. Thus, this makes the stories and the characters so involving for there is enough fantasy and happily-ever-afters copulating with the not so pretty reality.
Segel, who played the strangely appealing pink-eyed stoner uttering the immortal, "Dude, keep your baby away from him! He wants to rear your child," in Knocked Up, like Rogen, is the quintessential Apatow lead every man--a smart, schlubby, horny teddy bear with a heart of gold. Russell Brand, playing Sarah Marshall's pretentious but harmless lothario rocker boyfriend with a vacuous cool, delivers the loud guffaws with only a look and a shrug best caught in the sex war scene and the rejection of the fanatic advances of Jonah Hill, another Apatow staple. Bell draws nuance & sympathy from the cookie cutter Life & Style title character to her credit. Kunis, once the raving brat Jackie Berkhart, is irresistibly winning as the rebound girl and a surprising movie screen face. Both she and Bell in their little beach outfits make me want to swear off carbs, a normal life and sanity altogether.
Perhaps it may be a little early to see how beings and things unfold and are explored in the growingly Lucas-like universe of Judd Apatow. We've seen some of his Phantom Menace but not necessarily its Jar-jar Binks' or worse, Howard the Duck. There are no conventions in his honor or for his movies so far, but we watch in bated bong breath for his next observations on life, sexuality and the American Way.
P.S. Seriously considering abandoning my ambitions and just move to Hawaii and just surf on my days off instead of brining my life in ennui, Perez Hiltons and ANTM marathons. Shit.
