We’re still talking about Ricky Gervais’s performance as host of the Golden Globes last Sunday. We’re still talking about it because new people keep coming out to talk about how butt-hurt they still are. The latest: writer/producer/director Judd Apatow, who was the MC of the weekend’s Producer’s Guild Awards (where The King’s Speech took top honors). Apatow decided to rip into Ricky’s performance during the event. Well… I say “rip into” but that’s not really what happened. Apatow made a couple of good points, but if you read over all of the quotes, it just seems like Apatow was trying to soothe and massage the oh-so-tender egos of Hollywood power players.

Producers Guild Awards host Judd Apatow built his opening monologue around a profanity-laced attack on the way Ricky Gervais handled his Golden Globe Awards hosting chores a week earlier in the same room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

“What did you think of Ricky Gervais?” he asked the black-tie industry crowd Saturday night. “I didn’t like him. I thought he was mean.”

Apatow, whose movies include The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, knocked Gervais for his controversial jokes.

“He had that joke about the guy on Lost,” said Apatow. “He said he ate everybody else. Let’s be honest — Ricky Gervais just lost weight. Even now he’s four pounds away from not being allowed to do a joke like that. Did he lose weight just to make fat jokes? You think that’s how mean he is?”

Apatow had no problem with a Gervais joke about Charlie Sheen.

But Apatow added, “(Jay) Leno did it the week before.”

“I think he’s an OK target,” Apatow said of Sheen. “The people at CBS have said as long as he shows up on time, knows his lines, he can do whatever he wants.”

However, Apatow took exception to Gervais making a joke about The Tourist.

“(Gervais) says the characters were two-dimensional,” said Apatow. “Then he says he hasn’t seen The Tourist. So as a comedian, that’s not fair, is it? To make jokes about a movie you haven’t seen.

“I can’t do a joke about (Gervais’s movie) The Invention of Lying because I haven’t seen it. You haven’t seen it. None of us have seen it. So the joke would not work.”

Apatow also came to the defense of Cher, Hugh Hefner, Tim Allen, Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr. – others who were Gervais targets.

“(Gervais) made a joke about Tim Allen who was standing next to Tom Hanks,” said Apatow. “Who looks good standing next to Tom Hanks? We all look like a piece of shit standing next to Tom Hanks. Warren Buffet would look like a piece of sh-t next to Tom Hanks. Tim Allen did 200 episodes of Home Improvement. He was in three of the highest grossing movies of all time. And his latest just crossed the one billion mark. Whereas The Invention Of Lying made $18 million dollars worldwide…Leave Tim Allen alone.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

Here’s the thing – some of Ricky’s set was funny, and some of the points Judd Apatow made were right on. Ricky did a better job of hosting the Globes last year, and he’s not going to come back for a third try. Apatow, on the other hand, just seems to be whining overall. Whatever. I’m over this controversy, and I’m over both Ricky and Apatow.

Thanks to Gawker for the story!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee “I know you are, but what am I?” Herman, isn’t playing small potatoes with his comeback attempt. His Pee Wee Herman stage show has been selling out in Los Angeles for months, and with all this 80′s nostalgia, the time couldn’t be better for Pee Wee to return to the big screen. Sources report that Pee Wee’s big comeback film will be helmed by “Knocked Up” and “40 Year Old Virgin” mastermind Judd Apatow.

Look who’s joining Pee-wee Herman in the playhouse!

Bromance expert Judd Apatow has teamed up with Paul Reubens to develop a new Pee-wee film for the big screen, Daily Variety reports.

“Let’s face it, the world needs more Pee-wee Herman,” Apatow told the trade. “I am so excited to be working with Paul Reubens—who is an extraordinary and groundbreaking actor and writer. It’s so great to watch him return with such relevance.”

The venerable filmmaker says that he got the idea after taking in Reubens’ sold-out live show in L.A. earlier this year. The Pee-wee Herman Show is headed to Broadway in October.

And Reubens is apparently just as honored to be working with Apatow.

“There is no one like Judd in our business—he loves comedy with emotion and heart, and he sees what we do as art,” said the resurgent 57-year-old actor. “I can’t believe I’m getting this opportunity to be working with him.”

Reubens is working on the script with writer-actor Paul Rust. Apatow’s going to produce, not direct and produce, but that didn’t seem to hurt Superbad, Pineapple Express or Get Him to the Greek.

Besides, Pee-wee is technically a for-all-ages character, so they’re going to want to avoid the automatic “R” that Apatow’s films usually get.

[From E!]

I am so excited about this movie. I always thought Pee Wee/Paul got the big shaft (no pun intended..ok, pun intended!) regarding that whole “masturbating in a porn movie theater” thing. I mean, isn’t that what people do in those places? Compare his trangression to what people get away with these days, and you realize he wasn’t hurting anyone. But I digress. Pee Wee! Apatow! Movie! I just hope that Jambi, Miss Yvonne, and Chairy are along for the ride. I’ve missed them so much!

Photos are from 1/20/10 and feature Miss Yvonne, The King of Cartoons and Cowboy Curtis. Credit: WENN.com

Us Magazine must subscribe to Sirius/XM Radio. They sure do love to listen to the Howard Stern Show and then build news stories around what his celebrity guests say on the air. The latest example of this is their new story on “Funny People” director and co-star, Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen. They appeared on the Stern show this morning to promote the new film, and Howard, who loves a good feud, brought up the comments that their “Knocked Up” co-star Katherine Heigl made over a year ago regarding that film. Both Apatow and Rogen responded in a clearly comical manner –but to hear US Weekly tell it, the pair is ready to throw down with their former leading lady.

Seth Rogen and Knocked Up director Judd Apatow are still miffed over former costar Katherine Heigl knocking the hit blockbuster.

Speaking to Vanity Fair in 2007, Heigl famously remarked that the comedy “paints the women as shrews,” while the men look “lovable.” She added, “It was hard for me to love the movie.” (She later said she was “disheartened” her remarks became “the focus of my experience with the movie.”)

But Rogen says he doesn’t see how Heigl’s new comedy, The Ugly Truth, makes women look even better.

“That [movie] looks like it really puts women on a pedestal in a beautiful way,” he quipped on Howard Stern’s SIRIUS XM radio show on Thursday.

Added Apatow, “I hear there’s a scene where she’s wearing … Underwear …with a vibrator in it, so I’d have to see if that was uplifting for women.”

Apatow figured Heigl was “probably was doing six hours of interviews and kissing everyone’s a**, and then just got tired and slipped a little bit” when she made the remarks to Vanity Fair.

Regardless, Rogen said, “I didn’t slip and I was doing f****** interviews all day too … I didn’t say s***!”

Even more baffling, said Apatow, “We never had a ‘fight’” with Heigl while filming. “Seth always says, it doesn’t make any sense [because] she improvised half her s***,” Apatow said, adding that she “could not have been cooler.”

Apatow said he hasn’t spoken to Heigl since her remarks. He doesn’t know if he’d make a big deal about it, either.

“It all depends on how much coffee I have had that day,” he said. “If I was fighting … with someone else about something I may handle it wrong, and if I’m in like total Buddha mood, I’d be like ‘I feel sad that she hasn’t learned the lesson of her journey yet,’” he said.

After the remark, “[You think] at some point I’ll get a call saying ‘Sorry, I was tired…’ and then the call never comes,’” he said.

Rogen said he doesn’t feel bad since Heigl seems to run her mouth and most people, including Grey’s Anatomy staff.

“I gotta say it’s not like we’re the only people she said some bat **** crazy things about,” he said. “That’s kind of her bag now.”

[From Us Weekly]

I heard the broadcast yesterday morning, and it seemed pretty clear that Howard Stern was trying to get a feud going by stirring the pot – and both Apatow and Rogen were jokingly obliging the radio host. It’s too bad that US didn’t take the time to transcribe the entire portion of the interview, including Howard Stern’s remarks. However, they do raise a good point: I’d say “The Ugly Truth” is just as sexist as “Knocked Up,” if not more. The characters in that movie are barely anything more than stereotypes, while the characters in “Knocked Up,” flawed though they are, at least are more real. But hey: I would certainly be interested in hearing what Heigl has to say about this rebuttal. Oh, and I should add that the Howard Stern/Seth Rogen interview also included a game called “The Wheel of Sex” and a performance by Stern regular Will the Farter.

Seth Rogan is shown on 2/22/09 in the header. Katherine Heigl is shown on 7/16/09. Credit: WENN.com. Image below is from 2008

There are a lot of inequalities in the world. Straight people have it easier than gays, men have it easier than women, tall people have it easier than short. Of course none of these things are strictly a given, it all depends on your perception, experience, and beliefs. But one thing is certain: there are a lot more naked lady parts than male parts in films, and something MUST be done about it. Get rid of the lady parts? Ridiculous, you crazy puritan! Add more of the man meat! “Knocked Up” director Judd Apatow says America has a penis phobia, and he’s determined to make us get over it. And I, for one, am totally behind his plan. Just because I’m an equal opportunity offender.

The filmmaker placed a penis behind actor John C. Reilly’s head in an orgy scene in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and watched as audience members stormed out of a test screening in disgust. Undeterred, Apatow kept the penis footage in the film–and then made a “c**kumentary” about shooting the scene, which will appear on the DVD.

“The original shot was way longer, where the penis is in close-up, and then one night we showed it to a test audience and 22 people walked out. I think we went too far with too much penis. We went with different angles to make sure there weren’t too much testicles being shown… America fears the penis and that’s something I’m going to help them get over. I’m gonna get a penis in every movie I do from now on. When this writers strike ends, that is my dream. It really makes me laugh in this day and age, with how psychotic our world is, that anyone is troubled by seeing any part of the human body; that is amusing to me.”

[From Hollywood.com]

I’m pretty sure Judd Apatow is on a mission to make me love him. Not that I really want or need to see more penises in film (I write that rarely enough that I was trying to figure out if it was penises or penii. I like penii better, so we’re going with that from now on), but I like the equality of it. I remember the first movie I saw that had a naked lady in it – something horrible with Michael J Fox – and actually asking my mom why there wasn’t a naked man. I think she thought I was crazy and/or totally f***ed up (a question that probably hasn’t been wholly answered in her mind) but it really bothered me that it wasn’t a tit for tat situation. So to speak. So I say it should be all or nothing. And Judd Apatow seems to be going with all, so let’s go with that. If you think about it, it probably hurts men’s self-esteem. Being told that a woman’s naked body is perfectly appropriate for the big screen, but that there’s something so inherently offensive about the male form that we can’t look at it in a movie – well that’s got to do something to you psychologically. So men, I think you should champion this cause too. It’s a male pride issue. Tee-hee.