The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Lee said it was maybe a guy thing. Well, the very first scene definitely was, if you’ve ever awakened with an erection and had to lean over the toilet to piss. Not a girl thing, for sure. I laughed pretty hard. I laughed a lot later, too, but I have to say this movie had the potential to be a real classic, like There’s Something About Mary, or Fever Pitch, but didn’t quite make it. The first was balls-out over-the-top gross-out popcorn-spraying yuks, and the second was gentler, with a finely-drawn ensemble cast. This one tried to be both, and partly succeeded at each … but that doesn’t make a classic. This is writer Judd Apatow‘s first feature-length movie as a director, and he is a great joke writer and a good actor, but he needs to learn to tighten it up some. Scenes went on too long, as did the whole film. A one-joke premise can only go 90 minutes, maybe 100 minutes, tops. This one went a tad over 2 hours. You have to learn to kill your favorite children, Judd. But I’ll go see your next movie.

42: Forty Two Up(1998)