Funny People

Unlike many moviegoers, 17-year-old farm girl Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell, The Day) has no memory of the events of The Last Exorcism, a found-footage smash of three years prior. The Last Exorcism Part II finds her taking steps to build life anew, beginning in a boarding house for troubled girls, where the deeply devout Nell is exposed to such heretofore corrupting influences as lipstick and rock music and YouTube and cotton candy.

The ABCs of Death

Suspense novelist Jeffery Deaver once praised the short-story format, writing that the minimal time investment on the part of the reader allows the writer to get away with endings he or she cannot in the long form. In other words, the writer can be meaner, more devious. He's absolutely right, and the theory applies wholesale to The ABCs of Death, more or less a horror anthology depicting "26 ways to die."

Lifeforce

Tobe Hooper got a raw deal. The director of horror hits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist didn't deserve to be sent to movie jail for 1985's Lifeforce. It's a well-crafted, well-intentioned work that was mismarketed and misunderstood, losing a bundle of money and soon sending Hooper into the lands of episodic television and direct-to-video features.

"Funny People" is a very good 90-minute movie wrapped inside a 140-minute indulgence. Its darkly comic take on mortality, ambition and regret marks a decidedly mature outing for writer/director Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up," "The 40 Year Old Virgin"), but its periodic brilliance is tripped up by a filmmaker who doesn't know when to say when.

Adam Sandler ("Bedtime Stories") plays George Simmons, a comedy superstar recently diagnosed with a terminal illness. Despite loads of money, a sprawling mansion and an endless supply of babes eager to sleep with a celebrity, he finds little to comfort him during his ordeal.

Friendless and full of self-loathing, he hires a struggling standup comedian, Ira Wright (Seth Rogen, "Observe & Report"), to be his joke writer, personal assistant and all-around confidante.

SHARPLY OBSERVED EXAMINATION
Much of "Funny People" is a hilarious, sharply observed examination of the camaraderie and competition that distinguishes the life of comedians. But then the movie appears to collect all the excess weight that's been shed by the newly slimmed-down Rogen. Once George learns he no longer faces a terminal disease, "Funny People" turns interminable as he tries hooking up with an ex (Leslie Mann, "17 Again") who is now married with children.

Mann, it should be noted, is Apatow's real-life wife, and the couple's two daughters portray Mann's onscreen kids. Perhaps the director was reluctant to trim scenes involving his family. Maybe he felt similarly stymied about excising the scads of unnecessary cameos from the likes of Sarah Silverman, Ray Romano and Eminem. There is much to love in "Funny People," but there is also just too much.

"Phil Bacharach

The Last Exorcism Part II

The ABCs of Death

Ninja III: The Domination

Lifeforce

Dead Souls

Funny People