Funny People

Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski Talks WAR HORSE, Film vs. Digital, Harmony Korine’s SPRING BREAKERS, and More

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: December 22nd, 2011 at 4:10 pm

If you’re a film nerd, you immediately recognize the name Janusz Kaminski. That’s because as the director of photography on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War of the Worlds, Jerry Maguire, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Schindler’s List, Catch Me If You Can, and so many other great movies, Kaminski has clearly demonstrated that he’s one of the best cinematographers in the world. So when I was offered the chance to interview him at the New York City press junket for director Steven Spielberg‘s fantastic new movie, War Horse, I jumped at the chance.

During the interview he talked about how he picks his projects, if the location where a movie is being made influences him, his thoughts on film vs. digital, the difficulty of setting up a scene when a horse is a major character, and I tried to get him to talk about Lincoln.  However, while he wouldn’t say much on Lincoln, he did say his next project will be Harmony Korine‘s Spring Breakers.  Hit the jump to watch.

Weekend Box Office – DOLPHIN TALE Surfaces In First While New Releases Sink

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: October 2nd, 2011 at 9:25 am

With three new releases plus three strong holdovers, this weekend turned out to be one of the most difficult to predict in terms of box office numbers.  In the end, it was the week-old Dolphin Tale that emerged victorious: leaping over Friday’s champ Moneyball, the still-ferocious Lion King 3D and the critically-acclaimed newcomer 50/50.

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Dolphin Tale	$14,245,000	$37.5
2	Moneyball	$12,500,000	$38.4
3	The Lion King 3D	$11,050,000	$79.7
4	50/50	$8,850,000	$8.85
5	Courageous	$8,800,000	$8.8
6	Dream House	$8,200,000	$8.2
7	Abduction	$5,650,000	$19.1
8	What’s Your Number?	$5,600,000	$5.6
9	Contagion	$5,040,000	$64.7
10	Killer Elite	$4,855,000	$17.4

Friday Box Office – MONEYBALL Back on Top on Second Friday; New Releases Underwhelm

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: October 1st, 2011 at 9:21 am

Moneyball won the pot on its second Friday with an estimated $3.9 million, though there is a good chance that either of September’s family hits, Dolphin Tale or The Lion King 3D will end up the weekend winner.  With Friday numbers, I usually like to give some indication of what Sunday’s top ten will look like but, today, I’m not sure that will be possible.  On top of the very close estimates between the holdover titles, there are four new releases in the mix: three of which are running well below their pre-release projections.  So far, What’s Your Number? is lagging 85% behind Anna Farris’ last comedy hit The House Bunny.  50/50 is doing half the business of 2009’s cancer comedy Funny People and the Universal thriller Dream House looks like a winner by sticking to its projected three-day opening of $8 million!  That leaves Courageous.  Haven’t heard of it?  The Christian drama has come out strong, with a debut of $3.1 million and a projected weekend that should nearly double its studio’s expectations of $5 million.  Details tomorrow.

	Title	Friday	Total
1	Moneyball	$3,900,000	$29.8
2	Dolphin Tale	$3,500,000	$26.7
3	The Lion King 3D	$3,300,000	$71.8
4	Courageous	$3,100,000	$3.1
5	50/50	$2,900,000	$2.9
6	Dream House	$2,900,000	$2.9
7	What’s Your Number	$2,100,000	$2.1

 

Aziz Ansari in Final Negotiations to Host the MTV Movie Awards

by Keith Demko    Posted: March 23rd, 2010 at 4:21 am

How do you get a clearly middle-aged dude who really couldn’t care less about any kind of Twilight movies to tune in to the upcoming MTV Movie Awards?  Well, getting extremely funny man Aziz Ansari to host would certainly be a good start.

According to the L.A. Times, the Parks and Recreation star is in final negotiations to host the broadcast, which will unfurl live as usual June 6 from the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City. The nominations themselves have yet to be revealed.

Aziz live and unfiltered? Yeah, I’ll tune in for that. He’s the funniest thing about Parks and Recreation and was the only funny person in Judd Apatow’s woefully mistitled Funny People, and I’m betting he’ll be the funniest cat in Get Him to the Greek too when that hits June 4. Hit the jump for a list of the dates when, if you’re lucky enough to get a ticket, you can see Ansari live on his Dangerously Delicious standup tour this summer.

The Bottom 5 – Peter Debruge’s Biggest Disappointments of 2009

by Peter Debruge    Posted: January 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm

You may have seen the five worst films of 2009, but I did my best to avoid them. Instead, at year’s end, I’d rather recap my five biggest disappointments – movies that promised the world and delivered a fraction of their potential.  To me, that’s far more upsetting than a bad movie, because they’ve squandered the opportunity, and now no one can go back and do it right. You probably won’t agree with my choices (maybe you went into Where the Wild Things Are expecting to be annoyed and came out enraptured – that actually happened to me with co-writer Dave Eggers’ other 2009 release, Away We Go). These picks were meant to be personal, but I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to share your biggest let-downs after the list, which you’ll find just after the jump…

FUNNY PEOPLE Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: November 24th, 2009 at 12:10 am

Judd Apatow had a hot streak, and it was bound to run into some bumps. That’s the industry; people are always waiting for failure. Instead – though it didn’t connect theatrically – Funny People is not a bad film, it’s a character study that has some problems when it transitions from one protagonist to another, but you can tell Apatow is trying to stretch his muscles. This may make it more interesting than good, but it’s definitely worth a look. My review of Funny People after the jump.

HUMAN GIANT’s Aziz Ansari and Jason Woliner Sell Three Film Pitches to Judd Apatow

by Ramses Flores    Posted: November 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 pm

It must feel good to be Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation) and Jason Woliner (co-writer/director of Human Giant) right now.  The duo met with Judd Apatow for a breakfast meeting and walked away with a three picture deal.  Universal Pictures and Apatow will produce the projects while Ansari and Woliner will write at least one of them. Meanwhile, Ansari is expected to star in all of the films.  To read what all three films are about, just hit the jump.

FUNNY PEOPLE DVD and Blu-ray Hitting Shelves on November 24th with More Special Features Than You Require

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: October 21st, 2009 at 4:27 pm

I never thought I’d be saying this, but I pity whoever has to review the DVD or Blu-ray of “Funny People”.  It’s not because it’s a bad film but because it’s a long one.  Now take the length of the film and then remember how loaded the DVDs are for Judd Apatow films.  Add that all together and whoever has to watch all of these feature–especially on the Blu-ray-will not see his family or friends for at least two weeks so that he can get his review online by the DVD/Blu-ray’s release date of November 24^th.

The special features for the DVD and Blu-ray of the movie have been announced and, as expected, there are more special features than you can handle because “Funny People” is really two movies smooshed together.  And because the film wasn’t long enough, there’s also an “unrated” version which adds seven minutes to the two and a half hour runtime.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of special features for the 1-Disc, 2-Disc, and Blu-ray editions of “Funny People”.

Summer 2009 Box Office Wrap-Up

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: September 7th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

With only hours to go before Hollywood’s golden season draws to a close, I thought it was a good time to do the post-mortem on the summer of 2009.  By now you may have heard that this summer was Hollywood’s most-profitable ever with grosses topping $4.3 billion. But has it felt like the biggest summer ever?  Not really.  Blockbusters like “Transformers 2″ and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” aside, 2009 was a season of expensive movies that didn’t live up to the hype and cheap movies that performed above all expectations.  Follow me now into the murky world of box office number crunching to see just how huge Hollywood’s hugest summer really was.

Where to Find Seth Rogen’s “Superjew” T-Shirt from FUNNY PEOPLE

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: September 5th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails ever since the first trailer for Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” came out after I asked if anyone knew where I could get Seth Rogen’s Superman-Star of David t-shirt.  Instead of people e-mailing me where to buy it, I just got a lot of e-mails asking if I had found it which was in no way helpful.  But in searching for birthday gifts for my brother, I found it.  I guess you could call it karma (that’s right, Jews believe in karma; ask your local rabbi) but I immediately put in an order for both my brother and myself although I thought about just buying one for me and just giving my brother a very nice card.

The shirts are great for Jews and Gentiles alike.  Also, part of the proceeds go to charity so I don’t understand why you’d be on the fence buying one.  Even if you didn’t like “Funny People”, don’t blame the shirt.  The shirt never did anything to you.  Hit the jump to get a full look at the tee, learn how it came about, and where you can purchase it.  Get one and be a stylish mensch.

Weekend Box Office – G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA Dominates with $100 Million Worldwide Opening

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: August 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am

Despite losing some steam between Friday and Saturday, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cora” easily dominated the weekend with an estimated domestic take of $56.2 million and another $44 million from international markets.  That’s the good news for fans of the Real American Hero.  The bad news is that this week is as good as it gets for “Joe”…

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	GI Joe	$56,200,000	$56,200,000
2	Julie & Julia	$20,100,000	$20,100,000
3	G-Force	$9,800,000	$86,116,000
4	Harry Potter 6	$8,800,000	$273,800,000
5	Funny People	$7,866,000	$40,417,000
6	The Ugly Truth	$7,000,000	$69,088,000
7	Perfect Getaway	$5,765,000	$5,765,000
8	Aliens in the Attic	$4,000,000	$16,293,000
9	Orphan	$3,725,000	$34,822,000
10	(500) Days of Summer	$3,400,000	$12,343,000

Friday Box Office – G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA Rises to the Top with $22.3 Million

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: August 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am

In this, the summer of diminishing expectations, my hopes for Paramount’s pricey “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” were not very high. But it turns out that I need not have feared for the real American hero. “GI Joe” opened to an impressive $22.3 million from 4,007 locations – an August record for non-sequels. Sony’s anti-Joe option, “Julie & Julia”, came in second with $6.5 million from 2,975 venues while “Funny People”, last week’s number one movie, fell a disturbing 70% to number four.  It could be worse.  The latest from director Judd Apatow could have ended up down at number seven like the new Rogue thriller “Perfect Getaway”.  Check back tomorrow to see how much sadder things get for the funny folk…

	Title	Friday	Total
1	GI Joe	$22,300,000	$22,300,000
2	Julie & Julia	$6,500,000	$6,500,000
3	G-Force	$3,000,000	$79,300,000
4	Funny People	$2,600,000	$35,200,000
5	Harry Potter 6	$2,550,000	$267,500,000

Weekend Box Office – FUNNY PEOPLE Tops a Soft Weekend with $23 Million

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: August 2nd, 2009 at 9:40 am

The summer-weirdness continues as the weekend’s highest-profile release – director Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” – took first place and still managed to look like a bit of a loser.  Apatow’s star-packed follow-up to “Knocked Up” was a question mark to many box office analysts from the start.  On the one hand, it’s never a good idea to bet against an Apatow comedy; on the other hand, rumor had it that “Funny People” wasn’t that funny.  So what did it all mean in the end?  A respectable $23.4 million weekend take for the funny folks and another disappointing entry in Universal’s summer of regret…

	Title	Weekend	Total
1	Funny People	$23,440,000	$23,440,000
2	Harry Potter 6	$17,700,000	$255,463,000
3	G-Force	$17,058,000	$66,461,000
4	The Ugly Truth	$13,000,000	$54,481,000
5	Aliens in the Attic	$7,800,000	$7,800,000
6	Orphan	$7,250,000	$26,791,000
7	Ice Age 3	$5,300,000	$181,843,000
8	The Hangover	$5,080,000	$255,776,000
9	The Proposal	$4,848,000	$148,882,000
10	Transformers 2	$4,600,000	$388,101,000

Friday Box Office – FUNNY PEOPLE Brings in $8.6 Million on First Friday

by Nicole Pedersen    Posted: August 1st, 2009 at 10:35 am

Judd Apatow easily won Friday with the debut of his third R-rated comedy, “Funny People”.  Good news, right?  Well, sort of.  An $8.6 million first day puts “Funny People” smack in the middle of Apatow’s past releases – “The 40 Year Old Virgin” had a $7 million Friday in 2005 while “Knocked Up” brought in $9.8 million in 2007.  Universal would have liked to see those numbers go a bit higher for the high profile “Funny People”, though they were careful to manage expectations by lowering their projections to $25 million earlier this week.  After day one it looks like Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler may have some trouble getting to that figure, unless word of mouth puts some Apatow-sized legs under the film quick.  Updates on “Funny People” and the week’s other new releases await when you check back tomorrow…

	Title	Friday	Total
1	Funny People	$8.600,000	$8,600,000
2	G-Force	$5,800,000	$55,200,000
3	Harry Potter 6	$5,400,000	$243,200,000
4	The Ugly Truth	$4,400,000	$44,900,000
5	Aliens in the Attic	$2,800,000	$2,800,000

Universal Gets Three More Films Directed by Judd Apatow

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: July 30th, 2009 at 11:51 pm

With “Funny People” hitting theatres tomorrow, director Judd Apatow has inked an agreement with Universal Pictures to direct three more films for the studio according to Reuters.  He’s already done his first three films with Universal (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” being the first two) and as the Reuters story notes, at his current pace of a film every two years, the deal would keep him at Universal through 2015.

Hit the jump for further details.

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