Gannett News Service Published:”2:02 am Too much is never enough. There’s no point in trying to retell something funny from a movie; you lose something in the translation. But in a Judd Apatow film, you can be sure that at least once a character is going to do something stupid. Or crass. Or gross. And Apatow is going to go back to it, repeatedly. Whatever the scene — John C.

Reilly’s casual indifference to a naked man standing next to him in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or Jonah Hill recalling graphic drawings he made as a kid in Superbad — it’ll be funny the first time you see it. Yet he’ll go back to it, again and again and again until, by the third or fourth or fifth time you’re rolling on the floor. At that point, you’re helpless.

View Larger Image Producer/writer Judd Apatow arrives at the premiere of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, last Wednesday at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. Getty Images Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * At that point, it’s hilarious. At that point, it’s a Judd Apatow moment. “Judd is, like, completely fearless,” Reilly says.

“I think that’s the secret to his success right now.” Working as a producer, writer and director — sometimes as all three — Apatow towers above Hollywood comedy. In addition to the Golden Globe nominated Walk Hard, which he co-wrote and produced, Apatow wrote, produced and directed Knocked Up and produced Superbad. And that’s just this year. Every era seems to have someone who dominates comedy, from Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen to the Farrelly brothers. This era belongs to Apatow.