(4 stars out of five)--I've waited a long, long time... and finally, it's happened: Judd Apatow has made his feature-film directing debut. Apatow's television directing goes back to The Larry Sanders Show, and he was one of the main creative forces behind Freaks and Geeks (along with, of course, the show's creator, Paul Feig). The result? Exactly the kind of movie I was hoping Apatow would turn out.
For all its vulgarity and raunchiness, the movie is actually very bold in its message that it gives in the end: At first, the main character's virginity is the butt of the joke, but eventually, the fact that he's a virgin makes him the best person of the bunch, so to speak. Because he hasn't had his emotional outlook clouded by sex, he's able to see much more clearly when Ms. Right does come along. This is a movie that starts out being just what you think it is, and then sneaks in some amazingly insightful things about the overemphasis of sex in relationships and about the lack of emotion in today's intimacy. Oh, but don't worry - it's still pretty damn funny. There's hardly a minute that goes by in which you're not chuckling at something. An exceptional group of actors - perfectly cast, by the way (including Freaks and Geeks' Seth Rogen(!) and Oscar-nominee Catherine Keener) - also helps quite a bit. Sure, some jokes fall flat, but not to the extent of Wedding Crashers.
People might notice that I've given this movie the same rating as Wedding Crashers... So which one is better? Well, they really are (despite what you might read) two quite different movies. I definitely laughed harder during Wedding Crashers, but the actual better movie of the two is this one. The other film relies on the stars' chemistry and a breakneck pace to propel the movie through its rough spots, and most of the laughs come from that aforementioned chemistry and some of the wacky situations that take place. In this one, most of the laughs come from the dialogue, rather than the situations the characters are in. The best way to explain it is, while both movies are quite funny, Wedding Crashers goes the route of piling on joke after joke, throwing them relentlessly at the audience, hoping that most of them will connect... which they fortunately do. The 40-Year-Old Virgin takes its time with its jokes, weaves them more cohesively into the storyline, and is overall a highly fine-tuned film, with every little beat and pause worked out to be just long enough. I encourage everyone to read this article, which is a great little examination of the test-screening process that the film went through. While I'm not usually a huge fun of this, it's obvious that Apatow's close examination of the movie, and the subsequent fine-tuning of the film using that information, really paid off.
A fine feature debut by Apatow. Hopefully we see much, much more from him. (Oh, and just one more thing: Freaks and Geeks fans should keep their eyes open for several cameos from regulars on that show).
Red-Eye
(3 stars out of five)-- Wes Craven's best film since the original Scream has movie clichés galore, an overlong feeling despite being only 85 minutes, and characters that are paper-thin, but still manages to create a considerable amount of suspense. The opening 10 minutes or so feel awkwardly pedestrian, as if Craven was out to lunch during the shooting of it. Everything feels nice and tense, though, once the plot thickens. Craven usually fares best with big set pieces, but here he proves he can do just as well with mining suspense out of dialogue and chemistry (the biggest jump in the movie occurs during one of these scenes, and it's brilliant). He does get the chance to do a couple of the aforementioned setpieces, however, and he does his usual stellar job with them. It sort of rambles in the beginning, and the ending is nothing new, but this film succeeds in what it tries to do - nothing more, nothing less.
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