Cinema File: Stand-up comedians way funnier than movies about them

It often is said that comedians are the only individuals who possess a license to tell the truth.

Whenever the all-time great stand-ups are listed, names such as Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Bill Hicks all are at the top. These guys possessed an incredible gift - the ability to grab hold of life's various pieces and flip them over, exposing the dirt and worms underneath, making us laugh at things we otherwise never would see or admit to.

Sex, love and death never were far from examination by the masters, leaving no time for jokes about airplane food and dating. They weren't the court jester types - they were closer to being ministers and philosophers.

"Funny People" director Judd Apatow went from comedy clubs to finding cult success on the small screen as producer of the last truly brilliant television series of the '90s, the short-lived, underrated and under-seen "Freaks and Geeks." The show's genius came not only from its expert casting, perfect soundtrack and authentic 1980s style, but in the way the humor cut so deep it was almost hard to watch at times. When Apatow moved to directing feature films, though, this quality conspicuously was absent. While not completely devoid of realism, both "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up," painted in broad comedic strokes, lacked the often gut-wrenching, endlessly relatable humanity present in Apatow's television work.

For "Funny People," his third cinematic outing, Apatow called upon both his one-time roommate, Adam Sandler, and possibly the funniest of the "Freaks and Geeks" alumni, Seth Rogen.

Both having come up through the stand-up comedy ranks before finding fame in television and on the silver screen, Sandler and Rogen were given the opportunity to return to their stage roots in the film, as both play comedians here. Sandler's character, a high-salaried Hollywood comedy star named George Simmons, lives in a ridiculously huge mansion by himself and is a very damaged in

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