The happy couple.

As part of YouTube's "Comedy Week," Zach Galifianakis held a very special edition of his Funny or Die web series Between Two Ferns which starts out like a regular James Franco interview but then gets weird real quick. Lonely Island and Edward Norton co-star, which is great, because we haven't seen those guys in forever. (Edward Norton, where've you been hiding?)


Now that Jorma Taccone has done Girls, we are really hoping those Lonely Island guys find time to get together and make a movie/album/TV series/book of poetry/gay married to James Franco. After all, they can't busier than the Oz star, so what's their excuse for not popping up with new projects in the news every week? Laziness?

Jones and Samberg

It’s easy to be down on “alternative” —or independent—romantic comedies. Lower-budget boy-meets-girl movies seem even more moribund than more conventional entries in the genre these days, with offerings like Lola Versus and (500) Days of Summer aping Hollywood conventions, adding little to the well-oiled machine but a vague sense of quirk. The notion that they’re telling a new or different sort of story is belied by the same familiar beats and characters and tropes audiences have become familiar with through your run-of-the-mill blockbuster.

Celeste and Jesse Forever, however, announces itself as a genuine alternative to the mainstream romantic comedy and for once doesn’t play the part in name only. It’ll restore your faith that there’s something new to say about love on screen—or, at least, a new way to say it.

The film’s opening sequence introduces the audience to a couple (Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, playing Celeste and Jesse) who have fallen in and out of romantic love. They are still together but clearly disillusioned, separated and preparing for divorce—but still sharing a platonic affection.

Celeste is a high-powered author and trend-spotting PR agent of sorts (what it is she does all day remains vague throughout the movie, and is a failure of the film, but more on this later), while Jesse is a layabout illustrator who prefers watching old VHS tapes of the Olympics to making money. Their divergent ambitions have pulled the couple apart; it’s possible to have known someone for a very long time and yet still have rushed into marriage. They’re rushing into divorce, too—Jesse hasn’t even moved out as he prepares to sign the paperwork.

What makes Celeste and Jesse Forever bold is its view of what happens after the end of a romance. Romantic comedies often view long-term relationships as the end goal—comedies since Shakespeare have ended with a marriage, but contemporary heroines have pursued it so aggressively and single-mindedly that the head spins. In other words, the long-term relationship is so obviously wrong that it is an obstacle to be cleared so that true love, with the female half’s cute neighbor or the friend she’s always ignored, may reign.

Celeste and Jesse’s relationship, as seen through a montage of still photographs, was neither perfect nor horrid. Like a real relationship, it had component parts that were very positive and very negative, drawn out over the course of the film through the pair’s completely natural interactions with one another. Ms. Jones and Mr. Samberg have an enviable chemistry that threatens at any time to burst into a screaming fight or into a rekindling of affection. And their relationship, like any real relationship, proves remarkably difficult to end definitively.

Nothing about the interactions between Celeste and Jesse seems schematic, a credit to a script that puts them through a number of twists that might seem contrived. But Celeste’s reactions in particular are unpredictable in the way that people are unpredictable (co-writer Rashida Jones gave herself, after years of being improperly utilized on NBC sitcoms, a great character); nothing in this film seems as though it came from a screenwriting handbook.

It is difficult in the age of spoilers to discuss this film without going into vagaries of the sort indulged above; that’s because the standout element of the film, the relationship as written, relies on the shock of the real, the consistent depiction of the option that Celeste or Jesse, fully realized characters, might choose against the best interest of themselves or of a tidy narrative. It’s so unlike other movies of its ilk that to specifically delineate the hows and whys is to spoil its effect.

Other elements of the film are less effective: the script falters in its attempt to parody contemporary culture through Celeste’s job and through a Britney-circa-1999-ish starlet she promotes, or mentors, or something. Lee Toland Krieger’s direction is at times naturalistic to a fault; scenes can be poorly lit. Certain characters—Ari Graynor’s well-drawn confidante or Elijah Wood’s against-type boss—fall through the cracks in ways that feel true to Celeste and Jesse’s narcissistic pursuit of happiness but don’t give the characters enough to do. Were they not able to make such good use of their limited screen time, they’d be the traditional boring best friends and confessors every romantic comedy is stocked with.

And Celeste and Jesse are narcissistic and self-involved; but that’s the point. Rather than bravely soldiering on to the next great love, as any hero or heroine who dumps the wrong partner at the start of a movie ought to do, they both end up in entanglements. Their respective greatest loves are not one another but the idea of “Celeste and Jesse”—they clearly don’t fit together, and we aren’t rooting for them to make it. Celeste and Jesse Forever, then, is ultimately a film that flies in the face of the notion underpinning most of modern cinema, that conventionally perfect love is possible.

Love, in this film, is conditional, compromised, the end result of a series of often wrongheaded decisions. What becomes of Celeste and Jesse, as a pair, is ultimately less interesting than the changes wrought in each of them as individuals after they separate. It helps that Ms. Jones and Mr. Samberg so compellingly sell post-breakup lives every bit as individually interesting as their chemistry together.

And, for all its power to subsume the self into a unit, love is hardly anything to celebrate; the true achievement, for Celeste and Jesse, is becoming oneself again in the face of a culture that prizes the sacrifice of the individual to an ideal. A film that starts with a breakup and moves toward, well, no resolution that’s traditionally satisfying, is a film that truly understands the sublime and painful comedy of having been in love.

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER

Running Time 89 minutes

Written by Rashida Jones, Will McCormack

Directed by Lee Toland Krieger

Starring Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Elijah Wood

Andy Samberg follows in Adam Sandler's footsteps

Well, we can't say we didn't see this coming. Right on the heels of Kristin Wiig, Lonely Island's Andy Samberg announced on Friday to The New York Times that was he was leaving Saturday Night Live. Not that he hadn't already hinted that in his last Digital Short.

Oddly, he had told E! two days prior that he probably wasn't going to leave:

"Nothing's decided yet," Samberg told E! News Wednesday, adding it would "definitely be weird" not being on the show.

But when he talked to the NYT, he was all:

"Obviously it's not a huge shock, but I did officially decide not to come back."

This month he'll join another SNL alum, Adam Sandler, in That's My Boy. Already, Mr. Sandler has some high praise for his costar:

"He's doing it all right," Sandler said. "This guy cares about being a good person first, and I love that about him. He's a hard-working fool when he wants to be, and he's really a smart, talented and great guy. I know he's going to do everything he wants to do.

"I was aggressive back in the day," he continued. "I was driven and needed to get my movies made and blah blah blah. He's less nutty about it. He's a very passionate and smart guy who knows about what should come first, and that's life. Right? Something like that?"

Andy Samberg: Harvard's commencement speech 2012

Why did (probably) former Saturday Night Live actor Andy Samberg give one of the two special guest graduation speech this year at Harvard? Well, obviously Barney Frank wasn't going to make a lot of Adele jokes and kiss Harvard students on the mouth, so "Dick in the Box" guy it is!

A lot of Good Will Hunting jokes. Very timely, very relevant. A++, would speak at college again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ImSbixBsOk

Kristen Wiig (Getty Images)

After swirling rumors that Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg--along with costar Jason Sudeikis--would be leaving the cast of Saturday Night Live at the end of the 2011-12 season, Ms. Wiig and Mr. Samberg were indulged with tributes during this weekend's season finale. At episode's end, Ms. Wiig was serenaded by the Arcade Fire in a graduation-themed set piece during which she danced with the cast, individually, then producer Lorne Michaels. Former cast members like Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch joined in as well.

Andy Samberg made his own farewell tribute, performing in "Lazy Sunday 2," a sequel to his breakthrough "digital short" in 2005 and a manner of closing up loose ends.

The Saturday Night Live farewell, while not de rigeur (if Mr. Sudeikis is in fact leaving, he may feel a bit left out this morning), occurs from time to time; Amy Poehler's less elaborate farewell in 2008--interrupted by Fred Armisen's David Paterson stumbling through the shot--was heretofore the most memorable.

Are these three leaving SNL? (Getty Images)

Okay, before anyone has a heart-attack, consider the source of the information that three major players on Saturday Night Live--Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis, and Andy Samberg--might be leaving the show. Especially since the source is an anonymous one, and they are giving away Lorne Michaels' secrets to Us Weekly.

"Exclusive: Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg Jason Sudeikis to Leave Saturday Night Live?" Reads the explosive headline this afternoon. (We love how unconfirmed rumors that warrant a question mark at the end of the title count as exclusives.)

"Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis are all leaving after the end of the season," says one insider. "It will be a huge blow to the show. Without Andy's video shorts and Kristen saving every skit, they'll need help!"

Now, the next sentence involves Ms. Wiig and Mr. Sudeikis' reps denying that any decision has been made, but it's the Bridesmaids star's exit is the most logical to actually happen. (Why else would SNL be looking for another female comedian?) Her career could stand by its own, and people have left the show for worse reasons. (People have also stayed on the show for worse reasons...Bill Hader, you need to get yourself a starring lead in something!)

Mr. Sudeikis? Meh: He's been doing fine in some secondary parts in films like Terrible Bosses and Hall Pass, but if he's leaving SNL, he better have something really great lined up. Like another show. Which reminds us...if Fred Armisen can stay on while doing Portlandia, it's probably not a conflict of schedules holding the Mitt Romney impersonator back.

As for Andy Samberg? It's true the show would be crippled by the loss of both him and Lonely Island, but he's also the least likely to leave. He's been given his own hall pass on the show: only performing in a couple sketches (sometimes as little as two a night) and doing the digital shorts. Unless it's his way of playing chicken with contract negotiations coming up, in which case, anything can happen.

So that's a possibly, one maybe, and one wild card. Keep your inhalers nearby as we near the season finale!

"Sorry," Ms. Newsom said when she took the stage. "I was just talking to a guy who said I was awesome."

The last time she had a New York City show as big as this, she played with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at BAM in February 2008. Those songs were from her hugely sumptuous and lush last album, Ys, and they were ocean-sized thanks to arrangements from Van Dyke Parks, the Beach Boys colleague: "Violins, voices, the harp, horns and harmonies shook and bent and swelled together until everything bulged and burst," The Observer wrote then, "and bubbled up again."

Last night she brought only a quintet, who played pared-down arrangements of her new album, Have One on Me, which is downright modest compared to the last one. After one song alone on the harp, she was joined by the new album’s arranger, Ryan Francesconi, who plays electric guitar, banjo and a Bulgarian tambura (which sounds like it would be annoying, but isn’t), plus a drummer, two violins and a trombonist.

It’s the difference between, say, a forest and a garden. But the economy was lovely. The violins waltzed with the swirls of harp. Melodies popped up, twisted around, crouched down and started again. Tempos swayed forward, hung back and hurled ahead. Momentarily thumps of drums sounded like approaching armies. An electric guitar sprang out on "Baby Birch" and let out pretty Dixie twangs on "Soft as Chalk."

It would be easy to miss the old lushness, considering that Have One on Me is a two-hour, three-CD album, but it’s easier to be swept along by those surprises, Ms. Newsom’s skyscraper falsetto and her Technicolor harp. The Village Voice's Rob Harvilla, in fact, would prefer to hear her alone.

The guitarist Kevin Barker opened the show with a set of very easygoing, very mid-tempo, very lukewarm music. His bassist wore a watch and chain on his vest, and actually seemed to check the time at one point. The drummer played the triangle: He had very long hair that looked well-conditioned. So did Mr. Barker. Together they made music that would be good to listen to in an armchair in socks.

Ms. Newsom, even without a philharmonic behind her, makes music for seafaring, blossoms, spacewalks and first kisses.

Andy Samberg: The “Best Intro-er of People Intro-ing Things Ever!”

This just in: Andy Samberg is really funny! As host, the Saturday Night Live star pulled out every tool from his bag of comedy tricks—a Rolodex of famous friends, pre-produced bits, musical parodies, a predilection for the word “dick”—and matched that with a perfect blend of “happy to be there” charm and “this is the stupidest thing ever” snark. (At one point he told the crowd, with the utmost amount of faux-sincerity: “This is our Woodstock, guys!”) Well done! Now if the Oscars could only figure out a way to have him and Justin Timberlake share hosting duties in 2010, we could be on to something.

Irrelevance-Off: Eminem Versus Bruno!

Party like it’s 2005? Whether or not the semi-teabagging stunt that Sasha Baron Cohen (as his alter-ego, Bruno) pulled on Eminem was real or not—for the record, despite the protestations of Ryan Seacrest, cast our vote for “not real,” if only because the camera angles were too perfect—we couldn’t get past the notion that the buzz surrounding these two lightning rod performers has seriously worn off. A tip: When the subversive becomes the expected, it ceases to be subversive. As for the incident, we sure hope one of the parties involved clears up what happened on his MySpace page.

A Tale of Two ‘Tween Heartthrobs: Robert Pattinson & Zac Efron!

Obviously, for girls of all ages, a large part of Robert Pattinson’s appeal is his brooding nature. But while receiving his many awards—Best Kiss, Best Breakthrough Male and perhaps even Best Hairline, though we can’t be sure—the Twilight star came off like a supreme jackass: aloof, humorless and utterly devoid of charm; he’s one-note. Contrast that with Zac Efron, who gave a very genuine and heartfelt speech while accepting his award for Best Male Performance, and, later, killed as part of a hilarious tribute to Ben Stiller that also featured Kiefer Sutherland and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Mr. Efron is hella talented and he can dance. We’d like to see Robert Pattinson do that!

For pure nausea, there’s a rudimentary horror masquerading as a gross-out comedy marketed for morons called I Love You, Man. Another brain-dead freak show about speed-dialing California twitters, it stars the talented Paul Rudd, who is making a career out of trashing both his talent and reputation in one rotting mackerel after another and laughing all the way to the bank. He is Peter, a real estate agent who realizes, on the verge of his wedding to Zooey ( Rashida Jones), that he has never achieved enough maturity in life to have a best friend, much less a best man. Peter has a filthy-mouthed father who says things like “He’s got a bush like a porcupine and wears a Speedo full of Brillo.” His office mate spends all of his time watching women having orgasms on the office computers. And his gay brother gives him the kind of advice you only get from old reruns of Queer as Folk: mandates literally translated to mean man dates. So Peter auditions prospective best men for his wedding, settling on a meathead named Sydney Fife (Jason Segel). Sydney has a mangy dog called Anwar Sadat that litters the sidewalks (lots of close-ups of people interfacing with dog poop in more ways than one) and lives in a condemned dump on the beach filled with junk bought on e-Bay. While his fiancé is understandably weirded out by this repulsive fruitcake, Peter gets so caught up in the life style of electric guitars and 6-foot subs that he falls in love with Sydney instead. The movie was written and directed by John Hamburg, the hack who created Meet the Fockers, and its dialogue consists almost exclusively of gibberish slang that exists only in the minds of trolls: “We’re just chillaxing”; “Totes Mcgoats”; “No lags between the vags.” The guys call each other “McGeetch” and “Dude von Dudenstein.” A big date is piling on the sofa watching a box of season-two Lost DVDs. Mr. Segel, the star of such timeless classics as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the TV show Freaks and Geeks, specializes in playing obnoxious slackers with lips caked in dried oatmeal who litter while they twitter. But Mr. Rudd as an obsessive-compulsive git with attention-deficit disorder in a movie this bad is a waste of double the talent. The Peter Pan syndrome is overdone, but never with this much pointless vulgarity. These gits remind me of those ’60s fools who drove Camaros, smoked pot and ate at Dolores’ Drive-In. If they exist today, they must live in cardboard boxes under the Santa Monica Freeway.

rreed@observer.com