Jilted at the Movie Theater

The 40 Year-Old Virgin is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.

Ever!

Not one of the best movies.

But one of the funniest.

I must’ve laughed out loud.

40 times.

But as a movie, I’d give it an.... ok.

I think that was my introduction to Judd Apatow.

He is the brilliant, hilarious, writer/producer/director funnyman.

Who has become one of the true stars in Hollywood.

And for good reason.

He cracks me up.

Because of The 40 Year-Old Virgin I saw Knocked Up.

Another Apatow production.

Funny?

Definitely.

Hilarious?

At times.

Great movie.

Not so much.

But I love laughing at movies.

The iconic chest waxing scene in The 40 Year-Old Virgin.

One of my all-time faves.

The phone call in Swingers.

Brilliant!.... and painful to watch.

When Harry met Meg Ryan in the deli.

Orgasmic.

Blazing Saddles was oh so wrong.

But that movie was oh so funny.

Austin Powers.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (another Apatow classic).

The Heartbreak Kid.

I laughed out loud at every one of those movies.

Out loud.

At least a bunch of times.

That’s a great feeling.

And that was the feeling I expected to have Sunday night.

When I took my 14-year old daughter to her first R rated movie.

The movie was Bridesmaids.

I checked ahead of time to see why it was rated R.

No nudity.

No violence.

Just a bunch of F bombs, a C word and a handful of S’s.

Nothing she doesn’t hear at home.

Everyone had talked about how great this movie was.

And why not.

It stars Kristen Wiig.

The extremely talented star of Saturday Night Live.

What little I knew about the premise sounded good.

And Judd Apatow was the producer.

What could possibly go wrong?

Um.........

How about almost everything.

Apatow once did a movie called "Superbad".

Bridesmaids could've been called SuperDuperBad.

Did I laugh out loud?

Ok.

A couple of times.

The food poisoning scene was funny.

And the ... hmmm... there must’ve been something else.

But for the most part it was one giant dud.

S

L

O

W.

So slow.

Had they just trimmed the fat off this baby.

It would’ve made one hysterical SNL Digital Short.

But every scene went 76% too long.

My watch told me that the movie ran about two hours.

It felt like 10.

I had heard it was the female version of The Hangover.

Well considering I didn’t really like The Hangover.

That much.

I would probably agree.

Even Howard Stern took 19 seconds from his four hour show to talk about how great the Bridesmaids script was.

Now I love Howard.

I LOVE HOWARD.

But what was he watching?

There was so much wrong with this movie.

Once in a while they stumbled upon a funny joke.

So they beat it to death.

By repeating it.

Over.

and

Over.

(Exhibit A:   Wiig and the rich girl going back and forth on the mic at the engagement party early in the movie.)

Somebody please make them stop.

I’m sure they wrote some brilliant ideas on the dry erase board.

Like Wiig having broken brake lights in the first hour of the movie.

And getting in a car accident in the second hour.

Ooh pinch me.

Or a cameo from SNL early 90’s cast member Melanie Hutsell.

They should’ve had her play Jan Brady again.

That might’ve been funny.

They had some British actor playing a Milwaukee cop.

Really?

Have you been to Milwaukee?

According to Wikipedia, 2.8% of the population in Milwaukee is “English”.

That’s just plain comedy genius.

If there is some good news to report here, my daughter has now seen an R rated movie.

And it was nothing special.

Nothing at all.

Which may mean she won’t be asking to see another one.

For a while.

Now that’s a funny joke.