The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Double Your Pleasure Edition

A fantastic debut film from director Judd Apatow, who gets sweet revenge on NBC for cancelling Freaks and Geeks by creating one of the funniest comedies in recent years. Andy (Steve Carell) lives alone with a disturbing amount of action figures and absolutely no social life, so it’s of little surprise that he hasn’t had any action in several years. However, the problem with Andy is much more complex, because not only has he never had sex but he is so trapped in his own shell that he has no clue how to even communicate with women; it’s a challenge his co-workers at Smart Tech anxiously take on. Judd Apatow was clearly influenced by older R-rated comedies such as Revenge of the Nerds but he balances the obscene amount of bad taste with touching moments that keep everything grounded and actually make being a middle-aged virgin seem not so bad. The repackaging of this DVD is timed nicely with the release of Apatow’s equally incredible Knocked Up but it’s easy to forgive since there are enough new elements on this double-disc to keep you interested. Every extra on the original single-disc edition makes the journey and they are joined by more deleted scenes, a video diary from Apatow, auditions and some promo clips from TV shows that put a sleek angle on the cast’s conversations, which don’t come off nearly as loose as these friends should. One of the best extras features the raw footage of Steve Carell engaged in a single edit of the poker game, in the bathtub and the now infamous hair waxing appointment. You get a sense as to how the film was created by hearing Apatow throw dialogue at Steve while he continues to deliver dead-on jokes that, after a lot of editing, will run as the best ones. One shame is that the commentary appears to be the same as the original, and it would have been nice to hear some new insights, but if you’ve not picked up this movie on DVD already, you’re definitely better off grabbing this latest version.