When they were college roommates, Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow made crank phone calls and dreamed of carving out big show biz careers for themselves. Two decades later, the comedy kingpins reunite in Funny People.
The R-rated comedy casts Sandler as a bitter movie star who gets really depressed after a visit to the doctor’s office. Darker than writer-director Apatow’s The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and Knocked Up (2007), Funny People hits theaters Friday brimming with raunchy cock ‘n’ balls humor delivered by Sandler and nerdy sidekicks played by Jason Schwartzman, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill (left to right, pictured above).
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Also opening Friday in limited release (New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco) is Thirst. The art-house vampire movie from Old Boy director Park Chan-wook won the Cannes Grand Jury prize earlier this year. Aiming for the younger crowd this weekend: PG comedy Aliens in the Attic.
Pick of the week: Funny People. It could have been more compact, but this experiment in stand-up tragedy packs in nudity, naughty jokes and off-kilter performances to generally winning effect.
Read more about this week’s theatrical offerings, watch trailers and vote for your favorite new movies below.
Funny People Synopsis: Short on friends and newly diagnosed with a terminal disorder, movie star/standup comic George Simmons (played by Adam Sandler) hires a wannabe comedian (Seth Rogen) as his assistant. Complications ensue when Simmons tries to reunite with his ex-girlfriend (Leslie Mann), now married to a witless Australian (Eric Bana) and raising two girls in Northern California. Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman co-star for writer-director Judd Apatow. Rated: R
Mini-review: Sandler does a pretty good job of making us sympathize with the “plight” of a selfish millionaire movie star seemingly imprisoned in a gorgeous oceanfront estate and hounded by beautiful groupies. Crammed with pop culture references and celebrity cameos (including balladeer James Taylor snarling “Fuck Facebook” at the end of his MySpace corporate gig), Funny People comes across as a love letter to the snarky craft of making strangers laugh disguised as a romantic comedy. Clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes, Funny People‘s shock shtick wears thin at times; though it’s not as funny as The 40 year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Apatow and his quip-happy cast deserve credit for trying to work some deep thinking into the cavalcade of dirty jokes. — Hugh Hart Rating: 
Thirst (limited) Synopsis: South Korean new-wave director Park Chan-wook (Old Boy) puts a weirdo spin on vampires, exploring the hideous aftermath of a failed medical experiment when an infected priest turns into a bloodsucker with good intentions. Rated: R
Aliens in the Attic Synopsis: When kids on vacation in Maine discover that glowing pods from a meteor shower have turned up upstairs, they disarm the creatures with high-tech inventiveness. The live-action/animation hybrid from Madagascar co-writer Mark Burton features the voices of Carter Jenkins, Ashley Tisdale, Austin Butler, Kevin Nealon and Doris Roberts. Rated: PG
Orphan Synopsis: When their unborn child dies, devastated parents decides to adopt. Drawn to a girl at a nearby orphanage, they take the sweet 9-year-old home and soon learn that the child is not what she appears to be. Vera Farmiga, Peter Saarsgard star as the parents with Isabella Fuhrman as the youngster. Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax) directs. Rated:R
G-Force Synopsis: 3-D animated/live action adventure about four tech-savvy guinea pigs — the type A leader (voiced by Sam Rockwell), a weapons expert (Tracy Morgan), martial arts wiz (Penélope Cruz) and computer genius (Nicolas Cage) — trained for espionage and out save the world with their wits and gadgets. Jerry Bruckheimer produces the comedy directed by two-time Oscar-winning visual effects master Hoyt Yeatman (The Abyss). Rated: PG
The Ugly Truth Synopsis: Actioner Gerard Butler (300, RocknRolla) stars opposite Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up) in a battle-of-the-sexes movie about perennially single TV producer Abby who gets teamed with a macho on-air personality. Sparks fly. Rated: R
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Synopsis: Hogwarts’ prize pupil Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) takes on a new challenge when Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) directs him to uncover the secret past of evil Lord Voldemort. Harry’s longstanding archrival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) has a sinister agenda of his own. Elsewhere, steadfast classmates Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, played again by Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, get entangled in schoolyard crushes. Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman return for the sixth Potter film, with Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent joining the cast as cryptic potions professor Horace Slughorn. David Yates directs. Rated: PG-13
Review: Harry Potter Powers Through Puppy Love, Potions in Half-Blood Prince Feature: 3 Half-Blood Prince Bits Fans Will Love (and 3 They Might Not)
(500) Days of Summer Synopsis: When a greeting-card-writer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls for a cute Michigan girl (Zooey Deschanel), they embark on a 500-day journey of attraction, rejection, sex and confusion in the directorial debut of Marc Webb. Rated: PG-13
Brüno Synopsis: Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen reteams with Borat director Larry Charles to play gay fashionista Brüno. In his search for fame, Brüno mingles with talk-show audiences, stages a cage fight in Arkansas and insults a real Islamic terrorist. Rated: R
Mini-review: Invasive comedic genius Sasha Baron Cohen doesn’t stray from his twisted template in Brüno: He’s still luring people into outrageous situations and hitting them with a straight-faced blitz of bizarre behavior. Using the thinnest of plots, he strings together a series of increasingly extreme scenarios for his character — a flamboyant, supergay caricature with a celebrity fetish — to thrash through. It’s not quite as funny as Cohen’s previous movie, Borat, which wasn’t as funny as his side-splitting TV series, Da Ali G Show. But through it all, the comic chameleon’s talent for tormenting others shines through, yielding over-the-top laughs. It’s like Faces of Death of comedy: If you can see the humor in a full-screen close-up of a waggling wang, this foul treasure’s for you. — Lewis Wallace Rating: 
Public Enemies Synopsis: Johnny Depp stars as bank robber John Dillinger in this fact-based crime drama. Set in 1933, the film chronicles Dillinger’s jail breaks and bank robberies that culminated in a historic showdown on the streets of Chicago. In pursuit: Christian Bale, who plays a stern FBI agent reporting to J. Edgar Hoover (played by Watchmen‘s blue wonder, Billy Crudup). Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose) co-stars as Dillinger’s girlfriend, Billie Frechette, for co-writer/ director Michael Mann (The Insider, Ali, TV’s Miami Vice). Rated: R
Mini-review: The best live-action movie of the year so far captures one man’s Depression-era crime spree with riveting attention to detail. Director Michael Mann orchestrates a succession of shoot-outs and jailbreaks that are capped by a night-time machine gun fight in the Wisconsin forest that sets a new standard for chaotic gunplay. Dapper Johnny Depp sells Dillinger as a daring Indiana ex-con who genuinely cared for the guys in his gang. Cotillard finds unexpected depths in her saucy coat-check girl while Bale and Crudup play Dillinger’s up-tight FBI pursuers with taut precision. There’s not much in the way of character development — everybody ends up pretty much the way they start out, except some of them are dead — but snappy dialgoue, deluxe production design and real-life locations make Public Enemies a gripping crime saga in the spirit of Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables and Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition. Dillinger is dead. Long live this “Dillinger.” — Hugh Hart Rating: 
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Synopsis: Digital 3-D sequel finds woolly mammoth Manny (voiced by Ray Romano) and pregnant mate Ellie (Queen Latifah) uprooted from their icy climes to a world where dinosaurs roam. When sweet-hearted Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) decides he wants his own family and stumbles onto dino eggs, he adopts the little critters, unleashing all manner of prehistoric chaos. Dennis Leary voices Diego the Tiger with Simon Pegg as Buck. Rated: PG
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Synopsis: Director Michael Bay returns with Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox in a take-no-prisoners follow-up to the 2007 sci-fi action adventure. Wisecracking everyguy Sam (La Beouf) holds the key to an ancient secret, and evil alien Decepticon robots want it. Global mayhem leads to a showdown featuring nice alien Autobot Optimus Prime and the U.S. military. Written by Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and Robert Orci (Star Trek). Rated: PG-13
Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Takes Bot Action to Limit Feature: ‘Robot Sightings’ Hype Transformers Worldwide
Moon (limited) Synopsis: Sci-fi thriller, directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) and based on his own story idea, stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, a working-class guy nearing the end of his three-year stint mining the moon for helium. His computer, Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), has been his only company, but an unexpected mishap leaves him questioning reality. Rated: R
Review: Masterful Moon Takes Shot at Sci-Fi Greatness Feature: Moon Is Duncan Jones’ Homage to Classic Sci-Fi
The Proposal Synopsis: Sandra Bullock plays a high-powered exec on the verge of deportation to Canada. She forces her put-upon assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her, but only after they take a trip to meet his nutty family in Alaska. Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses, Step Up) directs. Rated: PG-13
