Another tribal flick
Never before in the history of American film comedy have so many hit films had a “trifecta” of Jewish writers, directors and lead actors/actresses. You can thank Judd Apatow for starting the ball rolling as the writer, director and/or producer of a string of film hits — staffed by a herd of Hebrews.
“I Love You, Man” (opening Friday, March 20) is an “Apatow-like” film in the way it combines broad humor, romance and social commentary. It also features several Jewish members of the Apatow “repertory company.”
Apatow-regular Paul Rudd (“Knocked Up”), stars as Peter Klaven, a nice, very un-macho guy who is about to marry a nice, pretty girl (Rashida Jones). Jones, 33, the daughter of actress Peggy Lipton (“Mod Squad”) and African-American music legend Quincy Jones, was raised Jewish and says she is a practicing Jew. Another practicing Jew, Jon Favreau, has a small but juicy role as Jones’ best friend’s husband.
Peter has a problem — he has no male friends. Hence there’s nobody to ask to be his best man. He decides to quickly make such a friend, and in this endeavor he is advised by his gay brother, played by “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg, a Berkeley native. (Samberg “plays gay” in a refreshingly toned-down way.) After several comically awkward failures, Peter meets a free-spirit slacker played by Jason Segal (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”). Peter is taken with Segal (in a non-romantic way), and spends so much time with him that he jeopardizes his relationship with Jones.
“I Love You, Man” is directed and co-written by John Hamburg, whose other credits include “Along Came Polly” and the screenplays for the “Meet the Fockers” films.
Rudd, 39, who is proudly Jewish, is featured on the cover of this month’s Vanity Fair as a “new comedy legend,” along with Segal, Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen. The funny cover photo, and others of the four by Annie Leibovitz, is on the Vanity Fair Web site. Rudd says he had a small Jewish wedding, presided over by a guitar-strumming rabbi, when he got married in 2003. Now the father of two, Rudd says he didn’t have a best man at his own wedding.
In Starz’s constellation
The very pretty actress Lizzy Caplan, 26, co-stars in the new, original Starz cable network series, “Party Down” (starting Friday, March 20, at 10:30 p.m.). It’s about a group of young people who labor for a Los Angeles catering company while otherwise pursuing their career dreams. Caplan plays an aspiring standup comedian who wonders whether she has the talent to make it in showbiz.
Caplan’s first TV role was as Segal’s girlfriend on Apatow’s “Freaks and Geeks.” Since then, she has co-starred in the TV series “The Class” and in the film “Cloverfield,” and she had a big, recurring role as Amy, a vegan with a taste for blood, on the HBO vampire series “True Blood.” Caplan is on the cover of the current issue of JVibe, and she told the teen magazine that she went to Hebrew school in Malibu, was a bat mitzvah and traveled to Israel with an Ulpan group when she was 16. She says going to Israel “was amazing. You’re with 150 kids your age, and three of my best friends [from childhood] were on it with me. I want to go back!” ( JVibe, by the way, is offering free three-year subscriptions at www.jvibe.com).
Casting notes …
Jake Gyllenhaal is set to star in a new movie version of the musical “Damn Yankees.” He’ll play a middle-aged man who makes a deal with the devil to be not only young again, but also a great baseball player. Jim Carrey plays the devil. If Jake can sing as well as his sister, Maggie, he’ll do fine … Universal has bought Jonah Hill’s film script based on the self-help book “The Adventurer’s Handbook.” Hill and Jason Schwartzman will co-star, and Berkeley’s Akiva Schaffer is probably going to direct.
Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].