40 year old virgin Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's funny, but I've been watching Kevin Smith movies for a long time now, but it was only as I was reading through Total Film's list of the Best & Worst: Kevin Smith, that I realized something that I never really thought all that much about before -- and what was my big epiphany? Well, I finally discovered that Smith's films in the end are just rom-coms with poop jokes. Smith may have been considered a foul-mouthed stoner for most of his career, but now that I've looked beyond his shtick, I've finally come to the conclusion that the guy is a big old softy. Which got me thinking: Is there such a thing as romance for boys?

Now if you're the observant type, you've probably noticed I'm not a dude, so what do I know, right? But I've been told time and again that I'm not the 'average girl' (whatever that means) when it comes to my movie tastes, so I'm going to put that theory to the test, and get in touch with my masculine side to create a list of romantic movies for men.

After the jump; My 5 picks for boy-friendly romance...

So maybe I was a little late to the party, but over the weekend I finally caught a screening of Observe and Report and as I wandered from the theater in a misanthropic haze, I began to wonder: Just how funny is Seth Rogen? Being hailed "the new hero of comedy" is a lot of pressure for anyone -- and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I don't like the guy; I know he's a great writer and a whiz at improv, but after getting a load of the darker side of Rogen's range as Ronnie Barnhardt I was kind of happy to see that maybe he wasn't the soft and fuzzy stoner (not to mention one-note wonder) that Hollywood would like us to believe.

Think back to 1999 when Rogen made his acting debut in Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks as the acid tongued 'freak', Ken Miller; it was a role that was perfect for Rogen's sarcastic laid back style, and he's been doing a variation of it ever since. Whether it was Cal from 40 Year Old Virgin, Ben in Knocked Up, or Zack Brown in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, each character wasn't necessarily someone you wanted to bring home to Mom, but they charmed audiences nonetheless. Sure they were all kind of jerks, but they were all loveable jerks, and more importantly they were relatively 'toothless' when it came to their bad behavior -- compared to Ronnie, Officer Michaels was practically a choirboy.

Friday night I got the opportunity to attend a talk with three of my writing heroes: "The Jack Oakie Celebration of Comedy in Film featuring Judd Apatow, James L. Brooks and Larry Gelbart." James L. Brooks is one of the major reasons I started writing. I saw Terms of Endearment when I was a little kid and sobbed like...that little kid in Terms of Endearment. I have seen Broadcast News fifty times, and consider it perhaps the finest romantic comedy ever written. As Good As It Gets is a modern classic, I loved I'll Do Anything, and even have a soft spot in my heart for Spanglish. Oh, plus The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and the guy has been with The Simpsons from day one! No further questions, your honor.

Brooks' incredible skill of seamlessly blending laughter and heartbreak clearly made a huge influence on Judd Apatow (although from reading all the articles about him, you'd think Apatow invented the practice). Like Brooks, Apatow did a lot of television work (the classics Larry Sanders Show, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared), and lately he's written and directed two of the best film comedies of the decade -- The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.

Larry Gelbart wrote Tootsie (with Murray Schisgal) -- one of the greatest screenplays ever penned, comedy or otherwise. That script earned him an Oscar nomination, as did Oh God! He earned Emmy nominations for writing, producing, and directing episodes of the classic sitcom M*A*S*H, and his writing career spans more than 50 years.

These three dudes on one stage, plus little cameos from the likes of Garry Shandling, Leslie Mann, and Jonah Hill. It was quite a night. Apatow kicked off the evening by sharing that he had been in that very theater as a boy, to see Steven Spielberg's notorious flop 1941. "I thought this was about comedy," quipped Gelbart.

Well, it's official. The Writers Guild of America is going on strike tomorrow. Here's hoping the strike ends quickly and that all parties come away happy. And writers? Use this time off to study my choices for the seven best screenplays of the 2000's:

The 40 Year Old Virgin by Judd Apatow & Steve Carell

The blending of improvisation and the written word gives Apatow's two classic comedies -- Knocked Up would be the other -- a feeling of authenticity that is all too rare in today's film world. Apatow takes the strategy of writing for specific performers and their strengths, and it really pays off. Scoff if you want at a sex comedy making the list, but for a movie to be this incredibly funny -- while keeping an oddly touching romance and a spot-on character study afloat -- the screenwriters deserve high praise.

About Schmidt by Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor

One of the saddest comedies ever made, and one of the most truthful and painful portraits of old age. Payne and Taylor specialize in scripts about people on the verge of cracking, depressed souls who tend to find the smallest redemption possible. Payne/Taylor characters never go from Point A to Point B over the course of the screenplay, they go from Point A to Point A.1. The small, gradual changes in their characters are reflective of the way actual humans (as opposed to movie humans) work. Warren Schmidt's personal growth is so minor that it is confined to the last thirty seconds of the film, but when it comes it's an emotional punch in the gut.

You know how sometimes a really stocked Special Edition DVD will come out, but you're just sure the DVD producers left some extra goodies lying in the vault so they could unleash an Extra-Special Edition a few years later? Well, it just happened again, and while I usually hate this obvious marketing ploy, in the case of the 40-Year-Old Virgin: 2-Disc Double Your Pleasure Special Edition, I'm willing to make an exception. Why, you ask? Because the people who made the movie are just that damn funny.

If you haven't seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin since its theatrical release, you're missing out on one of the most comfortably re-watchable comedies of the past ten years. Both the single-disc and this new dual-discer contain on the "unrated" version, which runs about 17 minutes longer than the multiplex version. And while a lot of the gags offered within those 17 minutes are really very funny, the movie simply seems a bit longer than it needs to be. But if you're having a good time, what's an extra 17 minutes between friends, right?

You remember the cleverly simple story, of course: Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is a perfectly nice 40-year-old nerd who works in an electronics store and leads a pretty sheltered life of video games and action figures. But when three of his Normal Joe co-workers invite Andy to sit in on a poker game, the guys discover Andy's secret. (It's right there in the movie's title.) Thus begins a warm-hearted, foul-mouthed, breast-obsessed and consistently hilarious ensemble comedy that (I'll say it again) really gets more appealing on repeat viewing. (For all the silliness and potty-mouthedness, 40YOV is actually a very sweet movie too.)

If you're like me, you read that headline and immediately thought of What About Bob?, an almost perfect "comedy of the uncomfortable" that starred Bill Murray and a never funnier Richard Dreyfuss. Unfortunately, the new film is not a sequel, but it still sounds promising. The gorgeous and funny Elizabeth Banks will star in and produce What About Barb, a romantic comedy about a socialite who is forced to let her uncouth cousin be her maid of honor in order to have her rich uncle pay for her wedding. The movie will be written by Mark Perez who also wrote the immediately forgettable college comedy Accepted, with Justin Long and Lewis Black.

Banks is busy these days, you'll see her next in Spider-Man 3, she's got a lead role in Fred Claus with Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, and she was recently added to the cast of the Eddie Murphy vehicle Starship Dave. I first took notice of Elizabeth Banks in Wet Hot American Summer, which I consider one of the funniest films ever made. I was smitten at first sight, even when her face was covered in barbecue sauce. She was adorable in her brief role in Catch Me If You Can, hilarious as the secretly kinky Beth in The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and played a difficult part perfectly in the nifty horror/comedy Slither. The article doesn't mention whether she'll be playing the socialite or the "uncouth sister" in Barb, but here's hoping for the sis. I really love Banks as a character actress, and I'd hate to see her off-kilter charms watered down.

Last time we covered the new-fangled Special Editions of Spider-Man 2, That Thing You Do!, Alexander, Payback and The Full Monty. This time we got a Robert Redford baseball classic, Steve Carrell's leading man coming-out party and a British horror flick that's got a sequel very close on the horizon. Oh, and Porky's. Because who doesn't need a Porky's audio commentary?

28 Days Later -- Just in time for 28 Weeks Later comes a second platter that only the hardcore fans will need to own. Apparently all the extras from the first Fox DVD will be included; new goodies include a behind-the-scenes peek at the sequel, an animated short that'll bridge the two flicks and one free ticket to 28 Weeks Later. Since I adore this movie, I must give in and purchase it. Studios love people like me. May 1 is the DVD release date; May 11 marks the sequel's arrival in theaters.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin -- The original DVD came packed with a good deal of supplemental features, but with Steve Carell's Evan Almighty and Judd Apatow's Knocked Up right around the corner, now seems like a pretty clever time for the ol' double-dip. The new 2-discer arrives on May 22, but we don't have any information on the extras just yet. (Incidentally, I just re-watched this flick last night and damn if it doesn't hold up really well.)

The Natural -- You can have your Field of Dreams and your Bull Durham. Fine films to be sure, but to me the Baseball Movie begins and ends with The Natural (OK, The Natural and Eight Men Out). Streeting on April 3rd is an extended director's cut of The Natural, which will run about 144 minutes, as opposed to the theatrical cut's ... 134. So that's ten more minutes of footage, but you'll also get a whole bunch of awesome new goodies, including what seems to be a feature-length behind-the-scenes documentary. Coooool!

Porky's -- One of Canada's most successful cinematic exports (by far) hits DVD in this full-bore "One Size Fits All" Special Edition. Hooray. In addition to the (admittedly very influential) sill sex comedy, fans will also get a Bob Clark audio commentary, three new featurettes, theatrical trailers and random silliness. On May 8 you can pick this one up -- or you can opt for the "Porky's Ultimate Collection," which features Porky's 2: The Next Day and (for the first time ever on DVD) the really lame Porky's Revenge.

(Oh, just so you know: Two of last year's most excellent films, Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth, have just received digital release dates. March 27 and May 15, respectively.)


[Thanks to DavisDVD.com and DVDActive.com.]

It is extremely gratifying that one of Hollywood's quality comedy directors can still get impressed by things like sitting next to Eric Idle at a screening of Borat. Judd Apatow tells this story and also sums up the comedic scene from 2006 in a column at MTV. Apatow, who has directed and produced episodes of Freaks and Geeks, as well as last year's hit 40 Year Old Virgin, writes that he had met with Sacha Baron Cohen about doing a feature film version featuring his Borat character from Da Ali G. Show. He candidly admits that if he had been hired to make that film, it wouldn't have been anything like the Borat that hit screens this year, and that we would have been robbed of a classic.

He also hilariously includes Babel amongst the top comedies of 2006, and also talks about the darker side of living in Los Angeles. Although I'm hoping that he doesn't move back to North Carolina, because he'll be really missed in Hollywood. He's been behind films like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and the upcoming Knocked Up. He tends to use the same cast members in his projects, so we'll have seen Seth Rogen go from supporting actor in Freaks and Geeks to a tiny role in Anchorman, to a hilarious supporting role in 40 Year Old Virgin, and he'll be the leading man in Knocked Up. All thanks to Apatow.

So please Judd, hear our cry, and stay in Los Angeles. We need the quality movies to keep on coming.

After exhaustive negotiations, Anne Hathaway has agreed to allow Judd Apatow to impregnate her. It's all for the good of her art, of course: Hathaway has joined the cast of Apatow's Knocked Up, in which she'll play a woman who discovers she's pregnant after a one night stand. Though Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd have both already been cast, it's unclear which is the guilty party. For what it's worth, my money's on Rogen. It's time for him to have a starring role.

As far as I'm concerned, anything Judd Apatow writes is likely to be good, and when he's directing as well, the chances of success go up to almost 100% - after all, everything he's directed so far (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Undeclared, Freaks and Geeks, and The Larry Sanders Show) has been pretty much perfect. How could this possibly fail, even with the chick from The Princess Diaries?

Two major Guilds released their nomination slates this morning. The Writers Guild of America (WGA), who regaled us with their Documentary Screenplay choices yesterday, have one day later released that puff of white smoke that indicates they've narrowed this year's top screenplays into five contenders for the writing world's version of Pope (except not). The list%uFFFD includes a few usual suspects – Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Brokeback Mountain – and also two summer films, making semi-surprise appearances. The first, Cinderella Man, has been conspicuously absent from the awards swirl thus far. The same could be said for the fifth nominee, Judd Apatow's The 40-Year Old Virgin, but whilst it may be rare that comedies get recognition at all, it certainly couldn't be said that this screenplay doesn't deserve recognition.

On to the Producer's party. To my mind, the PGA has done absolutely nothing very surprising, but Variety is predictably spinning this set of noms as a big fat Indie Triumph. Whatever – Brokeback Mountain might be the work of an indie arm, but it's as much of a studio production as the one straight-ahead studio film on the list, plain old Fox's Walk the Line. Also nominated: Crash, Capote, and Good Night and Good Luck.

As with the Globes, Munich's absence is so conspicuous as to be troubling. Is Spielberg's latest dead?