| Funny People | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Judd Apatow |
| Written by | Judd Apatow |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Janusz Kamiński |
| Edited by | |
| Music by |
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Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures[1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 146 minutes[3] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75 million[4] |
| Box office | $71 million[4] |
Funny People is a 2009 Americanblackcomedy-drama film written and directed byJudd Apatow, co-produced byApatow Productions andMadison 23 Productions, and starringAdam Sandler,Seth Rogen andLeslie Mann, withEric Bana,Jonah Hill andJason Schwartzman in supporting roles. The film follows a famous comedian who is diagnosed with a terminal disease and tries to fix the relationships in his life while befriending an aspiring comedian.
The film was released byUniversal Pictures on July 31, 2009, to mixed reviews from critics, and was abox-office bomb, grossing $71 million against its $75 million budget. It was the final film produced by Madison 23 Productions, as Sandler retired the label after its release.
George Simmons is a middle-aged retiredstand-up comedian turnedmovie star. Despite hiswealth, he is disillusioned anddepressed as most of his recent film work is low-brow and poorly received. Diagnosed withacute myeloid leukemia, he is offered an experimental treatment that has only an 8% success rate. Believing he is about to die, he returns to his roots of stand-up comedy.
Ira Wright is an aspiring stand-up comedian in his 20s, sharing an apartment with his two best friends, Mark and Leo. Mark successfully leads his ownTV comedy series. Leo is a rising comedy star and recurring guest star on Mark's TV show.
George meets Ira at a small comedy club, first hiring him as his assistant; Ira becomes one of his only close relationships. Later he becomes his joke writer, opening for him in big comedy clubs, often meeting with real-life comedians who talk about the business.
George reconnects with his ex-fiancée, Laura, currently married to Clarke. Once hisphysician tells him the leukemia is inremission, he decides he wants her back. Laura invites George and Ira to her house inMarin County while her husband is away on business. They spend quality time with her and her two young daughters. George and Laura sneak off to have sex, Clarke returns home and there is an altercation.
Laura faces a choice between her husband Clarke, who she suspects has cheated on her (he later confirms he received ahappy ending at a massage parlor), or George (who also cheated on her many times). Ira is not always on George's side in the love triangle, so when it doesn't go George's way in the end, he fires him, who then calls George out on having learned nothing from hisnear-death experience.
Ira returns to his old food-service job and starts dating his crush. After some time has passed, George attends Ira's stand-up act and sees that his old assistant has become a talented and competent performer. The next day, George finds Ira at work, revealing their friendship is important to him. They reconnect as friends, telling each other jokes as equals.
ComediansOrny Adams,Dave Attell,Andy Dick,Charles Fleischer,Budd Friedman, Monty Hoffman,Carol Leifer,Al Lubel,Norm Macdonald, Rod Man,Jerry Minor,Paul Reiser,Ray Romano, Mark Schiff,Sarah Silverman, andGeorge Wallace had cameos as themselves in the roles of George's fellow comedians,[5] while comediansTyler Spindel andKyle Kinane respectively played a college guy with a camera and a paparazzo at the medical center. RapperEminem,[6] musicianJames Taylor,[7] andMyspace founderTom Anderson also briefly appeared as themselves. MusiciansJon Brion,James Gadson, andSebastian Steinberg appeared in the film as members of George's jam band. ActressCarla Gallo and comedianBo Burnham[8] appeared as characters onYo Teach!, the television show within the film which stars Mark,[9] whileJustin Long and Apatow regularKen Jeong had cameos as characters in the movies for which George is famous.[10] In the film, the posters for George's films also featured actorsOwen Wilson andElizabeth Banks in them.[11] ActorsSteve Bannos andElaine Kao had small roles respectively as a deli manager and a mom with a camera.
Judd Apatow had expressed his desire to make a stand-up comedian mentor film loosely based on his own early experiences as a struggling performer.[12] He could not come up with an interesting idea, however, since most of his mentors were kind to him. He then thought of making a film about a mentor facing a life crisis, and decided to cast his former roommateAdam Sandler after seeing him inReign Over Me. They discussed making the film almost two years prior to production.[13]
Apatow had cast Sandler,Seth Rogen, andLeslie Mann as the three leads in March 2008.[14]Eric Bana,Jonah Hill, andJason Schwartzman were cast in June 2008 when the title of the film was announced. When asked about the decision to cast Bana, Apatow said that both he and Rogen are fans of his films; Rogen additionally commented they cast him as the husband because he was someone who would be considered an intimidating presence to both Sandler and Rogen.[15] Bana mentioned that he decided to play the character with his native Australian accent so he would be more comfortable improvising.[16][17] Apatow and Mann's daughters,Maude andIris Apatow, play the young girls in the film. Both Apatow and Mann state that this casting choice allowed for more natural dialogue for the children, but the girls have not been allowed to actually see the film.[18]
Academy Award-winning cinematographerJanusz Kamiński handled the cinematography for the film. Apatow had Sandler, Rogen, and Hill write their own material for routines. Apatow filmed them performing their routines in front of live audiences, using six cameras to capture their performances and audience reactions. Apatow filmed their entire performances, although only five to ten minutes of stand-up footage appear in the film. Hill admitted his performance was not well-received because he had never done stand-up before. Additionally, Apatow filmed scenes from Sandler's character's fictional filmography, as well as scenes from Schwartzman's character's fictional television showYo Teach!, for the film to add realism.[19]
Apatow used an old video of Sandler, from when the two were roommates, in which Sandler makes prank phone calls, and features a youngBen Stiller andJaneane Garofalo.[20]
The firstteaser poster for the film was released on November 13, 2008.[21] That same day,Universal Pictures andMySpace partnered together to launch a contest that would allow people to have a part in the film by just writing a comment explaining why.[22] Additionally, Apatow held astand-up comedy concert event called "A Night of Funny People" at theOrpheum Theater inLos Angeles to film a scene for the movie.[23] The event was open to the general public and featured acts byAdam Sandler,Seth Rogen,Aziz Ansari,Sarah Silverman,David Spade, andPatton Oswalt, with Sandler, Rogen, and Ansari performing as their characters in the film. The firsttheatrical trailer for the film was released on February 20, 2009, on the Internet, with a shortened version first appearing in theaters withI Love You, Man.
A website for a fictional television show-within-a-film was created onNBC.com.[24] The sitcom,Yo Teach!, "stars" character Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman), a C-list actor portraying a young teacher with a class of failing students, and includes a cameo byinternet celebrityBo Burnham.[25]
A website forAziz Ansari's character Randy Springs was created, along with a documentary of the character onFunnyOrDie.com. The documentary was directed byJason Woliner.[26]
Comedy Central aired a special, "Inside Funny People" on July 20, documenting the making of the film and showing clips of the stand-up. On July 24, the channel also aired "Funny People: Live", a live broadcast stand-up featuring Sandler, Rogen, and Hill as part of the film's promotion.[27]
Funny People premiered on July 20, 2009, inLos Angeles, California.[20] It was released in all territories byUniversal Pictures.
Funny People was released onDVD andBlu-ray in the United States on November 24, 2009, byUniversal Studios Home Entertainment. There is a one-disc "Unrated & Theatrical" cut and a two-disc "Unrated Edition". The Unrated cut of the film runs at 153 minutes. It was released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010.[28]
Funny People grossed $51.9 million in the United States and Canada and $19.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $71.6 million, against a production budget of $75 million.[4]
In North America, the film was released on July 31, 2009, in 3,007 theaters. It grossed $8.6 million on its opening day and $22.7 million on its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office.[4]
OnRotten Tomatoes,Funny People holds an approval rating of 69% based on 236 reviews and an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Funny People features the requisite humor, as well as considerable emotional depth, resulting in Judd Apatow's most mature film to date."[29] Another review aggregator,Metacritic, gave the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[30] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[31]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film 3 and a half of four stars, calling it "a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances — and it's about something. It could have easily been a formula film...but George Simmons learns and changes during his ordeal, and we empathize." It is the highest rating Ebert ever gave an Adam Sandler film, tied with his review forPunch-Drunk Love.[32]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone also praised the film, writing, "Apatow scores by crafting the film equivalent of a stand-up routine that encompasses the joy, pain, anger, loneliness and aching doubt that go into making an audience laugh."[33]
Michael Phillips of theChicago Tribune gave the film one of its mixed reviews, complaining of the film's two-and-a-half-hour running time: "Funny People is...an attempt by Apatow to reconcile the huge success he has become with the up-and-comer he once was. The results run an increasingly exasperating 2½ hours.".[34]
Manohla Dargis ofThe New York Times complains the film is "irritatingly self-satisfied" and describes the film as "nice" ... "but nice can be murder on comedy and drama alike".[35]
Gene Shalit of NBC'sThe Today Show stated that it's "a smirk of faithful characters that are making a vanity movie about themselves that keeps not ending for 2 1/2 unendurable hours. Director Judd Apatow wrote the script and it's vulgar, in fact, it's ineffable because without the letter F, he would have no script."[36]
| Funny People: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
| Released | July 28, 2009 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Label | Concord Records |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| PopMatters |   Link |
Funny People: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on July 28, 2009.
Bonus tracks on iTunes release:
The film also features "Joanna" byKool & The Gang, "Three Little Birds" byBob Marley, "Diamond Dave" byThe Bird and the Bee, "Man in the Box" byAlice in Chains, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" byBill Medley &Jennifer Warnes, "Walk Like an Egyptian" byThe Bangles, "In Private" byPaul McCartney, "Cat Song" by Tomoko Kataoka and "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" byGeorge Harrison. Songs from all four former members ofThe Beatles are in the film and on its soundtrack.
The Blu-ray and two-disc DVD includes a jam session of Adam Sandler andJon Brion performing "Real Love", "Photograph", and a previously unreleased cover ofThe English Beat's "Save It for Later." (The band's original 1982 version of the song is used in the movie.)
Additional songs used in the film's trailers are "We Will Become Silhouettes" byThe Postal Service, "My Friend" byDr. Dog, and "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again)" by Wilco.
