I Think I Won't, Thank You

Okay, so longtime friends Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston have paired together for the first time (!!!) in a please-go-to-it-on-Valentine's-Day romantic comedy called Just Go With It.

Could that title be any more on-the-nose?

All you need to know, America, is that Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler, and some hot chick in a bikini are in a new movie where some schlub has to decide which sexy woman to marry. Just go with it, buy your tickets, and maybe you'll even enjoy a few parts of it!

"Help! The multinational corporate conglomerates running the studios need your support!" -Corporate Flunky #3102

It is interesting that recent-box-office-dud Adam Sandler (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Funny People, Grown-Ups), who also exec-produced this turd, chose to align himself with an actress who has the same problem (Love Happens, The Bounty Hunter, The Switch) in what is apparently an effort to make a successful movie.

Or is that not even the goal anymore?

Maybe simply making a movie is enough for them these days, regardless of quality. I mean, they both got paid millions of dollars, right? They got to spend some time in Hawaii on somebody else's dime, eat some killer free food on-set, have a few laughs, feel like they're being productive...it's the little things in life that they are concerned about at their age, I guess.

"Haha--all you stupid people make us rich, America!"

 "There's always gonna be haters, Jen, so what the fuck? Let's just hang out in Hawaii for a while and wipe our asses with 35mm film." -Adam Sandler

"As long as I can bring my yoga instructor, hair-stylist/best-friend, a couple lap dogs, and my scrapbooking supplies I don't give a shit what we do there." -Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston craps shitty romantic comedies in her sleep and I guess just enough overweight women with cats watch them that her gravy train continues its incremental slide toward the fiery pits of hell. So, what does she care what anybody thinks about them? The 'elitist' critics will always hate on her; jealous women will always hate on her; men will always hate on her; she just needs to persevere and eventually some happy accident will redeem her in the end.

Right? Well, that's what she's hoping for, no doubt. Let us ruminate on what that happy accident may be, shall we?

Possible entertainment-rag quotes from the future:

At age 56, Jennifer Aniston has finally found her niche--and Oscar gold--as a bronzed, sultry, embittered Miss Havisham in Baz Luhrman's dramatic retelling of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. With a guaranteed 14-year contract on Broadway and a traveling ice-capade in the works, Miss Aniston finds it bittersweet that the secret to her happiness lies in the glorification of the loneliness that has dogged her for what seems like centuries.

Former actress Jennifer Aniston, 52, was spotted dining at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills over the weekend. As always, her characteristic printed-silk Gucci bandages obscured her entire head but there was no doubt in anybody's mind as to who was living it up with Jesse Eisenberg during a jovial four-hour martini-and-painkiller lunch. Was having acid thrown in her face by Angelina Jolie the best thing that ever happened to her? Probably. Her besties freely admit "we've never seen her happier."

After a marathon 14-day bidding-war cage-match atop the CAA Death Star, Jennifer Aniston, 68, has finally outlasted the competition and secured the rights to Angelina Jolie's unfinished autobiography. Who will play Hollywood's most notorious vixen, who took her own life as soon as she showed sign of aging? Why, Jennifer Aniston, of course. "I'm thinking no make-up on this one," the wrinkly old actress quipped.

Regardless of how things turn out for Jen in the end, one thing is certain: Just Go With It will suck and you should probably hang out at the mall next weekend to intimidate/eliminate anybody interested in purchasing a ticket. After all, a tragic opening weekend box office tally is the best way to ensure this sort of bunk won't tie-up our silver screens in the future.

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Funny People: A Review, an Indictment

I understand that the recent Judd Apatow movie Funny People is a drama, not a comedy. I'm okay with that. However, seeing as the drama centers on stand-up comedians, I had at least hoped the stand-up scenes would be funny.

They are not. In fact, they are mostly painful.

And let me get this straight--Adam Sandler plays a mega-millionaire comedian who decides to hire an unknown total loser (Seth Rogen), whom every single person in the movie thinks is not funny--including Sandler, to write jokes for him?

I don't get it...

Nor do I buy either of the two romances orbiting around the predictable bromance. Why exactly did Apatow's wife ever love Adam Sandler? Why does she fall for him again?

Worse than the Sandler/Apatow's Wife romance is the Seth Rogen/Nerdy Girl romance. Huh? She has no interest in him, fucks his roommate, they talk about it once, they have an awkward conversation at a party, he disappears for a few days...and then they're suddenly sitting on the hood of a Jeep Wrangler we've never seen, kissing while looking out over the city atop Runyon Canyon? Why? Because it was written in the script? Seth Rogen is still ugly, fat, horrible with girls, and possesses every single incorrect instinct one person could ever have--what makes the girl change her mind? I guess that's not important to the story...

Whatever, right? At least we have Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Rogen's buddies, to inject some much-needed comic relief into the affair. Hmmm...too bad I never laughed once at anything they ever said or did...


Don't even get me started on Seth Rogen's (and by extension, Judd Apatow's) obsession with talking about his balls. Who in God's name gives a fucking SHIT about what this guy has to say about his balls, or anybody else's balls? I GET IT--he has been obsessed with his useless penis since grade school (guess whose drawings those were in Superbad...) and when he was a teenaged stand-up comic in Canada people must have thought it was funny since he was so nerdy and fat and clearly obsessed with his dick.

Confidential to Seth Rogen: It's not funny anymore, Seth--you need to either grow up or have somebody else write you some better material.

Oye. Anyway, enough about how much this movie and Seth Rogen suck. Let's talk about the bigger issue here--Judd Apatow.

He has been hailed as a comic genius, the man who saved comedy, etc, but let us peruse the evidence before we disagree:

Freaks & Geeks (1999-2000) -- The cult-hit TV show that put him on the map. I found it boring, annoyingly ridiculous, and not funny.

Undeclared (2001-2003)-- Another TV show that wasn't any good and, like Freaks & Geeks, was canceled after about 17 episodes. He wrote and executive produced both shows, as well as directing a few episodes of each. What can we learn from this? He shouldn't have a TV show.

Luckily for him, people tend to fail upward in Hollywood--and he made it to the silver screen.


Apatow later went on to:

- Produce Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) -- Tolerable, but definitely not good

- Executive Produce Kicking and Screaming (2005) -- Awful, as is everything Noah Baumbach has made (even The Squid and the Whale was only memorable for wasting a great performance from Jeff Daniels)

- Write/Direct/Produce The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) -- Probably his best movie, but still not that good

- Write Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) -- 29% on Rotten Tomatoes

- Produce Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) -- Awful.

- Write/Direct/Produce Knocked Up (2007) -- So pointless, boring, unrealistic, and unfunny I couldn't believe this movie could be as bad as it was

- Produce Superbad (2007) -- Probably the best thing he's ever been associated with and the project he did the least amount of work on. Coincidence?

- Write and Produce Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) -- Has anyone ever said a good thing about this movie? Did anyone see this movie?

- Produce Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) -- Haven't seen this one, but it got better reviews than all the rest. Script by Jason Segel; star turn by Jason Segel; directed by Nicholas Stoller; credit to Apatow for having the magic touch!

- Produce Drillbit Taylor (2008) -- The movie that made Owen Wilson try to commit suicide. Is there anything else to say, really? My favorite reviewer's quote so far: "Aggressively bland."

- Produce Step Brothers (2008) -- 3 for 3 x2 He really has a knack for wasting John C. Reilly and producing Will Farrell's worst movies. Hmmm...

- Write You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) -- Adam Sandler's worst movie ever? And that is a very competitive category, mind you...

- Produce and Co-Write the story for Pineapple Express (2008) -- I enjoyed this the first time around, when I probably would have laughed at anything; upon second viewing, I was embarrassed for myself.

- Produce Year One (2009) -- I'd rather watch Ass: The Movie

- Write/Direct/Executive Produce Funny People -- Atrocious. And pointless.


In fact, that is the word that comes up the most when I think about Judd Apatow's movies--pointless. None of them ever warrant a second viewing, none of them ever really say anything, none of them have a compelling plot, none of them are ever really very funny.

So what, then, is the point?

Apatow has been a key player in some of the WORST movies of the last 5 years: Year One, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Funny People, Drillbit Taylor, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights...and he has 13 more projects in the pipeline, officially (including a Sherlock Holmes comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson that I will not be watching).

I know some of his movies made some money, but none of them were HUGE hits. Is that really all it takes to rule Hollywood with an iron fist these days?

So sad...

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