A Pox On Michael McDonald

Alright, you mugs. Scrape your hairy tuckuses off the couch right now and carry it straight down to your local movie house and see The 40 Year Old Virgin. Like, now dudes. Give my man Steve Carell all the opening week rah-rahs he deserves.

Of course I'll go see anything Steve Carell does without question. But the extra added incentive is the writing and directing by Judd Apatow, creator of one of my favorite TV shows of all time, Freaks And Geeks, and like that marvelous show this movie is full of both broad and subtle humor mixed with heaps of humanity. And Steve is an utter doll (than again I always thought he was :-)). This was the perfect vehicle for him and even if the movie doesn't reach Big Hit status he'll still have this for everyone to look back on as the best thing he has done on the big screen, if not his whole career. Even during his most slap-schticky moments you never stop believing for a minute that Steve's character Andy isn't a real flesh-n-blood believable human being. As much potential for two-dimensional behavior as this character could be capable of, Steve takes him bodily out of Cartoonland and makes him into somebody you'd probably know in real life. It's the most nuanced thing I have ever seen him do.

And another big shout out to Seth Rogen (Cal from Freaks And Geeks) who plays Andy's friend from work who (with Paul Rudd and Romany Malco) try to help Andy lose it with their own individually conflicting advice, even though each of them have their own sexual/emotional baggage to work through themselves. And Catherine Keener as Andy's sweet but neurotic love interest. Pretty much an kick-ass cast all the way around.

Go see this, peoples.

Oh! And I used to have that same Steve Austin Six Million Dollar Man action figure with the bionic eye when I was a kid. Never did have the one of Austin's boss, though.