From: Adam Sternbergh

To: Tara Ariano

Re: The year in film

Ah, best comedy. I like that you started with a softball right down the pipe. I’m tempted to be contrarian and vote for Serenity as the year’s top rib-tickler - but does it even count as a comedy? It sure was nice to see an action film with a sense of humour - I kept feeling like its brand of well-timed wisecracks are exactly what the last three bone-dry Star Wars films were lacking, as though Serenity’s director, Joss Whedon, had kidnapped Han Solo and renamed him Capt. Mal Reynolds.

But it’s impossible to vote against The 40 Year-Old Virgin, which may be my favourite film of the year, period. (What can I say? It was a bleak season.) In hindsight, you have to remind yourself what a high degree of difficulty this film set for itself. A movie about a virgin? Who’s 40? And likeable? This all could have so easily collapsed in clichés about high pants and glasses with tape in the middle. (Imagine this film with Johnny Knoxville as the star. Yikes.)

But Steve Carell created a truly lovable, and very well-observed, character. You could tell both he and director Judd Apatow spent a lot of time thinking - really thinking - about what kind of guy might have abstained through four full decades. (Though as they say, the first decade’s the easiest.)

And Paul Rudd was absolutely priceless as his wing-man. In some alternate universe with a more finely honed sense of justice than our own, Paul Rudd is more famous than Tom Cruise. Of course, that’s because, in that universe, Tom Cruise is in a nuthouse. But I digress.

To top it off, The 40 Year-Old Virgin also had the biggest laughline of any movie this year: when Rudd and Seth Rogen (also great) try to convince Carell to stash away his extensive collection of action figures before his date arrives. When Carell resists, Rogan says, “Dude, is that the Six Million Dollar Man’s boss?” Cut to: a shot of an Oscar Goldman action figure.

Seriously, I’m still chuckling.

Of course, we haven’t mentioned the year’s big comedy money-maker: Wedding Crashers. I have to say I smiled through a lot of it, but it had the nutritive staying power of a bag of Pop Rocks. I know, I know - it wasn’t meant to be good for you. But was it really all that good? I can’t get that terrible scene out of my mind in which the girlfriend pleasures Vince Vaughn under the dining table, as the family watches. That scene was everything The 40 Year-Old Virgin wasn’t: clichéd, entirely unbelievable, and ultimately kind of repulsive. Thoughts?