Judd Apatow

By now the Judd Apatow method of moviemaking is well-known - assemble a large mass of comedians and start filming. Thus far he hasn't applied his formula to a large mass of female comics, but as we see in the Apatow-produced "Bridesmaids," it works just as well. "SNL" headliners Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are the leads, but "Bridesmaids" assembles an all-star team of women who've worked for years in improv groups such as the Groundlings or Upright Citizens Brigade, then graduated to gigs on "Reno 911" (Wendi McLendon-Covey)

NEW YORK - Sarah Polley, Julie Delpy and Michael Winterbottom will bring films to this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Starring in other selections are: Maggie Gyllenhaal ("Hysteria"), Greta Gerwig ("Lola Versus"), John Hawkes ("The Playroom"), Salma Hayek ("As Luck Would Have It") and Jesse Eisenberg ("Free Samples"). The 11th annual festival will be held April 18-29. Opening will be "The Five-Year Engagement," a comedy starring Jason Segel and produced by Judd Apatow.

Admittedly, it is redundant to make a comedy about the Celtics because their current team is a joke. But it is also deeply satisfying. There was a time in the 1980s when a stranger in any town but Boston could walk into a bar and make friends for life by rooting against the guys in green whose fans brought obnoxious behavior to obscene depths. Celtic Pride is a cruelly funny satire for anyone who ever hated those scabrous leprechauns and their pathological fans. It's a breath of spring air in that dank, foul-smelling pit with parquet floors known as the Boston Garden.

In "Get Him to the Greek," Russell Brand reprises his role as the wild-maned and out-of-control rock star from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (a movie I'd like to forget). This time out, hilarity ensues when the easily-flummoxed Jonah Hill is charged with getting Brand's character - you guessed it - to the Greek Theater in L.A. But the poster works. Really. I know exactly that this movie's about and why I want to see it. It's also clearly the modern version of "My Favorite Year," a great movie with Peter O'Toole, whose larger-than-life character imparts a lifetime of wisdom to his much-younger handler.

We know at least one thing about the Judd Apatow comedy formula - he's not trying to seduce you with the hypnotic good looks of his leading men. Steve Carell, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, John C. Reilly - none looms as a threat to displace Brad Pitt as the world's sexiest man. Nothing in Apatow's schlub's gallery of male leads, however, prepares you for the breathtaking regularness of the guy in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall. " Jason Segel is hulking, stooped, doughy and without a single developed muscle or perceptible sinew.

Jason Siegel, beer of the month from the Judd Apatow comedy microbrewery, is one long pour of stout. As Peter Bretter, a TV composer dumped by his celebrity actress girlfriend (Kristen Bell) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall , Siegel combines Albert Brooks' sad-eyed clown with Will Ferrell's bubbly clutz. Not always nimbly, Siegel (who wrote the screenplay) juggles dyspeptic bitterness with yeasty sweetness, proving that clumsiness is the pith of prat and pratfall. Like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up , Sarah Marshall has all the ingredients of the Apatow brand.

I TALKED to a director the other day who was a bit miffed that I referred to his movie as being under "the Apatow umbrella. " No offense intended. I was merely noting that as a producer, Judd Apatow has a knack for assembling diverse talent in a way that generates comedies of a consistent tone, and there's no better example of this than the pothead laugher "Pineapple Express. " It's directed by David Gordon Green, an indie auteur noted for mannered, rural, often gothic dramas that are almost scrupulously humorless.

anderlust" director David Wain has a gift for finding laughs in oddball subcultures without making fun of them. In "Role Models," you may recall, he managed to make the world of medieval fantasy role-playing seem like great fun, with help from his gifted in-house troupe of improv comedy pros. They're all on board for "Wanderlust," an R-rated but cheerful comedy about a couple of Manhattan yuppies (Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston) who end up stranded in a Georgia hippie commune, and find they like it. George (Rudd)

Bad timing equals good comedy for Judd Apatow. The writer/director, an oracle of observational humor, is drawn to males who arrive very late or very early to the life-cycle party. Witness The 40-Year-Old Virgin and now Knocked Up, his ticklish and convulsively funny farce that might be called The 25-Year- Old Father. As you can guess from the title, it's about a hookup that could potentially upgrade into a high-speed connection. When Ben (Seth Rogen), a scruffy loser without visible means of support, picks up Alison (Katherine Heigl)

Bad timing equals good comedy for Judd Apatow. The writer/director, an oracle of observational humor, is drawn to males who arrive very late or very early to the life-cycle party. Witness The 40-Year-Old Virgin and now Knocked Up , his ticklish and convulsively funny farce that might be called The 25-Year- Old Father . As you can guess from the title, it's about a hookup that could potentially upgrade into a high-speed connection. When Ben (Seth Rogen), a scruffy loser without visible means of support, picks up Alison (Katherine Heigl)

NEW YORK - Sarah Polley, Julie Delpy and Michael Winterbottom will bring films to this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Starring in other selections are: Maggie Gyllenhaal ("Hysteria"), Greta Gerwig ("Lola Versus"), John Hawkes ("The Playroom"), Salma Hayek ("As Luck Would Have It") and Jesse Eisenberg ("Free Samples"). The 11th annual festival will be held April 18-29. Opening will be "The Five-Year Engagement," a comedy starring Jason Segel and produced by Judd Apatow.

anderlust" director David Wain has a gift for finding laughs in oddball subcultures without making fun of them. In "Role Models," you may recall, he managed to make the world of medieval fantasy role-playing seem like great fun, with help from his gifted in-house troupe of improv comedy pros. They're all on board for "Wanderlust," an R-rated but cheerful comedy about a couple of Manhattan yuppies (Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston) who end up stranded in a Georgia hippie commune, and find they like it. George (Rudd)

WHEN A Flyers official heard that "40-Year-Old Virgin" director Judd Apatow was looking for a hockey player with no teeth for his new movie, he knew just who to recommend: Ian Laperriere . The injured winger jumped at the opportunity and enlisted teammates Scott Hartnell , Matt Carle and James van Riemsdyk to join him in Hollywood for a 16-hour-day shoot in Apatow's "This is Forty. " The guys portray hockey players who hit up a bar after a game and end up dancing and somehow playing with Lappy's false teeth.

Paul Rudd interrupted his work on the untitled Judd Apatow project a few weeks ago (don't let anyone tell you it's called This Is 40 - Universal says it's not), to jet from Los Angeles to New York to drop in on Harvey Weinstein . The Weinstein Co. is distributing Our Idiot Brother , the new comedy in which Rudd has the title role, and the actor thought he'd pitch a few marketing ideas to the famously feisty mogul. "I flew to New York for about half of a day, and I was able to stop off in his office and defile most of the things in it," Rudd reports, deadpan.

By now the Judd Apatow method of moviemaking is well-known - assemble a large mass of comedians and start filming. Thus far he hasn't applied his formula to a large mass of female comics, but as we see in the Apatow-produced "Bridesmaids," it works just as well. "SNL" headliners Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph are the leads, but "Bridesmaids" assembles an all-star team of women who've worked for years in improv groups such as the Groundlings or Upright Citizens Brigade, then graduated to gigs on "Reno 911" (Wendi McLendon-Covey)

In "Get Him to the Greek," Russell Brand reprises his role as the wild-maned and out-of-control rock star from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (a movie I'd like to forget). This time out, hilarity ensues when the easily-flummoxed Jonah Hill is charged with getting Brand's character - you guessed it - to the Greek Theater in L.A. But the poster works. Really. I know exactly that this movie's about and why I want to see it. It's also clearly the modern version of "My Favorite Year," a great movie with Peter O'Toole, whose larger-than-life character imparts a lifetime of wisdom to his much-younger handler.

Ben Stiller has the title role in "Greenberg" as an angry middle-aged misfit who visits L.A. to house-sit for his bigshot brother and take care of his dog. The dog's a German shepherd whose name in a "Larry the Cable Guy" movie might have been Mauler, but here is almost certainly Mahler. Writer-director Noah Baumbach ("The Squid and The Whale") understands privileges and pretensions of people with a surplus of money and education, and loads his movies with details that deftly explain and skewer his subjects.

Reports that Judd Apatow has made a movie about death turn out to be greatly exaggerated. Yes, there's a guy in "Funny People" who gets pretty sick, but Apatow (who wrote and directed) never strays very far from a good joke during the movie's ample two and a half hours. Nor does he abandon his taste for gags about sex and its related organs. Weiner jokes? Apatow goes you one better, and makes Weiner the name of his main character. Ira Weiner (Apatow-avatar Seth Rogen)

Kevin Smith borrows Seth Rogen and a few other actors from the Judd Apatow stable for "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," a blend that makes sense. Apatow has had the movie career that some of us envisioned for Smith when we first saw "Clerks," the funny, vulgar but secretly sweet indie that made Smith famous. "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," after all, is "Clerks" on a bigger, more polished scale - the retail serfdom, the regular guys with their foul-mouthed bonhomie, an arrested-development character still immersed in the pop-culture trappings of childhood, and the ultimately sweet message about the search for love.

I TALKED to a director the other day who was a bit miffed that I referred to his movie as being under "the Apatow umbrella. " No offense intended. I was merely noting that as a producer, Judd Apatow has a knack for assembling diverse talent in a way that generates comedies of a consistent tone, and there's no better example of this than the pothead laugher "Pineapple Express. " It's directed by David Gordon Green, an indie auteur noted for mannered, rural, often gothic dramas that are almost scrupulously humorless.