When "The 40 Year Old Virgin" came out in 2005, it launced some big careers and let Hollywood know that raunchy movies were what the public wanted, especially when done very well. The movie is brilliantly funny, witty, charming, and has a really sweet story that it is running off of all the time. There are a ton of great characters and at no time does it feel rushed or out of step. William Goldman, the dean of Hollywood script writers, said just before the Oscars that it should win Best Picture and that it was the best screenplay in the last 20 years.
Here's a few of the big takeaways from this movie:
- Raunchy was back! With this and "Wedding Crashers" coming out very close together, the idea that R rated movies could not be big hits was put to bed for good. It helped open the door for movies like "The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids"
- The Apatow era began. This was the first movie Judd Apaptow's directed and he has repeated the style of this movie in many other hits as both director and producer including: "Old School", "Knocked Up", "Superbad", "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", and "Step Brothers".
- Steve Carell became a movie star. Up to this point, Carell had had some TV success with "The Office", but he only had gotten small parts in movies like "Anchor Man". This launched him leading man territory and his career took off.
- Seth Rogen's big break. Rogen sets the tone of the movie in the first scene with this "Donkey show" conversation and the character he worked in this movie became a career for him.
- Ensemble cast success. There were no real established stars in this movie when it was released. But looking back on the cast now…. it was loaded! This also started a trend in Hollywood of ensemble cast movies that were cheaper to make and lended themselves to a larger case with more complex stories and relationshiops. Beside Carrel and Rogen there was: Catherine Keener, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jane Lynch, and Johan Hill.
Here's the original trailer:
And here's a clip of Mooj giving some live advice. "Holy sh*t, man. You got to get on that."