The 40 Year-Old Virgin
 

All right, now I know some of you guys are shy, who's seen this?

I wasn't expecting much, but this turned out to be a really fun movie. It's sophmoric, but they did a good job building and maintaining the story line through the jokes. So at the end you leave with that satisfied feeling ...

Silly jokes + good follow through on the story line. In the same vein of Caddy Shack or John Hughes's Sixteen Candles.



**** CAREFUL SPOILERS BELOW ****






And if you don't post a reply, that's how I know you're ...

I loved the movie. I thought it had so many hilarious parts to it. However, I thought it was one of the most poorly directed and/or edited movies I've seen in a long time!

I'm not one to notice that when I see a movie and usually do well at leaving my tech eyes home. But there were so many really bad cuts and continuity errors, it was weird. How about that totally unexplained, unfunny short scene with the black guy in the electronics store going off on the other guy. Suddenly, we cut to the next scene and he's in tears over his wife breaking up. That was downright strange. Any editor worth anything would've cut that first scene right out!

Oh well...I still loved it and would recommend it to people who want to laugh or learn how hard continuity is when cutting from one medium shot to another medium shot. :-)

Kevin

**** SPOILER ****
I agree the cut was abrupt, but I think it was meant to contrast the angry black man and the totally wooped boyfriend, makes sense.

Say what? Makes sense in what way? Him scolding the guy in the store wasn't even funny. I was waiting for the joke, but him saying "I'm not your n**#*a" wasn't even a joke. Then to immediately cut to him crying with no mention of the previous scene, but a whole new off-camera precipitating event? Sorry...loved the movie, but that was bad, bad directing/editing.

Just my opinion, but I've never been wrong before. :-)

Kevin

It was a way to show his volatile emotional state. They were parodying the passive/aggressive behaviour that many guys use when they are emotionally trouble inside. And it's in keeping with a main theme of the movie which his how guys act when they are hiding their feelings.

First he shows how tough he is by not backing down from the customer, then, he starts crying like a baby in the back room, where we find out his girlfriend broke up with him.

I think I understand where you're coming from though, the customer argument scene all by itself is disturbing, plus it comes up pretty abruptly and sidetracks the main story. In addition, I don't think it worked as well as the other scenes in the movie. Though I thought it was still pretty good.

On another note: the bar scene where one guy keeps flicking/slapping the other guy was brilliant ... well played ...

I enjoyed the film also, but had the same complaint. I agree with you about that disjoint jump in the scene-to-scene editing, but I was already thrown for a loop by the abruptness of some of the cut-to-cut edits as well. Jarring is really the only word for it. There was a lot of minor continuity stuff that contributed as well... in angle 1 the character might have their head cocked to the side, and in angel 2 it is straight. It was a first time director,

Truly though, it didn't get in the way of enjoying it. I laughed a lot. They were over the top a few times, but that is what they set out to do.

haven't seen it yet but doya think it's cause we're so technical cause we're DVI'ers and OF COURSE WE will notice those things? i think the avg. joe wouldn't notice it.

I'm sure no non-tech person came out thinking "wow, great movie, the the edits were a bit jarring...".

I think that editing, light lighting, acting, everything else is seemless and transparent when done well, but when not they bring people out of the world the movie is trying to create. Most of the time the viewers won't know why, they just don't connect to the piece the way they can.

I think at least 1/2 the TV-watching populace could recognize the difference between a smoothly filmed national TV commercial and a locally-produced trash auto sales commercial. But I also think that no more than 1 in 10 of those people could point to any specific technical detail that gave them a clue. It is all in how it impacts them overall.

well, that's what WE hope it would be. the sad truth is most people are stupid. they don't notice those things.

Barry, I wouldn't really call Judd Apatow a first-time director--technically that's true, it is his first feature credit, but as a TV showrunner he would have certainly been involved in plenty of edit sessions and my guess is that he is of the school that the funniest take for performance outweighs continuity issues such as head positions. The editors on "Scrubs" used to tell me how they would point out such things to Bill Lawrence (the exec producer of the show) when he was supervising the edits and he'd always say "who cares about that, that's the best take otherwise". The fact is that one can find examples of "erratic" editing in many of the best films.

I for one registered a couple of things about the construction of this movie that weren't ideal, but overall I enjoyed it so much that I didn't care. It was my favorite comedy of the summer, edging out "Wedding Crashers" by a good nose. But I am admittedly a big fan of Apatow's style, in that he wrote and produced three of my all-time favorite TV shows (Freaks and Geeks, the Ben Stiller show and the Larry Sanders Show)

Charles,

You are right... I had read that he was a first-time director, but hadn't looked up his credits... He certainly is a man with a lot of experience around the camera.

I heard great things about Freaks and Geeks... I have to netflix it. I really did enjoy this movie.

The old "we'll fix it in post" mentality. This explains why we have such an abundance of mediocre to poor movies and television shows. No one cares any more.

Jay

Oh man, I almost died when they broke into 'The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius,' at the end. Steve Carrell (sp?) is hilarious, but I think he's making a mistake right now. I don't know how many of you lurk IMDB all day, but I keep running across this guy and looking at his new projects. I just have one thing to say...EVAN ALMIGHTY?! Can we say catastrophic failure? For those of you who don't know, Steve played a small role in 'Bruce Almighty.' The character's name was Evan and he was Bruce's nemesis.

Why, God?