SPRINGTIME HAD come to Venice Beach. And in a dimly lighted seaside restaurant-bar transformed by the presence of dozens of movie extras, miles of electronic cables and track-mounted cameras, you could see something singular happening: a young man's fancy turning to thoughts of bromance.
Thirty-one days into a 41-day shoot for the comedy "I Love You, Man," on-set action concerned a crucial interaction between two characters -- a commitment-phobic frat boy-type (played by Jason Segel) and a nerdy serial monogamist who has no male friend close enough to serve as best man at his impending wedding (Paul Rudd) -- out on their first "man date" (definition: two heterosexual men socializing without the structured agenda of a business meeting or sporting event). Under the direction of writer-director John Hamburg, the actors chugged pint after pint of non-alcoholic beer running through take after heavily improvisational take in an effort to make the scene's comic tenor just right. That is: chummy and jokey, brotherly but tender, loving (in a red-blooded American way) but decidedly not gay.
In between scene set-ups, Rudd explained what led to his appearance in a film that actively bills itself as a "bromantic comedy" -- a now well-established comic subgenre that, although not new, is certainly ascending to new heights of cultural prominence. "I just loved the idea of a romantic comedy about platonic male love," Rudd said. "It's topical. It seems fresh and relatable. And if it wasn't in this [movie], it would have been something just like this in the next year or two."
Smell that pheromonal whiff of bromance in the air? It's becoming a pervasive stench in Hollywood with two bromantically themed movies coming out -- "I Love You, Man" (due in January 2009) and the stoner action comedy "Pineapple Express" (which hits theaters on Aug. 6) -- as well as a Ryan Seacrest-produced television series in development for MTV that's actually called "Bromance."
But what's so funny about guys looking for peace, man love and a nonsexual understanding of each other? "It's something you see every day," said Hamburg. "But if you shine a light on it, you find there's a lot to explore."
The Judd Apatow effect
IN AN era when "Let's hug it out" -- the expression popularized by hard-charging agent Ari Gold on HBO's "Entourage" -- has become an acceptable (if now hackneyed) emollient for male sadness and anger, metrosexuality has a tight-fitting stranglehold on men's fashion and the touchy-feely rock stylings of emo have largely replaced metal aggression on the airwaves, we can assign blame for bromance's sudden zeitgeist-iness on one man: comedy mogul Judd Apatow.
