Peter Segel joined the ranks of Freaks and Geeks alumni who went on to successful writing and/or directing careers (the list includes James Franco, Seth Rogan, and John Francis Daley) with Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), which he wrote and starred in for producer Judd Apatow. It’s a plot you can recount in a sentence—a guy […]
Somewhere between Dawson’s Creek and Booksmart is the sharp, funny, and surprisingly poignant high school dram-edy (for lack of a better word) Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000). Linda Cardellini grounds the series as Junior Lindsay, the former class brain who rejects her place in the school hierarchy and, in startling identity crisis, gravitates toward the school […]
The Judd Apatow factory refreshed the coming-of-age comedy (for all ages of adolescent men) in comedies like Knocked Up, Superbad, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall before stretching itself thin (that’s my best explanation for Drillbit Taylor and Step Brothers). One of the smartest things he did was to seek out directors not normally associated with his […]
The raucous and raunchy comedy Superbad (2007) is the love child of American Pie and Dazed and Confused. Behind its floridly foul streams of profanity and adolescent preoccupation with sex and alcohol is a savvy evocation of teenage insecurity and the confused ideas and feelings about the opposite sex. It’s produced by Judd Apatow and […]
Knocked Up (2007), Judd Apatow’s follow-up to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, finds few virgins on hand. Seth Rogen is likable, laid-back slacker schlub Ben (an early version of what has become his stock in trade role), whose one night stand with the gorgeous Alison (Katherine Heigl), a TV production assistant on the road to an on-air […]
Steve Carrell is a sweet, shy middle-aged geek and the last American virgin in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), the feature debut of director Judd Apatow (who wrote the film with Carrell), an oddly sweet mix of romantic comedy and adolescent shenanigans, albeit with a slightly older cast. When he’s pulled out of the stock room […]
I don’t think I laughed as hard at any movie comedy in 2015 as I did with Trainwreck, Amy Schumer’s big screen debut feature as writer / star. Abetted by the direction of Judd Apatow, who has been moving from male-centric comedies to more inclusive stories, she brings her raunchy style of social commentary and self-effacing […]
Hey now! The Larry Sanders Show was the original buzz show on HBO. A scathingly funny sitcom created by and starring Garry Shandling, it ran on the channel’s late-night schedule between 1992 and 1998, receiving fair ratings, great reviews and a rabid following in Hollywood as it became the industry’s cult show. Shandling had previously […]
After developing and producing the critically acclaimed but quickly cancelled shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, Judd Apatow turned to the movies, where he directed a few and produced even more hit R-rated comedies. Now he’s created his first original series in over a decade: Love, a romantic comedy starring Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust […]
“Do you have to be miserable to be funny?” That’s the question that comedian and actor Kevin Pollak poses to his fellow performers in the documentary Misery Loves Comedy, his directorial debut. It’s a fair question and a serious one—the film is, after all, dedicated to Robin Williams, who took his own life while Pollak […]
