Funny People (2009)

When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.

Director:

Judd Apatow

Writer:

Judd Apatow

Stars:

Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Adam Sandler	...	George Simmons
Seth Rogen	...	Ira Wright
Leslie Mann	...	Laura
Eric Bana	...	Clarke
Jonah Hill	...	Leo Koenig
Jason Schwartzman	...	Mark Taylor Jackson
Aubrey Plaza	...	Daisy Danby
Maude Apatow	...	Mable
Iris Apatow	...	Ingrid
RZA	...	Chuck
Aziz Ansari	...	Randy
Torsten Voges	...	Dr. Lars
Allan Wasserman	...	Dr. Stevens
Rod Man	...	Himself
Wayne Federman	...	Comedy & Magic Manager

Storyline

George is a very successful stand up comedian who learns that he has an untreatable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira is a struggling up-and-coming stand up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One night, these two perform at the same club and George takes notice of Ira. George hires Ira to be his semi-personal assistant as well as his friend.

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Plot Keywords:

comedian | stand up comedian | woman on top | husband wife relationship | see through panties | 

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Taglines:

George Simmons was prepared to die, but then a funny thing happened.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and crude sexual humor throughout, and some sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

MySpace Universal Pictures [fr]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 July 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Untitled Judd Apatow/Adam Sandler Project

Filming Locations:

Griffith Park Observatory, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$75,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,001,152 (UK) (28 August 2009)

Gross:

£3,427,741 (UK) (18 September 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media

Technical Specs

Runtime:

146 min 153 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film features Warren Zevon songs "Keep Me in Your Heart" and "Numb as a Statue" from the 2003 Album "The Wind". Zevon began recording the album shortly after he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and it was released just two weeks before his death.

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Goofs

When George is talking to Laura and she's crying at his sad news, tears roll down her cheeks and nose. In the very next scene, she is still crying, but her face is completely dry and fresh tears form.

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Quotes

George Simmons: [sung] Fuck George Simmons. He has a medium-sized penis. He fucked so many girls and yet no one remembers. When he's done fucking them, the girl just lays there and says "I should have fucked Jean-Claude Van Damme instead of you."

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Connections

References Alien (1979)

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Soundtracks

"Cat Song"
Written by Takefumi 'Hammer' Hamada, Tomoko 'Katooka' Okada
Performed by Arthur Carbonel, Iphignie Carbonel, Hana Jacobsen, Jay Jacobsen, Anna Kotecki, Kiori Tanaka
Courtesy of Cross Media International, LLC and K.K. Cross Media International Japan

User Reviews

Frowny people

George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a seasoned actor with a long history of crappy movies in his portfolio, gets diagnosed with a rare blood disease, which means that his days are coming to an end. After an on-stage stand-up comedy breakdown he views a young up-and-comer Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) successfully heat up the crowd by making jokes about his terrible display. George, who has no family or friends, decides to hire him to write his jokes as well as be his helper. From then on in a weird relationship evolves, where both attempt to find absolution.

The whole plot is constantly intertwined by stand-up comedy, which is almost unanimously unfunny, uninventive and revolving almost entirely around sex and cussing. But it isn't only these awkward comedy sets that break the movie, but the fact that it remains thoroughly uninvolving and uninspiring. The humour is drastically amiss, while the drama does tend to be good, but can be so heavy-handed it backfires. One sequence, where George plays piano and sings a stupendously stupid song, while dramatic scenes interlope with this musical background is just terrifyingly bad.

It's hard to really feel for any of the characters. It's interesting to see that a lot of jokes seem to concern how unfunny the characters are. Basically it feels like the writer (a normally very decent Judd Apatow) decided that his jokes were pathetic and wrote in some lines to make fun of his own incompetence.

You can feel that somewhere underneath the roughness are some terrific comedians and great drama to be written, directed, but all in all this is one overlong attempt at cinema. Adam Sandler has some very good acting stints in the flick, but what actually brings the movie to a halt is the comedic crap that he is forced to fling at people. Seth Rogen is as always naturally awkwardly brilliant, but seems to have almost nothing decent to work with. Supporting cast is mostly decent, but the script does them no favours in making you warm up to anyone.