Editor’s Note

The eternal question

Because of my job, I suppose, people are always asking me which movies I’m most looking forward to. At parties. Work events. In elevators. Restaurants. At family gatherings. Gatherings of other people’s families. I sometimes wonder if I’m only invited to these things so people can plan their movie nights. Usually, I’ll sputter a bit, think too long, feel guilty that nothing springs to mind, go over the last issue of Famous in my head, and then come up with two or three titles that have piqued my interest. The routine only revs up as we hit June, July and August. Everyone wants to know what the big summer movies are going to be.

Fortunately, this year I don’t have to sputter…or even think. My answer is Funny People.

This film has so much going for it. Not just the proven combination of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, or the brilliant meta-casting of Adam Sandler as a wickedly funny comic who has chosen to go after the lowest common denominator in his film career. Nor is it simply Apatow’s devastatingly effective high-low formula, mixing deeply affecting storylines (this time a grave illness) with relentless humour that ranges from potty to urbane.

I think what really appeals to me is the nuanced way the film shows how and why we bond with the people we do. Rogen, as a newbie stand-up, and Sandler, as the worn-out celebrity, are just getting to know each other but seem like old friends because they have a limitless lexicon of pop culture and comedy references on which to draw. Conversely, Eric Bana’s worldly Australian — although he seems like a good enough guy — will always be the outsider because he simply doesn’t operate on the same plane.

In “Seriously Funny,” Rogen talks about the tragicomic tension that drives Apatow films, and how, for him anyway, the more depressing the movie, the more hilarious the funny moments.

The sixth Harry Potter movie, Half-Blood Prince, certainly has its dark side, but it also flirts with romance and humour. You’d think that emotional breather would come as a welcome change for star Daniel Radcliffe. You’d be wrong. The actor explains in “Why So Serious?”.

In “Summer Lovin’,” Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt talk about teaming up for what may be the season’s best offbeat romance, (500) Days of Summer.

Jim Sturgess plays a mole who infiltrates the IRA in Fifty Dead Men Walking. Read “Stayin’ Alive” to find out which body part Sturgess dislocated during filming and why that made the rest of the shoot so tough.

And finally, this issue features a “Brüno Primer,” our attempt to educate the novice about the Sacha Baron Cohen character at the centre of the new movie.

Marni Weisz, editor