This is 40 is dubbed “the sort-of sequel to Knocked Up“, this tale of marital struggles, aging woes, and familial baggage stars Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as the couple from the 2007 hit.  Following them a few years later, and having them at the forefront, allows us a bigger window into their personal lives.  We meet their fathers (played by Albert Brooks and John Lithgow, both bringing their “A” games to the table), and spend even more time with their (now older) daughters (played extraordinarily well by Mann and Apatow’s real daughters, Iris and Maude).  Rudd’s character now owns his own independent record label, and Mann’s character co-owns a clothing store, on top of her high demands as a mother.  The story begins the same week that both of the main characters celebrate their (unwelcome) fortieth birthdays.  It’s not the plot that makes the movie interesting, it’s the performances, the dialogue, the characters, the soundtrack, and the honesty captured by Apatow’s insatiable pursuit of the truth.

The film is very much about “now”, but a lot of it resonates beyond the present, heading into timeless/universal thematic territory.  It’s hard to say exactly if that’s where it ends up, but the aim is there, wrapped in a contemporary package that serves as an accessible gateway into the material.  Though it may not be timeless, it will mean a lot to those who relate to the subtext and emotional goings-on of the story, which is undoubtedly what Apatow intended with this piece.  However, it may end up being timeless by accident, since the footage is so packed with nuances that the riches are plentiful, if you’re willing to accept them.   Those who aren’t may find the two-plus hours of reflection tedious and self-indulgent.  I was not one of these people (not in the least), but they’re out there, and they’ve been very vocal about their disappointment.

Apatow’s films are like Woody Allen, Kevin Smith, and John Cassavetes all collaborated to bring their signatures to life, in that they’re about behavior and the human condition–which creates dense drama and resonating comedy, often a slightly auto-biographical portrayal of life (as he sees it), and his directorial body of work so far plays as one long film chopped into separate pieces.  Obviously, each of these directors have their own distinctive style, but in a general sense they’re of the same cinematic family, with Apatow as their fulcrum.  You can trace these three influences throughout all of Apatow’s films, and This is 40 is no different.

Leslie Mann’s performance is one of the great performances from any actress this century.  The improvisational nature of the film allows for realism, spontaneity, and personal experience to thrive within the malleable boundaries that Apatow cultivates, and Mann takes full advantage of this.  There are moments of true beauty, true drama, and true comedy, making the film an experience worth remembering.  It provides plenty of fuel for self-analysis, and though Mann is the ultimate stand-out performance, the cast which surrounds her valiantly rises to the occasion.  Rudd, the Apatow girls, Brooks, Lithgow, Jason Segel, Robert Smigel, Megan Fox, and the rest, all give top-notch performances, creating an ensemble worthy of an award, and elevating the film to the high quality it was striving for.

The blu-ray contains a wealth of wonderful special features, many that aren’t available on the DVD.  The DVD contains some deleted scenes, gag reel, line-o-rama, and commentary by Apatow, but the blu-ray contains even more deleted scenes, the NPR interview between Terry Gross and Apatow, behind the scenes stuff, a hilarious on-set session with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Albert Brooks’ own line-o-rama, and more.

After two successful TV series (The Office and Extras), not to mention the record-setting podcast, Gervais and writing/directing partner Stephen Merchant have carved a corner of the industry reserved for such notables as the aforementioned Allen, Judd Apatow, Garry Shandling, Larry David, John Cleese, and so on.  In short, it’s a respectable comedic television and film corner, destined to influence and amuse for generations, without the crutch of mainstream intentions and expectations.

Their latest series—their fourth fictional project together, following the underappreciated feature film Cemetery Junction—is Life’s Too Short, a meta-mockumentary starring Warwick Davis as a fictionalized version of himself.  It’s a show completely designed to amuse Gervais and Merchant (who play versions of themselves in the show as well), and, by extension, Gervais/Merchant enthusiasts.  Davis’s contribution can’t be ignored—he is accredited as co-creator, and his performance is what sends it into the realm of “great”.

The writing is brilliant—as all Merchant/Gervais writing is—but Davis really does wonders for the series.  No, he’s not funny because he’s a little person; he’s funny because he’s a uniquely proportioned and brilliant performer.  That combination could fool people into thinking the laughs are cheap, but they’re brilliantly executed and often hard earned.  Davis dives head first into the degradation of his character, and having him as the lead is intrinsically refreshing.  Since Davis’s character is so egotistical, it creates an interesting divide between the desire to feel sympathy due to his physical stature, and the knee-jerk judgments in reaction to his objectionable behavior.  The balance creates that tension within the comedy that Gervais and Merchant are known for, with humanism and absurdity going head to head in the face of desperation.  As is always the case with the Gervais name, the show contains true insights into the pathology of a fame-seeker.

The first seven episodes of the show—making up the complete first season—follows Davis as he documents his own climb back up the show business ladder.  He’s getting a divorce, has a tax problem, struggles with his height, his waning popularity, is involved with Dwarves for Hire (a group that specializes in getting little people actors hired), but they’re doubting where the group falls in his list of priorities—basically each episode adds another problem to his litany.  Of course, in typical Gervais/Merchant style, many of his problems are brought on by his own behavior, his own inability to see the flaws in his actions and come to grips with his true self.  However, this inability makes him loveable too, since he’s delusional and oblivious, but not malicious.  You laugh at him, but you do hope that at any given moment you’ll laugh with him.

Some have grown weary of the Gervais/Merchant projects, with Life’s Too Short being considered a retread.  Though it does play as a combination of Extras and The Office, those two series combine for a total of fifteen hours.  If those shows didn’t have such brief runs, I would understand the backlash, but under the circumstances, I’ve yet to tire of their style.  Though the title is a little too on the nose, and the first season arc is fairly slight, it’s tremendously aided by a stellar lead performance, and the comedy sequences meet the high standards expected from the Gervais/Merchant brand.  It’s also full of celebrity cameos that do genuinely add to the comedy and the intended realism, and despite the caliber of fame Davis is surrounded by, he shines just as brightly.  Life’s Too Short is the show Davis needed to showcase his talents, and though it’s not necessarily the show Gervais and Merchant needed to make to prove their longevity, it’s a welcome addition to their growing list of auteured, niche-market programming.

The first question everyone will be asking is: what bias does this film have?  To answer that: it seems fairly neutral, though it’s definitely closer to a negative critique of Palin than a positive evaluation.  The filmmakers do attempt to understand Palin, and even go so far as to give McCain almost zero faults in the matter—other than maybe impetuousness.  The depiction of McCain seems watered-down, aside from the frequency of his “F” bombs.  It’s almost like the McCain headquarters had a pass at the script before production.  The whole film has a gloss of being overseen by the people it’s about

Politics aside, there’s something about it that makes it hard to buy as the exact story.  It doesn’t entirely work as a film, but it’s nonetheless fascinating at times.  The drama seems both absent and somehow exaggerated all at once.  The matter of wrangling Palin into a conditioned candidate is inherently interesting, but the drama that’s squeezed out of that feels very trying.

Moore is fantastic as Palin–a tough role in that she has to seem like her without resembling Tina Fey’s immortal imitation.  Roach, more inclined towards comedic fare, restrains himself here for a more straightforward approach to the material.  It’s a bit flat as a result, since Roach’s directorial instincts are generic when he’s outside his comfort zone.

Game Change encapsulates the media frenzy of that period, very close to being a full-blown documentary with dramatized reenactments.  Expectedly, it suffers from a this-happens-then-that-happens story, as it’s based on events still fresh in most viewers’ memory.  Palin keeps surprising people, then letting them down, and then gives them hope again, and so on.  She grows wearier of her guidance from the campaign managers, and decides to “go rogue”, meanwhile her campaign managers grow wearier of her inability to qualify as a Vice President, and try not to panic.  This arc is tedious at times, but since it’s what happened it still works to keep the viewer interested.

Since “control” and “strategy” are the characters issues, the film does scratch the surface of a truly compelling concept, but it remains mostly buried under a need to say too much at once, and thus doesn’t say enough.  As a document of a time, it’s a worthwhile view, but it’s mostly an introduction for future generations who don’t want to read about what happened.  Those future generations, on the other hand, could very well see this movie as reason to investigate further.  However, as a member of this current generation, I’d rather watch the documentary.

In just over two-hundred and fifty pages, DeBellis takes the reader on a tour of the East coast comedy scene in the seventies and eighties.  With DeBellis as your tour guide, the writing is consistently entertaining, lively, and amusing.  It’s full of jokes, with many paragraphs ending in a gem of a punch-line, and a general air of rascality fueling this heartfelt nostalgia trip.  It beats with the pulse of a best friend who can’t wait to relay an experience they had, and the reader now becomes that friendly ear, with DeBellis becoming your most welcomed friend through a litany of fascinating inside stories.  He’s the guy you can’t wait to hear from again, knowing you’re in for a treat when you pick up where you last left off.

There’s a lived-in perspective to the material, with honest, freewheeling psychoanalysis punctuating the semi-structured, stream-of-consciousness narrative.  DeBellis shares his enviable experiences and imparts many words of wisdom that transcend mere show business advice (it’s full of that, too).  The pages are filled with advice and quotes, a breakdown of the stand-up “life”, and the roots of the comedy germ, all told at a rapid pace.  It covers bad gigs, great gigs, mentorships, striving for parental approval, the evolution and/or devolution of a comic, moving from coast to coast, club owners, problems talking to women, playing softball, practical jokes, encounters with the mob, encounters with legends and amateurs, the pain and joy of it all.  He addresses great questions like “how was I, a guy whose comic believability at that time was the equivalent of a blow-up doll faking an orgasm, going to handle hecklers?”

Though he was once heckled for talking about himself so much, the book is as much about DeBellis as it is his peers and family (both surrogate and biological).  Being so close with Larry David, many anecdotes concern first-person stories about one of the most significant comedy minds of the last twenty-five years.  Some relatively unknown comics will be sought out at the conclusion of this read as well, with DeBellis painting vivid, colorful portraits of the less popular funnymen (and women—he devotes an entire chapter to that gender) of that day.  Throughout you’ll find many personal, often emotional mini-tributes to those who have passed.  He even gives a shout out to the extended family that is the comedy club staff, which, having belonged to that group for over five years, I have my own experiences with and it meant a lot to me.  I’ve never read a comic’s appreciation of the club employees on paper before, but the appreciation is likewise reciprocated.

Standup Guys: A Generation of Laughs offers the kind of writing that could very well make DeBellis the household name he should already be, if enough people get their hands on it.  I’m not too worried about that, since anybody who reads this will likely recommend it to several of their friends, particularly those interested in comedy, since it firmly places itself alongside the best of that bunch.  It’s a memoir, it’s a document of an era, and it’s an autobiography.  It’s also the best book on stand-up I’ve read since Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up.

You can find a copy of Standup Guys: A Generation of Laughs here at Amazon.com

The first half is more padded than the updated half, making it clear that Muir originally needed to meet a target number of pages that the updated version already satisfied.  Perhaps it’s also due to the amount of lore that Smith’s first five films had acquired compared to his second five: there was more to write about, more cultural impact to discuss, more “rise-to-fame” and “career-sustain” events to detail.  The second half of Smith’s career is, after all, more “mid-life crisis” than “indie wunderkind”, but Muir never shies away from his adoration for Smith as filmmaker and public personality, no matter which period he’s discussing.  The book succeeds by the mere chance that Smith’s tenth film–Red State–was as culturally relevant as his first, providing a nice bookend to the filmography in question.

The writing style is mostly like reading a documentary, with a lot of transitions into quotes.  It has a straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth narrative, allowing the people involved with these films to do the talking.  As a composite of interview snippets, there’s a mix of perspectives and insights, with Muir filling in the gaps with necessary context.  There’s a thorough synopsis of each film, post-scripts connecting each film together, a dictionary of Smithian language, and general trivia and “did you knows?” aplenty.  Muir also illustrates the critical reception of each film, and ends each chapter with his own two-cents, where he pointedly articulates his overall opinion of whichever film.  In a refreshing change from the norm, Muir defends both Cop Out and Mallrats (the latter he compares to Shakespeare, if you can believe that), with points that are hard to argue against.  Since Smith has fashioned a tightknit group of friends and regulars over the years, reading it feels like private access to an exclusive club.  Longtime friend and collaborator of Smith’s Scott Mosier particularly provides some extremely useful advice about running a movie set, and the details of the ins-and-outs of the movie industry–from low-budget indie to studio and back to low-budget indie (but with an established reputation)–are a must-read for any aspiring film-anything.

Someone picking this up with a neutral or less-than-positive opinion of Smith’s work might find Muir to be a bit of a sycophant here, but his view is well-informed and astutely stated enough to consider his view, no matter how askew it might seem to some.  Anyone who wants to ace a Kevin Smith Jeopardy category would benefit greatly from studying the insane amount of information present in An Askew View 2.

An Askew View 2 is available through Applause Theater & Cinema Books