The possibility of Bridesmaids 2.

Duh Dun Chhh.

This is not a joke, people. Universal hopes to go on with a sequel whether or not Kristen Wiig, co-writer Annie Mumolo, director Paul Feig, Judd Apatow, or Melissa McCarthy are signed on. And it seems pretty unlikely that any of them will sign at the moment.

The reason is Wiig, who respectfully doesn’t want to tarnish the reputation of the original a la The Hangover. This is very rare in Hollywood these days, especially considering she was offered a reported eight figure payday. The Saturday Night Live cast member was not only the star but the other co-writer and a co-producer. She reports that her and Mumolo are working on something different, which sounds better than another bachelorette party. It’s not that we’re losing a movie; we’re gaining a new one.

Without Wiig, it’s unlikely Feig or Apatow will sign on. I like to see this dedication in Hollywood since I’m sure both of them could make a buck or two off a McCarthy led sequel. However, McCarthy has recently joined the bandwagon saying she’d never do Bridemaids 2 without Wiig. If anyone saw her SNL monologue dance with Wiig at the beginning of this season, it’s easy to see these two still have great chemistry.

In more breaking news, costar Wendi McLendon-Covey says that Wiig isn’t doing it now, but that there is possibility for the future. It needs to be up to their standards. Just like no one was going to do The Hangover 2 unless it met their apparently extremely low standards. Oh boy.

For now, I’m glad. Wiig and the gang are individually talented and funny people. Embarking on something new creates more possibilities for each of their careers. Whether or not everything will be stamped with the “From the ________ of Bridesmaids” remains to be seen. As for now, well played Kristen Wiig. You keep those weird, spontaneous brain juices flowing.

This weekend Kristen Wiig’s comedic hit Bridesmaids gave Thor a run for its money by taking the second spot at the box office with $24.5 million estimated, an outperformance from analyst estimates. Thor won the weekend with $34.5 million.  Bridesmaids is directed by Paul Feig and is produced by none other than notorious Hollywood funnyman Judd Apatow, once a roommate of Adam Sandler.

The last 10 produced Apatow films were Get Him to Greek, Funny People, Year One, Pineapple Express, Step Brothers, Drillbit Taylor, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Superbad and Knocked Up. The earliest of these film Knocked Up, came out in 2007, making Apatow a pretty busy guy the last couple years, I’d say.

Anyhow, not since Superbad has an Apatow film done so well opening weekend. Superbad, the Cera and Jonah Hill smash hit, took in $33 million opening weekend, despite being rated R, and took in a grand total of over $160 million. Bridesmaids $24.5 million is greater than the the 8 previous films (Get Him to Greek to Walk Hard) as listed above.  Pineapple Express came close with just over $23 million in its opening weekend and Forgetting Sarah Marshall made about $18 million opening weekend.

The performance of Bridemaids makes Kristen Wiig an official A-lister in the comedy world. Not only is she funny, but has the ability to churn that into dollar signs. Hollywood gold ay!

Click here for our review of the film.

We are introduced to main character Annie (Kristen Wiig, who also co-wrote the film) as she is in bed with hook-up buddy Ted (a perfectly sleazy Jon Hamm). We immediately fall in love with Annie as we sympathetically watch Ted be cruel to her while she says nothing. Her life only gets worse when her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) informs her she is engaged and has chosen Annie to be her maid-of-honor. From then on we watch Annie’s hilarious antics as she bluffs her way through the expensive and bizarre rituals one must go through when part of a bridal party. We are quickly introduced to our main players, the other bridesmaids. There is innocent Becca (Ellie Kemper), bored and promiscuous housewife and mother Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey), the groom’s overweight and over-sexualized sister Megan (Melissa McCarthy), and finally, the newest friend in Lillian’s life, the rich and beautiful Helen (Rose Byrne). And here is the central focus of the film, Annie’s growing jealousy of her best friend’s new relationship with Helen, the girl who has everything Annie doesn’t. The witty banter between Helen and Annie is hilarious especially one noteworthy scene where they compete to give the best toast at the engagement party.

Like any good Apatow produced film, every character gets to shine at least once, with each bridesmaid offering something great to the film. It is the chemistry between these women that is the real driving force of the movie, specifically between good-girl Becca and raucous Rita. Unfortunately, both of these characters are underused and the audience is definitely left wanting more from them. One character that gets her fair share of material is McCarthy’s Megan, who reminded me of Zach Galifianakis’ character in ‘The Hangover,’ completely out of place yet deliciously entertaining.

If I did have any criticisms, it would be the film suffers some serious pacing issues in the latter half. I understand that this is a female-targeted film but do we really need that much time spent on Annie’s love interest? Not to say that her repartee with Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) isn’t full of chemistry and “cute-ness,” but it really slowed down the rest of the movie and took us away from the comedy with the other bridesmaids. Although many females may disagree with this sentiment as the majority of the audience seemed to devour this storyline.

Overall, while ‘Bridesmaids’ suffers from some pacing issues and an unnecessarily long love story towards the end, it delivers better than any comedy of the year so far. This is a star-turning performance for Wiig in her first lead role and hopefully will not be her last. If you loved ‘The Hangover,’ you will definitely see some similar qualities in this and it will inevitably be labeled, ‘the female Hangover,’ which is a pretty solid compliment in my book.

SEE IT

This show, which also served as the launching pad for Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr and Linda Cardellini, was loosely based on producer Judd Apatow’s experiences in a suburban public high school on Long Island, where he grew up.  Somehow, the series was canceled after only one season, which has been widely regarded as a huge mistake.  Coincidentally, the Long Island public high school that Apatow attended was also the old stomping grounds of Natalie Portman, Adam Pascal (RENT), and Idina Menzel (RENT).

It’s a small, small world…

However, his role type isn’t. Everyman comedy abound, “The Galifianakis” archetype has been popping up long before The Hangover was ever a hit, be it in stand-up comedy, television, or film. While not deliberating his talent and well-deserved success, the craft of The Galifianakis is an amazingly easy one to convey; in all of a single glance this can be most easily determined. A quick shot of a frat boy at a college party. Will Ferrell’s mug in random entertainment while cable-surfing. What is hard to define, and even harder to narrow down, is the female equivalent of this sort of breed. Is it loud and aggressive, such as Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Often misshapen and awkward portrayals of female characters fill the void in romantic comedies (I’m thinking Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, and the duo in 2009’s miserable Bride Wars.) But it’s become more and more difficult for women to break out in the world of comedy without, and not to sound chauvinistic or hypocritical, building a well-known character act, privy to their prose being compared with something like The Galifianakis.

While the well-known war of words between Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow and Katherine Heigl happened a few years ago when Heigl admitted that she couldn’t find any compassion for the performances by women, including her own, shown in 2007’s Knocked Up, I strongly disagree. Apatow’s work, especially most of his earlier contributions, has become notorious for making famous character actors, and shows like Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared, and movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, were made the stuff of cult following due heavily to smaller scenes and the lesser cast. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s accidental; I think they’re written that way. I’ll only scarcely mention the fact also that without female support in Judd Apatow movies the majority of the jokes wouldn’t stick. Look at the entirety of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where Catherine Keener’s adorable improvisation around Steve Carell’s bumbling idiot echoed and helped shape the complete tone of the movie; or the married Leslie Mann’s Debbie and Paul Rudd’s Pete in Knocked Up that also served as a hilarious subplot to reiterate the modernism of getting and keeping a relationship.

Anyone who still says I’m wrong, take a gander at Apatow’s latest and tell me it doesn’t make up for these claims wholeheartedly. Bridesmaids headlines Saturday Night Live’s Kristen Wiig (who also appeared in an incredibly memorable portion of Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as the maid of honor at the wedding of a friend, played by Maya Rudolph, who tagging a group of similarly sorry thespians goes through a wild set of hoops to plan her friend’s big day. Wiig co-wrote the screenplay, and Paul Feig directed with Apatow’s producing. It leads along with Wiig and Rudolph a band of female characters, including Damages’ Rose Byrne, Reno 911!’s Wendi McLendon-Covey, The Office’s Ellie Kemper, and Melissa McCarthy. For its premise and casting, it’s garnered comparisons to The Hangover.

I’m super-excited to see another feature-length movie from Feig, who created Freaks & Geeks, and if you ask me developed that show’s lead Lindsay Weir as not only exposition for the audience, but an explored character; a ‘90s high school kid at times quietly and others not very reaching out for something to believe in. But now I’m getting into fanatical praise. If nothing else, Bridesmaids looks to be on the same level of shameless fun as any gag-ridden with testosterone. Hey, we’re not too perfect either.

Check out the Bridesmaids trailer released yesterday on Apple.

Bridesmaids comes out May 13^th.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad movie – it’s just not as great as Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Not that I expected it to be, but Get Him to the Greek is different entirely. (Hats off for giving Kristen Bell her own hilarious cameo, the bombshell who played Segel’s lust-after paparazzi magnet in Marshall.) Though by making this less a spin-off, less of a sequel certainly does have its advantages. Aldous Snow is recreated once again as a “White African Jesus”, all the bizarre oddities of Marshall’s introduction coming along with it. Of course the movie also gets another chance to be comedic, and when this thing is funny it’s really funny. But that comes with a price. Get Him to the Greek is like watching only what happened to Kristen Bell in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, without Jason Segel occasionally popping in.

The central conflict of an ignorant man moving past his celebrity girlfriend after she dumps him is erased, Greek not doing too great a job trying to find another line to walk down. Sure, it hints at some every now and then. Colm Meaney pops up in a minor role of the Monty Python sort as Jonathan Snow, Aldous’s depraved father. Stoller treats him as a man rather than a comedic tool, which in turn gives the audience a chance to recognize Aldous in a non-commercial way. It’s just how conventional everything is done that makes Greek not so much an alternative to this weekend’s Killers or Marmaduke, but just another wide release in an air-conditioned movie theater.

I’m getting ahead of myself not talking first about what the movie is actually about, but as you can so clearly tell from the title Get Him to the Greek is a buddy comedy about two dudes trying to get to the Greek theater in Los Angeles for a sold-out anniversary concert. I hope I’m not coming off as a bully solely towards the title of the film; I was extremely excited to see Get Him to the Greek. Not only because one of my favorite people in all of Hollywood today served as producer, but there’s a blaring allotment of fun to be had here. Greek, to further divulge into the plot more than it being a comedy about complete opposites, specifically follows record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill, given a larger part here than in Marshall but acting as a different character). Hired by CEO Sergio Roma (played by the scene-stealer in all of Greek, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, acting as self-deprecating as and reminiscent of Robert Downey Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder) to escort the maniac lead of Infant Sorrow Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from London to California. Snow has next-to destroyed his career, loving more women than by what modern dignitary slang would refer to as “a lot” and drinking more than a fish who stumbled upon a crevice of clean water amid the oil spill on the beach shore.

Hill, who in Marshall established a calm presence under the wing of Hollywood wannabes, passes no standard above your typical Adam Sandler flick. Stoller is stuck with writing the screenplay this time around, and instead of taking advantage of this opportunity to deliver as wild a follow-up to Forgetting’s as that movie’s tropical oasis held cult screen vibe, brings up Aaron and Aldous as “the fat one” and “the crazy one”. So much was lost here, and without these wonderful names behind the scenes I would have given this one an easy “skip it” without feeling all too lousy. However this is our only chance to see anything remotely close to Judd Apatow, so I can’t help but be lenient with the guy. Still, Greek doesn’t drive Hill and Brand to their goal with character. It guides us slowly across the finish line with the help of big names (Meredith Vieira of the Today Show; Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich; Tom Felton from Harry Potter) and a cliché Apatow members fought so very hard to redefine.

RENT IT.

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Matt - When I walked out of “Funny People,” I pretty much felt just plain good.  It was an incredibly warm movie with a dose of raw humor; almost the complete opposite of what Apatow typically does. I have found that most of his movies usually adapt an overly humorous theme – like not having sex until your 40 or being ugly and knocking up a girl much better looking than you – into a morally meaningful story.  Well now, Apatow built the movie in reverse by taking a serious and deeply personal issue and making it humorous.

The movie was smart, funny, sincere and able tell a feel good story about how staring death in the face affects people in your life both past and present. It makes you look back at yourself and assess whether the person you are, is the person you want to be.  This movie also had a lot of really great cameos including a hilarious dinner between Sandler’s character and Eminem. Eminem pretty much played himself to a “T.”  I also really liked Rogen in this movie as well. After he did “Observe and Report,” I basically got sick of him. However, this movie puts him back in the goofy supporting role where he thrives.  Rogen did a great job in this movie.  The ensemble of this movie looked like they genuinely had fun making this movie. The visible chemistry really came through.

I spoke about the movie in our July lineup post and was mistaken in my premature opinion not to see this movie.  I based it solely off the trailer.  This movie is definitely worth seeing.

Craig: This was top 3 movies of the summer.  BUT…you have to know what to expect when going into this.  It is a more emotional serious draw than previous Apatow efforts and is not the comedy that the Hangover is.  This deals with human emotions of both kinds and on different planes.  Deals with topics of friendship, love, life and death.  The comedy seems were hysterical and a perfect compliment to add humor to the more serious issue; the comedy was more of an underlying topic to break the tension of the real story.  A little bit long at 2 hours and 15 minutes but the diverse characters and issues keeps the pace going.  It was ironic in a lot of ways to see the characters in the movie change and have a different perspective on life and their ways accept for Sandler’s character who was dealing with the biggest “punch line” of his life.  Excellent movie, that will have you up and down with the emotions and comedy, a summer pleasure.

Keep Bantering

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Judd Apatow the “IT” director of the past 5 years and director of the upcoming movie that opens today Funny People

, has something uniquely in common with your beloved (hopefully) banterers.  No it’s not our obviously Jewish noses that stick out the way we would if we went to a rap concert, but something else.  In fact, Judd Apatow was a graduate of the same high school of both Matt and I.

Now I know this may not seem like a surprise, how all of us movie buffs and connoisseur could come from the same high school, but it’s in fact true.  Funny thing is I didn’t even realize this fact until after 40 Year Old Virgin came out and I read about it in the NY Times.

To think that the famous director walked down the same halls as us is pretty cool, nice to have famous alum of your high school.  We also have another very famous alum, but that’s for another post.

With his next big hit being released today, I wanted to take you through a quick trip down other projects of his past that have gotten him to where he is today.  For starters, he was behind the two cult TV shows Freaks and Geek and Undeclared which are hysterical, and also where he first met and casted Seth Rogen who has been seen in everything he now touches.  He has always been a writer and a bored IMDB search one day led me to find out he actually written the classic Celtic Pride, “He’s the bad luck guy” classic!

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From there is only gets bigger to where he wrote and directed 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, and the rest is history.

Everything this Syosset Braves alum touches is gold, and would love to get an interview with him on the Banter one day.  For now, I will just have to enjoy his movies like everyone else and rival in the fact I went

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What famous alum went to your high school?

Judd Apatow productions is at it again with his go to guy Rogan in this potcomedy, pot comedy about 2 guys on the run after one witnesses a murder taking place.  For all of you stoners out there, this movie is no half baked but there are plenty of Franco starry eyed dumb funny comments to keep you craving for your munchies throughout the movie.

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I didn’t think this was their best movie, for those who watched this high, let me know if I missed out on something.

What did you guys think?

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