Judd Apatow – How To Write Your Favorite Movie

BridesmaidsPoster

How to Write Bridesmaids

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. If you don’t already have funny friends, move to a major city and take a class on something called “improvisation”.

2 – The Genre. Comedy. With women. But nowadays we just say “Comedy” and not “Female Comedy” or “Chick Flick”. Funny is funny. People are people.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? You mess up all the fun plans before your best friend’s wedding because you kind of suck at life and you’re letting your depression affect your friendships. Your cake business failed and you are sleeping with a jerk, albeit a handsome one. All of your friends are doing so well that you are the only one who can’t afford a first class flight. You have to move in with your mother and worst of all, your best friend might have a new best friend.

4 – The Fun Stuff. Being a Bridesmaid is fun, right? Planning parties, shopping for dresses, and adventurous lunches! Food poisoning while trying on expensive dresses! Getting Kristen Wiig drunk on an airplane! Of course there’s the wedding to look forward to at the end of the movie. Audiences like looking forward to a big event, and it will be awesome if we can get Wilson Phillips to sing a hit song at the reception.

5 – The Cop. A guy with authority who can pull you over for not fixing your tail light. A guy who will let you do cop stuff with him, then sexy stuff, and then baking stuff. Give him a cool non-American accent and let him be super into you. Good guys exist.

6 – The Melissa. We need a voice of reason. Someone who has their shit together and doesn’t abandon Annie at her worst. Also someone who is capable at handling a bunch of golden retrievers. Melissa McCarthy, although already a successful television actor, makes a breakout in this movie. Let her choose her styling – apparently she doesn’t want her character to wear makeup. And cast her husband in it as her romantic interest because they are adorable together.

7 – The Jokes. Comedians, attack! While the script is hilarious, we have the best comedic talent in the business in this movie. Let them soar! Women are funny, damn it! Women can shit themselves in the middle of the street and make it tasteful! Women can tell jokes! (Although a woman did not direct this movie, Paul Feig knows how to let women shine.)

8 – The Title. Bridesmaids, because you know, they’re all bridesmaids. I guess we could go with “My Best Friend’s Wedding” but that has been taken and “Sorry I Ruined Your Bachelorette Party” is too long. Keep it simple.

9 – The Ending. “Fight for your shitty life!” yells Melissa McCarthy and then amazingly Annie gets her shit together. It’s inspiring. I kind of want someone to yell at me like that. Annie opens a bakery, makes amends to those she hurt, and saves the wedding by finding the bride the morning of. Oh, and she gets the hot cop and makes new friends while dancing along to “Hold On” next to Wilson Phillips.

10 – The Heart. Bridesmaids is a movie about friends made by actual friends. There’s a reason the main character is named Annie. She’s one of the writers. You can tell that these two besties who met in an improv class really love each other and love making a great movie.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Bridesmaids. Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig did.

How to Write Forgetting Sarah Marshall

by L.A. Zvirbulis

1 – The Inspiration. Get dumped while you are naked by the long term girlfriend you met while making a tv show for Judd Apatow. Have Judd Apatow tell you that you’re going to have to write your own movie because you’re just a bit too weird to be cast as a normal leading man. Get Judd Apatow to produce a movie where you and your friends get to spend three months in Hawaii making out with Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis so you can show the fun sexy footage to your ex-girlfriend and millions of other people.

2 – The Genre. Comedy as produced by Judd Apatow. And even though this is weirdly Jason Segel’s real life therapeutic revenge movie, the film itself is a delightful romantic comedy with a great cast in a beautiful setting. Also this is Hollywood history because Jason Segel shows his penis on screen. In a comedy. It’s big. Like, a big deal. For its genre.

3 – The Complications. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, you just got naked-dumped. So now, you naked-sleep with a bunch of women in Los Angeles, then end up in Hawaii where a hot girl at the front desk takes pity on you and gives you a penthouse suite for free. Wait that doesn’t sound so bad. Oh but you want your ex back and can’t have her and she’s on this island resort with you and her new boyfriend. Also you drink a lot and haven’t finished your Dracula musical yet. Ouch.

4 – The Fun Stuff. We get to see Jason Segel’s dick. It’s a good dick that is important to the story because it is based on true events. We can even name his character Peter to remind everyone that we do in fact see his peter. Dicking around aside, we get to go to Hawaii and make out with attractive people and do comedy bits with our friends! Paul Rudd as a middle-aged surf instructor, Jonah Hill as a waiter obsessed with a rock star, Bill Hader as a voice of reason step-brother, and Jack McBrayer as a virgin that lets us add even more sexual comedy into this sexy comedy. Also let’s make fun of how many people get married or engaged in Hawaii, as to rub the singleness into Jason Segel’s wounds. It is funny when he cries.

5 – The Device. Dracula Musical. Peter is writing a musical with puppets but hasn’t finished it because of his depression or whatever. Is he depressed over the breakup, or did the breakup happen because of his depression? Anyway, you must complete your creative work (like this screenplay) before you can truly win over the person you like, and the creative work is what gets Jason Segel out of the depression. Wow. Okay, Dracula Musical. I guess you’re important.

6 – The Boyfriend. We write him to be a pretentious novelist, but when comedian Russell Brand auditions he wins over the role. Your villain is a rock star who makes silly/sexy songs that you can write yourself if you want more royalties. He becomes a bigger villain when it turns out that not only did your ex dump you for him, she cheated on you with him for a year. Big ouch.

7 – The Jokes. Good thing you have funny friends with improv training that you put in your movie, so you don’t even have to write some of it – just let improvisers make stuff up on set! Oh, and the “the weather outside is weather” joke costs us $90,000 in royalty fees but the joke really hits well with test audiences so we keep it. Oh yeah, we test a lot of the jokes with different audiences before the final cut is released. We are Hollywood professionals.

8 – The Title. “You Suck, Sarah Marshall”. No. “My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall”. No, but we can put up billboards with similar sentiments up all over town to promote this movie because pictures of Jason’s face don’t test well with audiences. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is memorable as a title.

9 – The Ending. Dracula Musical! Jason stops drinking and finishes his magnum opus in a vampire puppet musical about Dracula and premieres it in Los Angeles. Mila Kunis shows up to see the musical and then his penis! They kiss and prove that Peter really has forgotten what’s her name.

10 – The Heart. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is about Jason Segel getting his shit together. He wrote it about his real life and made a lot of money off of it, so, breakups do pay. In fact, writing a screenplay about your breakup is better than therapy because you get a free trip to wherever you wrote about when you’re done. Smart guy.

*L.A. Zvirbulis did not write Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jason Segel did.