SPOILER WARNING.

Judd Apatow. The name has pretty much created a whole new sub-genre of comedy movies. A whole new ‘clique’ in which certain people are privvy to being in a collection of movies with similar themes, plots and actors. They’ve been criticised as being mysoginistic and embodying the teenage fantasy of the geek getting the babe; and whilst some of the movies are quite humourous in places, others have started to dip in quality as the impact of the movies and the sub-genre have entered the creative consciousness. Probably best summed up with this great College Humour song.

Funny People is essentially the film that could knock Apatow off that stereotype. The plot and the subject matter is quite dark compared to his previous films and associations – and opens the director to perhaps explore other avenues apart from romantic comedies for geeks. But what starts off as a very funny and interesting film that could be about the friendship between a huge film star and an upandcoming comic who needs to improve starts to turn slightly sour and muddled up once the romance part of the film kicks in.

You know how in Monty Phyton and the Meaning Of Life – where the supporting feature suddenly comes in to invade the main feature? It’s like that, only the supporting feature pretty much comes in and takes over. After a few years decides to apss some reforms to allow the actual movie some freedom to breathe and carry on it’s business.

The main gist of the story is that film star George Simmons (Sandler) is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in which there’s only 8% of survival. Depressed, he goes back on the comedy circuit and ends up getting a young comedian called Ira Wright (Rogan). Once an assistant/mentoring rapport begins to build – Simmons finds he’s actually beaten the cancer and goes after the ‘one that got away’. The only problem is that this occurs so long into the movie that it completely swamps the story and interesting relationship between Rogan and Sandler’s characters takes a slight back-seat as Leslie Mann and Sandler make googily eyes at each other. Attention is kept through Eric Bana using his real accent and having an absolute blast with everything. But this romance side-track really begins to drag and changes the enjoyment in the film. What was a funny look into the nature of struggling stand-up comedy turns into a bittersweet life-lesson; but the way the romantic sojourn is handled ends strangely and just doesn’t feel as if it really achieved anything at all.

Which is a shame, because amongst it all is a film that could’ve been much better is Leslie Mann’s role was greatly reduced and perhaps more attention built around the Rogan/Sandler relationship and how the two men do change each other. As it is, it feels uneven and the running time is at least twenty minutes longer than it is (two-hours fifteen).

There are some really good highlights however, with some of the stand-up and interplay between Rogan and Sandler being extremely funny. An extended cameo from Eminem also manages to raise a few smiles as well. There’s also a few laughs with the fake movies that Sandler’s character starred in, which wouldn’t actually be that unrealistic at the present moment.

Overall, Funny People is a much better film bogged down with an unnecessary sub-plot which invades the film.

You see a TV show set in High School, and you’ll be forgiven to think that its core audience is people who are actually in high school. But what if the show is set in the early eighties, twenty years before the current generation? Could it actually be possible for a show to actually be aimed towards adults?

Well, with Freaks and Geeks, there might just be one. Its core focus is the struggles and life of the outcasts of social society in the early eighties with kids who actually feel like High School students. Now it might be a locality thing (since I’m from Ol’ Blighty) but there’s a certain limit of shows about teenagers with rich parents doing several things at once in which the latest new show ends up coming across as completely unoriginal. This is what happened with 90210 – where it feels like The OC and Gossip Girl has done it all before. Even the original Beverley Hills predated it. My So-Called Life apparently is slightly more realistic but I’ve yet to watch that yet. Freaks and Geeks seems to paint a more realistic picture of high school that I’ve only really seen briefly in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars before you deduct the genre quota of those shows. What’s interesting is that this was the 1999-2000 season before 90210 and its ilk, but running the same time as Dawson’s Creek and Popular. Though the former was a huge showcase of contrived bad acting and melodramatic unrealism the latter was a tongue-in-cheek jab at teen shows; watching this now after the modern wave just feels like a breath of fresh air.

There are no rich parents, no major dance or events the kids have to organise, no flights of fancy or anything of that ilk, it’s just kids and problems. There are no strong serialised stories that run through the series, mainly weak characters living through weekly A and B stories which focus on the brother/sister team of Lindsey and Sam Weir. Lindsey (Linda Cardellini, ER and Scooby Doo) is a 17-year old girl former Mathlete who decides to hang around with ‘freaks’ Daniel (James Franco, Spider-Man and Pineapple Express), Kim (Busy Phillips) and Nick (Jason Siegel, How I Met Your Mother). While 14-year old Sam (John Francis Daley, Waiting and Bones) has to deal with bullies and being picked last for sports with his friends Neil (Sam Levinne) and Bill Havershuck (Martin Starr). Other characters include the Weir parents and some teachers who do try and steal the screen time, and would succeed if it wasn’t for younger cast.

The two main characters end up central for the two plots that are linked thematically in each episode and sometimes converge, but never fully follow on to the next episode except for some occasions. The episodes don’t have any major messages or morals that run at the end, and there is a (thankful) lack of overblown melodrama and maturity in the story telling which further acts as evidence that it’s not fully aimed towards teenagers. But amongst all the realistic and down-to-earth characters that litter the show, it just feels easier to relate to what’s going on instead of ridiculous high-lifers.

In terms of episodes, there are no real stand-outs because they all stand out. There are no real clunkers of ideas (mainly because there are only eighteen episodes) and episodes all feel strong and relate to the characters. The geeks usually steal the episodes though, with some highlights being Sam and co’s struggles against showering after gym and being picked last for baseball. There’s usually always something brilliant in every episode.

No. The real stand out here which brings out the iconic status the show has is the characters. Sam has been noted in some American magazine as being the idea TV son, but the stand-out for the geeks is Bill. The lanky stereotypical geek is immediately lovable, gets sympathy instantly and as the series unfolds and you start to get to know him and it’s just easy to get involved with the characters. The episode where he finds his gym teacher is dating his mother is probably the highlight, managing to get a tragic yet funny character to life even more. Of the freaks Daniel’s rebel-without-a-path strikes out, mainly because you can tell that James Franco is just having fun with what he gets to do at times. Where it’s manipulating adults, attempting to be a rocker; his character is another iconic image you won’t get to shake.

By the time you get to the end of series – you realise that you’ve gotten to know these characters, and then it hits you that there’s nothing left. With many shows you get a tinge of sadness – but with characters as fleshed out and likable as this – you are suddenly losing several friends. Maybe the show is regarded the way it is over the pond because of its short run and the show never got a chance to get stale. But you can’t help but wonder to see how Lindsey and Sam and their friends would develop, and how they would finish high school. Then again, would the show have lost something if the freaks graduated and got jobs while Lindsey went to college? We would never know…

It’s fun to see some actors and actresses that have moved on to other things nearly nine/ten years ago though. Shia Labeouf appears as a mascot, Ben Stiller a secret service agent, Lizzy Caplan as a disco dancer, Samaire Armstrong as a Grateful Dead fan, Privileged’s Joanna Garcia as a cheerleader as well as the main cast. Daley is now in Bones; Cardellini in ER, Seth Rogan goes from being Seth Rogan to being Seth Rogan later on and Jason Siegel in How I Met Your Mother.

It hasn’t got a Region 2 release (yet) but it’s something that should be experienced. If you ever get the chance to watch this, do it. You’ll not be disappointed.

Also posted on: ArticlesBase.com – Why You Need To Watch “Freaks and Geeks”