Anchorman, 40-year Old Virgin, Super Bad, Knocked Up: producer/director Judd Apatow knows the funny, or at least how to let actors bring it. They are the strength of his movies by far. Where Abrahams – maker of Airplane, Top Secret and Hot Shots for you kiddies – saturate comedy in situation and setting, Judd does so with memorable characters, which seem to be cast from some sort of apprenticeship system.

Will Ferrell – whom is forging a career based on playing men from the ‘70s – led Anchorman, but Steve Carrel’s weatherman Brick is a big contributor by the extremity of his retard edacity, mayonnaise in a toaster – WTF? Carrel leads in Virgin, epically making his career with Seth Rogen waiting in the wings of co-stardom playing pothead love guru Cal, then Rogen leads in Knocked Up essentially as his Virgin character. Apatow populates a movie with an ensemble of comedic characters that have a touch of realistic humanity in all its often-pitiful … quirky … glory?

Forgetting Sarah Marshal adds another to the portfolio. How quirky? What if your male lead, not particularly in shape Jason Segel, does nudity in the beginning and end of the flick? Conceptually, we could say this symbolizes the character’s vulnerability. It was his RAW grief at being crushed by Kristen Bell’s titular – heh – character, then his willingness to find love again with Mila Kunis’ Rachel. How do I know you‘re gay? You’re movie’s showcasing more sausage than Brokeback Mountain, and I doubt it was for artistic expression more than that ludicrous edge Apatow favors — like Carrel’s fountain-like super boner in Virgin and Superbad’s blood brothers scene. You laugh uncomfortably, but you laugh.

In between man ass over got an overall decent movie. Segel isn’t an especially strong lead actor, and not just from the constant crying and indecisiveness. Aside from his dream to a make a puppet Dracula musical, what’s his name … Peter is pretty much typical dude paying the price for dating outside of his league and victim of comedic circumstance. The insincere celebrity Sarah Marshall (Bell) leaves him for goth rocker Aldous Snow, played very well by Russel Brand, whom is this super sexual spoiled lead singer for the band Infant Sorrow — I shit you not. Mila Kunis is the down-to-earth and genuine front desk receptionist Rachel that feels sorry for Peter and while helping him enjoy Hawaii and get over things falls for him. Both female roles seem kind of flat, character not chest wise … though that fits too, like Katharine Hegel did in Knocked Up. You’d think the chick in the title would be more of a bitch.

This, like the others mentioned, is a guy movie obviously with girls tossed into one-dimensional roles. That Peter is similarly drab it’s not that jarring though. Show outs were Jonah Hill as the quasi-gay fan boy whose adoration of Snow is eerily laughable. Jack McBrayer plays his usual wide-eyed young rube to perfection, like he does as Kenneth on 30 Rock. Paul Rudd returns again as middle-aged spacey surf instructor Chuck this time, doling out neo-Zen fortune cookie advice that doesn’t help at all. There was also sagaciously atypical big black man and Hawaiian standard large Polynesian guy, whom each added a few larfs.

Which will lead in the next Apatow joint? My money’s on Rudd — he’s done enough in each and is funnier than Rogen and Segel, why not?

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