This Is 40 (Judd Apatow)

[Boner M]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/)

http://jstsaying.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/this-is-40-poster.jpg

[Boner M]

In the non-public-poll thread, I said


Had a 'has Apatow changed or have I changed' experience with this film, as it's roughly the same flabby overlong film as Knocked Up and Funny People, only it hit every mark for me. Hmm.

To which D7 replied


Definitely an unexpected reaction from you. Color me intrigued.

To which I say nothing cos I got nothing at the moment.

[transmogrifier]

Funny People was one of those rare movies that I started watching at home and gave up halfway through. I was eating something, thought "I should wash this plate", paused the movie to do so, and then never got around to finishing it.

There's a lesson in that for all of us, I think.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Funny People was one of those rare movies that I started watching at home and gave up halfway through. I was eating something, thought "I should wash this plate", paused the movie to do so, and then never got around to finishing it.

There's a lesson in that for all of us, I think.

You clean up well?

[transmogrifier]

I don't know about well, but it was more fun than the movie.

[NickGlass]

I would much rather see this version:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/6408b60d6cd4044d8d2ddfbeca3164 63/tumblr_metsje5Jeq1qa9siqo1_128 0.png

[NickGlass]

Funny People was one of those rare movies that I started watching at home and gave up halfway through. I was eating something, thought "I should wash this plate", paused the movie to do so, and then never got around to finishing it.

There's a lesson in that for all of us, I think.

This happened to me twice, as well.

[number8]

I saw the older version of the trailer for this today. I had forgotten that they did a reedit and put together the new one that's currently playing before movies. Do you guys remember the original? It's pretty much an identical trailer, except Paul Rudd says "light up" instead of "smoke pot" to Chris Dowd (I guess the trailer was cut before they found out that you can say pot in green band trailers), and it has the super obnoxious "This is not their story, this is everyone's story" tagline that pissed me off originally. Good to see that they grew some sense and removed that.

[plain]

Clearly Apatow's comfiest and most mature offering, so many honest moments that resonate throughout. Does feature the occasional scene or two that probably should have been cut out, but there's little here that detracts in a substantial manner. Plays like a direct extension to Funny People in many ways (sans Bana awfulness), but all the more gratifying. Albert Brooks sneakingly steals every scene he's in.

[ledfloyd]

i had a weird experience with this film. for 45 minutes or so i was pretty unengaged. i found it to be rather flat, and i wasn't nearly as enamored with apatow's kids as he seemed to be. to this point, the highlights were albert brooks and chris o'dowd, not promising as they're both supporting characters. but when mann and rudd go away to the hotel to have some alone time something in their relationship clicks and the rest of the film worked really well for me. to the point that i had a huge smile on my face when ryan adams was performing.

also, i laughed SO hard when charlene yi meowed. i don't know why, but it was the funniest joke in the movie for me.

[eternity]

This movie works really well for me because absolutely none of the characters are likable.

[Henry Gale]

Well, my expectations were admittedly very high for this (despite its recent mixed reaction from critics and audiences) as Apatow's first three films probably rank amongst the ten best comedies of the last ten years for me, so I became increasingly bummed out over the course of the film, not because of its dramatic beats, but because it began to feel less and less like an especially necessary follow-up to either of his last two films and merely a less compelling revisiting of territory his stories have occupied ,before. It's like he put the scripts for his other films in a blender, removed Seth Rogen's underrated catalytic comedic presence, and shaped the remaining musings into scenes based on experiences from his own life.

You have Virgin's 40-year-old mid-life crisis framing (and biking montages!), Knocked Up's supporting characters (and one other major element that finds it way into the narrative again), Funny People's family dynamics (with less outright conflicts) and protagonists that find gaping holes in lives where they seemingly have everything.

I hate to say it, but I feel like he already said everything here just as well with these characters' limited screentime in Knocked Up. And this seems like a condensed first season of a spin-off television series that won't get a second season.

Having said all of this, the film, at its best, is still what I wish more American comedies strived to be. It just simultaneously has too many ideas, but not a great variety of ways to convey them, all within a simple overlying thematic and narrative drive. When it's funny, it's very much so, but at the same time, the bits that come along that don't work really cause the film to suffer, which, even as a person that loves Funny People, I can say is a new, disheartening experience for me with Apatow's films. Still, there's not really a weak spot in the cast, the film maintains a very low-key but well-played arc, and even though I didn't love it, it still saddens me that it isn't connecting with audiences at the box office. But this bombing pushes Judd away from going back to this generally established and achieved thematic and character well for his fifth film, then maybe it's not an entirely bad thing.

It's Apatow's most shapeless film, which is a style that works really well for the first half hour or so when there's no real narrative drive forcing it around, but once it passes the two hour mark and it's still making time for subplots, it's a bit confusing. Overall, it is good, just not exactly great, and yet that's still more disappointing for me than a lot of outright bad movies for me this year considering the heights he's managed to hit as a director before. It has some stuff of that caliber, just way too much else.

*** / B

[Mr. McGibblets]

I thought this was mostly awful. It's horribly paced (random subplots like the fight with Tom Petty's mother take up far more time than they should and don't fit into the flow of the film at all) and the two leads really seem to dislike each other enough that having them stay happily together is a bad solution. Plus, him basically stealing their money and giving it to his father is so much worse than anything she does that everything is unbalanced. And the continued references to LOST are extremely weird.

Chris O'Dowd absolutely kills it, though. I would have loved the whole movie to be about him fighting with Jason Siegel over women.

[Mr. Pink]

And the continued references to LOST are extremely weird.


I heard him promoting the movie and he was talking about how kids can blow through several years worth of tv shows in a few weeks, like his daughter did with Lost. So apparently it's in the movie just because his daughter did that, and not because it's even remotely interesting.


That's kind of how the whole movie felt for me. It's probably pretty relevant to him and people who have been through similar things, but even then/otherwise, I don't really see the point in making a movie about it.

A married couple trying to make their respective businesses work, trying to have a decent sex life, dealing with kids, etc., are things that happen in life, but that doesn't necessarily make it interesting enough to base a movie on.

With his other movies, I easily get sucked into the worlds he creates, but this one never connected and can't really think of a single scene that got more than small laugh from me. Pretty disappointing, overall.

[Mr. McGibblets]

I heard him promoting the movie and he was talking about how kids can blow through several years worth of tv shows in a few weeks, like his daughter did with Lost. So apparently it's in the movie just because his daughter did that, and not because it's even remotely interesting.

The choice of show just adds nothing to the movie. It doesn't inform about her character, it doesn't add to any of the themes or ideas. In contrast, when Paul Rudd's character likes Mad Men, that both makes sense and is funny.

Like so much else in this film, her obsession is just an aside that doesn't really fit with anything else.

[DavidSeven]

Surprisingly affecting. Formless in both craft and narrative, but the individual moments consistently work. I preferred this to both Funny People and Knocked Up. It benefits from the lack of a broad comedian in a major role as the frequent turns to straight drama feel more genuine than they might otherwise. The few attempts to go broad might be the weakest parts of the film. It's not quite a landmark moment for Apatow, but closer to the right mix that made his TV work successful than his last couple of efforts.

[EyesWideOpen]

Apatow has yet to let me down.

[Lazlo]

I didn't have the patience for this. Way too long.

Anyone else find it weird that it felt like the story took place over the course of a year but really all that was crammed into a week and a half or so?

[Pop Trash]

I think in The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up Apatow's slack pacing and over length (not sure if this stems from the screenplay or editing or a bit of both) was semi-charming when he was still something of a Hollywood underdog but at this point now that he practically is Hollywood feature comedies, it just comes off as lazy phoning-it-in.

[Ezee E]

I didn't have the patience for this. Way too long.

Anyone else find it weird that it felt like the story took place over the course of a year but really all that was crammed into a week and a half or so?

This. Especially the cramming at the end. Between birthdays, figuring out who's stealing, doctor visits... Seemed like a year's worth of stuff going on. There's bits that work because all the actors involved are great at comedy. There's just no story for them to work with. I enjoy 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up because there's actually a story going on, instead of just people drifting around for hours at a time.