"the plot involves an average-looking, underachieving guy who's desperate to forget the beautiful, successful woman who's just dumped him"

Again? What's with the chubby, lovable jester and the uptight driven women as a couple?

So all of his movies feature a thinly veiled schlub alter ego and a fantasy woman?

I'm not looking forward to 30 years of mediocre movies that critics and cultists won't stop talking about. And no one else will care about.

you're on a writing roll this week

I haven't seen the movie yet, but one of the funniest things I've heard about it is in this article about some women actually named Sarah Marshall who are a little irked at its ad campaign with lines plastered on posters like "YOU SUCK SARAH MARSHALL," and "YOU DO LOOK FAT IN THOSE JEANS, SARAH MARSHALL."

Check out the sign one made giving Apatow a little bit of payback :)

http://bigpicture.fancast.com/2008/04/fancast_feature_sarah_marshall.html

..looks like I'll be forgetting about seeing this movie.

That is invariably one of the failings that gets writer/directors one way or another--especially when they concentrate on romantic dramedy. And now that w/ds go straight from struggling writer to brand name practically overnight, that failing shows up faster (and causes a lot more damage) than it would if said w/d had a slower rate of production.

The set-up sounds like it was lifted from Noel Coward's Private Lives, at least partially, but with one character missing and less than half the wit. I wonder what it says about the American psyche that zhlubs are becoming sex symbols--or at least they're being marketted as such.

My impression is that all of Judd Apatow's work has received far more praise than it is due. His body of work is reminiscent of Porky's or Revenge of the Nerds:some funny stuff, but hardly life-changing or great film-making. Judd would do well to take his money and run now, before churning out even more versions of the same rehashed garbage.

I'll sum up all of Judd's movies: Jew, schlubby guy goes for snotty, gentile blond woman who reluctantly settles for him. These movies are representative of his very own life. Judd and Woody have more than being Jewish in common... they're both misogynists.

I thought he did, for a while, because his movies always seem like chummy grown-up versions of the Boys Against the Girls games played in elementary school. What may really be going on, though, is that men like Apatow and Segal and their ilk have realized that they can make their own boy versions of chick flicks (the "funny" ones, not the ones put together to make you cry).

Few of the women featured in chick flicks hate men, but they often promote a very Up With Girls, Sisters Doing it For Themselves kind of vibe . . . maybe Knocked Up, et al are their counterparts?

Of all the Apatow movies, only Superbad was actually funny. I thought 40 year old virgin sucked, and Knocked up wasn't funny at all. Maybe I'm just not hip and down with the latest crappola being spewed out by Hollywood these days.

1. All mainstream movies that a reasonable number of people like are actually terrible, and I'm an idiot for falling under their spell.

2. All mainstream movies that everybody hates are actually not that bad, and I'm just not clever enough to spot the entertaining qualities in them.

3. The only reliably good movies are the ones I'd have to travel to a five-seat theater in rural Cambodia to see.

I've never understood why some people are so quick to brand Judd Apatow a misogynist because of the two movies he's written and directed, The 40-Year-Old-Virgin and Knocked Up. If anything, I always felt that, from a critical viewpoint, the men in those two movies were treated far more harshly than the women. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the two characters with negative views of women are themselves treated negatively for it. Paul Rudd's David is exposed as an obsessed stalker (which causes even his friend, Cal, to retract his support), while Romany Malco's character Jay is exposed as a misogynist and is given his shameful comeuppance. Contrasted to these two is Steve Carell's Andy, who is hardworking, polite, respectful of women and his girlfriend. The girlfriend, Catherine Keener's Trish, is smart, friendly, and an aspiring entrepreneur: hardly a negative stereotype. The message of Knocked Up seemes to be that Seth Rogen's character Ben, while affable, has to grow up, learn to work hard, be a supportive boyfriend and be a good father. Alison, his girlfriend, is very understandably angry when he doesn't live up to this. Paul Rudd's character Pete at first resents his lack of time away from his life, but ultimately feels ashamed for not realizing that she merely enjous spending time with him and that he was being disrepectful.Ultimately, the two films seem to provide examples of inappropriate or misogynistic men while ultimately showing the positive traits of a responsible alternative. One reason for the focus on the male characters is that the female ones simply don't have much, if any, room for improvement.

It is also baffling why the mere presence of films with male-dominated casts is sometimes enough to spur accusations of misogyny. gcboyd17 very astutely pointed out that these films' counterparts, romantic comedies with woman-dominated casts, are not similarly criticized or understood as being out of the ordinary. Friends was similarly accused of racism for having an all-white leading cast, while shows like Family Matters or The Fresh Prince did not face similar accusations for having all-black ones. It strikes me that forcing filmmakers to shoehorn in characters for the sake of equal representation compromises the integrity of the eventual product.

whether or not the apatow formula is laced with a bit of misogyny is up for debate, but they're certainly beginning to look like fairy tales for the doughnut and beer crowd. being a sympathetic, regular doofus is one thing; landing beautiful women with that as your primary attribute is quite another.

oh well, only in hollywood ...