Collider have a video interview with Justin Long that's ostensibly about Die Hard 4 but actually touches on many other things. The best bit, as far as I was concerned, detailed a scene shot for Jake Kasdan's Walk Hard.
In said scene, Long plays George Harrison of The Beatles; Jack Black, as mentioned in the headline is Paul McCartney; Paul Rudd is John Lennon; and Jason Schwartzman is Ringo Starr.
Can't fail... can it?
The MTV Movies Blog have spoken to Judd Apatow about a pair of fake documentaries that will be appearing on the eventual Knocked Up DVD. One of them is the origin of that Michael Cera clip posted on Funny or Die - in the full film, several actors are seen auditioning for Seth Rogen's role. The other doc is about Bennet Miller being sent in by the studio to take over the reigns from Apatow. That's almost my worst nightmare - chalk that up as fake documentary, real horror film.
Hopefully there'll be some genuine documentary material on there too. Some of us, Mr. Apatow, are actually interested in what you'd really have to say about your film, and filmmaking.
The lack of 'real' bonus material has always been my issue with the Spinal Tap DVD, I'm afraid. I'd trade in the character commentary for one from Rob Reiner - not Marty DiBergi - any day of the week.
...at least take an apple from the tree, not a wormy one from somebody's bucket . The video appeared on Funny or Die to begin with, before it got pirated and spread around site to site. While Funny or Die still have it up, don't you think the decent thing to do would be to see it there?
This clip is a smart way to promote Knocked Up... but personally, it didn't make me laugh one half as much as I'd hoped.
It seems like this is Judd Apatow's year. The next comedy he is producing has been announced - A Whole New Hugh - adding to an already heavy slate of pet projects he isn't even directing himself, and it looks like he's gotten the studio execs eating out of the palm of his hand.
I remember the first inkling I got that 40 Year Old Virgin might be something special. There was an article in Creative Screenwriter which discussed Apatow and Carrell's approach to writing - and they had a very sensible approach, truthful, structured and logical and definitely dedicated to quality. They really seemed to know what they were doing.
Even still, the film surprised me hugely. It was probably my favourite film of 2005, though not the one I would say was 'best, necessarily'. Not quite, anyway.
And now comes Knocked Up. I must be one of a handful to have not seen this at some kind of advance screening somewhere, and I am bitterly jealous of the billions who have. If Apatow and company have nailed this one as squarely as I've been told, then that pretty much cements the director's standing. Judd Apatow appears to be the new Billy Wilder. Well, if Cameron Crowe wasn't the new Billy Wilder, anyway. The other new Billy Wilder.
The key difference, time and place aside, is that Wilder didn't produce a massive heap of secondary projects that he himself wasn't directing. As I was worrying about above, Apatow's plate is looking pretty full - You Don't Mess With the Zohan, A Whole New Hugh, Walk Hard, Attorneys At Raw. For the moment at least, Apatow seems to be a one-man greenlight machine, launching films he finds interesting, giving leg-ups to the talent he admires. Lucky fellow - and that goes for his admirees too.
When will it end? Well, I expect it to be dialled down rather quickly. If Zohan or Attorneys, say, winds up a big money loser, that will probably see Apatow's wings clipped. But his primary career (I'm supposing) as a writer-director would still be safe. Curtailing that anytime soon would take Knocked Up to flop, and I'm confidently predicting that it won't.
Indeed, I'm confidently predicting over $100 million in domestic takings.
My main point, however, is that we're living in the time that Judd Apatow is actually working. and not looking back on it like some kind of golden era, as I've had to with Wilder, Preston Sturgess or even the 'first-half Mel Brooks'. Apatow is going to be treasured for decades but right now, he might be seen as 'just another Hollywood comedy director', if a particularly good one. It seems to take a whole lot of wasted time for studio films to get their due respect, while 'independent' films, of course, come under (typically unjust) consideration immediately.
Why are we surprised that the big, cash-rich companies can afford the talent to make most of the best films and make them well? For an independent film to meet the best studio productions on every level there's a ridiculous amount of luck required - principally involving good cast and crew being available at that budget level.
These 'Hollywood' folk make more of the truly great films than any other single 'industry' on the globe. They certainly don't make them all, and they also make an almost incomprehensible amount of dreck too, but there's no sense in knocking 'Hollywood' so quick-and-easily all of the time.
Jake Kasdan's Walk Hard is starting to sound quite odd. We already knew it was a fake biopic of Dewey Cox, a rock and roll god played by John C Reilly who somehow seems to intersect with most of music history from the 50s onwards - but did we know it was going to feature the ghost of a ten year old as another key character? I've been made privy to a really interesting nugget...
Early in the film, the young Dewey and his brother Nate are playing a game they call Machete (catchy - somebody should make a film with that name) when Dewey 'accidentally' kills Nate. So far so sane - but then, later, Nate keeps reappearing. He's still a ten year old, but he's grown very embittered. He's almost Dewey's conscience - but don't think Jiminy Crickett, this is more Baby Herman.
Sounds like a plum role for a kid to nab, so congratulations to Chip Hormess who has won it. I'm expecting Kasdan and Judd Apatow to make a great combination and really deliver with this film. Are you?
The BBFC have rated Knocked Up with a 15 certificate, compared to the MPAA's R rating in the US. I can't wait to see this film.
In a really rather good column for VH1, Judd Apatow reveals how he was once approached to write a script for a Borat movie, something on how the eventual film went on to be unscripted after all, and eventually, how the finished film formed a fleeting bond between Apatow and Eric Idle.
