Funny People Dir. Judd Apatow Universal Pictures  [Universal
Pictures; 2009]  3.5 / 5 (0)  Any old stand-up will tell you, to
be a truly successful comic, first you have to fail. A lot.
Like, five nights a week. It's only through consistently bombing
that a comic is able to lose her ego and begin to truly open up
on stage, exposing the humanity that is at the root of all
humor. That adage is what Funny People, Judd Apatow's third film
as writer/director, is all about: doing stand up, confronting
failure, examining yourself, and discovering the depth of that
humanity.  Apatow took that lesson, from his early stand-up
days, and applied it to a career in the Hollywood system. For
more than a decade, Apatow wrote and produced forgotten flops
like Celtic Pride and The Cable Guy, before helming the
critically acclaimed but utterly unsuccessful series Freaks and
Geeks. While Freaks and Geeks is arguably one of the best TV
shows of its generation, it's easy to see why it was pulled off
the air. It was far too cerebra