Was Funny People 'Adam Sandler's Passion of the Christ?'

Cole Abaius over at Film School Rejects performs a post-mortem on Adam Sandler's increasingly inane recent output of comedies, as parodied brilliantly in Judd Apatow's Funny People (then subsequently embraced with stinkers like Jack and Jill — life imitating art imitating life?). "The most prominent George Simmons film in Funny People is a gem called Re-Do where an overworked lawyer is transmuted by magic into the body of an infant," Abaius observes. "By playing Simmons, Sandler was directly commenting on the hollow nature of a lot of his own work."
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Aziz Ansari on 30 Minutes or Less, Paying Dues, and His Judd Apatow Collaboration, Spacemen

After contributing scene-stealing but all-too-brief supporting turns in films like Observe & Report, I Love You, Man, and Funny People ("Raaaaandy!"), Aziz Ansari finally gets a full-on leading role in this week's 30 Minutes or Less as Jesse Eisenberg's straitlaced BFF/partner in crime, Chet. What took Hollywood so long to give Ansari, who's currently between seasons stealing yet more scenes on Parks & Recreation, the screen time he deserves? According to Ansari, he's just been paying his dues.

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