Nicholas Stoller is having a very good year. After being taken under the mighty wing of Judd Apatow, his hilarious-yet-touching directorial debut, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, opens today. Not only that, he and star Jason Segel are currently making the new Muppet movie. Clearly, it's time to learn a little more about this guy before he becomes too much of a big shot. Since they're old friends, we asked our frequent guest-blogger Nick Malis (who contractually required us to plug Malis in Wonderland and Cute Things Falling Asleep) to interview Stoller. What follows is a fascinating portrait of a young artist at the dawn of his career. Also, he talks about penises a lot. Stick around after the jump to hear Stoller opine on the homoerotic world of Judd Apatow's office, seeing Kristen Bell naked, and what Richard Roeper is like in bed.

Hey, remember Knocked Up and Superbad? Sure, they were each a little sexist and homoerotic (not that there's anything wrong with that), respectively, but nonetheless spawned the adjective "Apatovian." Now any movie featuring a lovable goof and the Apatow players, also known as the cast of Freaks and Geeks, gets a rave. The latest is Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring 73 frames of Jason Segel's penis. A tipster writes in to complain that the Entertainment Weekly review and the Slate review are awfully similar, both using Segel's body (penis) as a metaphor for the movie. Well, isn't his penis a metaphor for everything?

Judd Apatow has fulfilled his promise to "shake Americans from their squeamishness about male anatomy in movies" by featuring Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Jason Segel completely nude in the movie's pivotal break-up scene. And as the LAT pointed out yesterday, Segel's manhood provides the film's "most captivating screen presence" (sorry, Kristen Bell). But Apatow and his cool comedy clique aren't the first ones to boldly focus their cinematic lens on male actors' full frontal displays. We took a look back on Segel's predecessors to showcase other (pun intended) ballsy big-screen cameos by the likes of Bruce Willis and Ewan McGregor after the jump. Just a warning, this is NSFW.

The Hollywood Reporter calls it "one of the biggest agent migrations in years." Nikki Finke screamed "Shocker!" We'll wait until the dust settles before determining exactly how to characterize the moves of UTA talent kingpin and co-owner Nick Stevens and partners Sharon Sheinwold and Lisa Hallerman over to Endeavor, a relocation that has already cost UTA its relationship with Stevens' client Ben Stiller, looks ready to claim Jack Black and could continue to draw a sizable chunk of UTA's deep comedy base — including Judd Apatow, Owen Wilson, Jason Lee and half the cast of Saturday Night Live — in the days and weeks to come.

While we appreciate the earnest viral efforts of studio marketers on behalf of Cloverfield, The Dark Knight and even half-assed fare like Quarantine, there's a strangely revolting quality to the derisive, almost misogynist analog throwback accompanying the new Apatow Assembly Line comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So much so that a mad bomber is fighting off those Universal billboards and bus placards with a guerilla campaign that we can't determine is the real deal or just some second wave of the studio's low-concept offensive. Help us decide after the jump.

You wake up cold and confused, naked except for the half-singed bonnet on your head, and surrounded by hundreds of empty Peeps boxes and decapitated chocolate bunnies. Damn it: You've surrendered to another Easter weekend bender. Enjoy the last pulses of glucose shooting through your veins as you peruse the box office numbers:

Arguably the Judd Apatow of the '80s and currently the movies' equivalent of J.D. Salinger, prolific writer-producer-director John Hughes dropped out of filmmaking in 1991 after helming eight movies and developing stories and characters for nearly two dozen more to come. But now, in a symbolic Easter-weekend resurrection perhaps possible only in Hollywood, the writer Hughes and producer Apatow share above-the-line credit for the latest doomed Owen Wilson vehicle, Drillbit Taylor:

With the way things are going in Hollywood these days, studio executives and movie producers should be treating this trio (okay, well maybe just Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow) like they are the two guys who know the secret formula for Coca-Cola. You know, don't put them in the same room at the same time (let alone fly together), just in case something happens. The impact that a Day The Music Died type of plane crash would have on the Los Angeles economy could be worse than the Writers' Strike and the potential Actors' strike combined. Let alone the crippling impact it would have on those clothing companies that sell t-shirts with quotes from Apatow produced films. Not to mention, all the dudebros and frat guys who would be left to their own devices to come up with something clever to say instead of quickly dispensing a zinger from one of their films. For all of our sakes, please travel separately from here on out, stoners!

Thanks to Judd Apatow's loveable stoner humor and the mass excitement caused by the impending Harold and Kumar sequel, it seems that pot and pot-loving celebs are inching closer and closer to mainstream acceptance. But news of which stars contributed tips to celebrity stoner lit's latest entry, Pot Culture, has us harkening back to the days when Bob Dylan and Woody Harrelson gave long-winded interviews to High Times. Though the names aren't exactly A-list, the pieces of advice on how to get merrily mellow are far more creative than any pothead logic we've ever heard. Find out who lays out DIY instructions on how to construct your own gravity bong, who demonstrates the always-reliable apple bong technique, and who gets away with lying to their husband about her toking habit by covering up the smell with lip gloss after the jump.

· Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann will star in "Untitled Apatow Manchild Project" for Universal and Sony, providing ample opportunity for former Apatow-roomie Sandler to glimpse his director's flaccid manhood. [Variety]
· Mila Kunis will play opposite Mark Wahlberg in Max Payne, the movie version of the pulp noir videogame. Sadly, lack of cheat-codes will prevent audiences from seeing her blow some guy's brains out completely naked. [Link NSFW!] [Variety]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often—the fate of the universe relies upon it! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you stumbled upon Ian Ziering getting a pedicure in a Hollywood strip mall.

The first review of Will Ferrell's new movie just came in and, wow, it's a doozy. No, we're not talking about Semi-Pro, which opens today; we're talking about Ferrell's next movie, Step Brothers, which was produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Adam McKay. The film, set to open in late July, screened in Los Angeles last night. A Defamer tipster was in the audience and passed an early review our way. Based on some of the pullquotes (if, indeed, you can call words lifted from an email tip "pullquotes"), this sounds like it's going to be closer to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story than Talledega Nights in terms of both laughs and B.O. We hate to say it, but it's looking more and more like John C. Reilly is Box Office Poison when cast in anything other than a supporting role. Full review after the jump, but here's a few of the choice quotes: "The story makes no sense - repetitive, forced and predictable would be compliments" and "the dialogue is less entertaining and envelope-pushing than anything on Two and a Half Men." Ouch!

· Count the things wrong with this sentence: Bumped, a modern-day version of The Breakfast Club set at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, has been given a greenlight, with McG protege Anna Mastro attached to direct. [THR]
· SAG StrikeWatch threat alert: Honeysuckle! The actors guild won't start negotiating until April at the soonest. Asked for a reason, president Alan Rosenberg paused for a moment, then offered, "Oh, who are we kidding. I'm a slave to the draaaamaaaaa." [Variety]

At yesterday's ICG Publicists Awards at the Beverly Hilton, Hollywood's most accomplished dissemblers not in the direct employ of the major talent agencies gathered for their annual luncheon celebration, handing out handsome Flackie statuettes (a clipboard-wielding thirtysomething woman hurling herself upon a grenade, cast in the finest bronze) to 2007's most distinguished practitioners of their reality-distorting craft, as well as the grateful celebrity beneficiaries of their skills. Accepting his "Showman of the Year" prize, ubiquitous comedy monopolist Judd Apatow thanked his PR pimps for so effectively turning him out during a busy year in which he had to promote projects like Knocked Up, Superbad and Walk Hard. Reports THR:

This year's Oscar nominations produced an equally noteworthy list of omissions who'll be quietly turned away at the Kodak Theater doors, should a ceremony ever materialize. (Tazering to follow if they get insistent.) Our analysis of the 2008 Snubees:

[To be read in the voice of Don "Voice of God" LaFontaine] In a world where Dane Cook, the unfunniest flimsiest hack bastard of a comedian is America's number one laugh man, it's hard to believe that for one night, back in 1992, HBO hosted a Young Comedians Show hosted by Dana Carvey. It featured Judd "Knocked Up" Appatow, Ray "Shit" Romano, Janeane "Tattooed East Village Ranter" Garofalo and Andy "Comic's Comic" Kindler. Sixteen years later, as America shuffles across the world stage, sweeping up the shattered laughs and broken promises, HBO rebroadcasts that performance on January 24th. America, learn to laugh again and please somebody make Dane Cook watch this.

Unlike Judd Apatow's last movie, which was hailed by 40-year-old virgins the world over as being the first sensitive portrayal of their shared predicament ever committed to screen, Knocked Up was less embraced by potential knocked-uppees, who felt the female lead had greatly settled for a less-than-ideal lot in life. Star Katherine Heigl addressed her misgivings with some of her character's choices in a recent Vanity Fair, a statement that sparked much debate, and one that she now feels the need to qualify:

A Vanity Fair quote in which Katherine Heigl dared to offer her honest, not-entirely-glowing assessment of the movie credited with graduating her to full-fledged stardom instantly became the source of much debate: One faction—let's just call them the "Apatow loyalists," cried, "Katherine Heigl can't say those things! Who does Katherine Heigl think she is? Doesn't Katherine Heigl know Knocked Up made her, and Knocked Up can just as easily destroy her?," while the other—let's just call them "women"—simply replied, "You go, girl behind the questionably motivated character written so as to service the whims of a very peniscentric screenplay!" New York magazine's Vulture blog approached the film's lauded writer-director for his own take:

"I think the characters [in 'Knocked Up'] are sexist at times, but it's really about immature people who are afraid of women and relationships and learn to grow up. If people say that the characters are sexist, I say, yeah, that's what I was going for in the first part of the movie, and then they change," director Judd Apatow told New York mag's Vulture blog. Okay but that's kind of besides the point because 'Knocked Up,' is so fully sexist, not because its male characters say immature and demeaning things about women, but because all the women in it are portrayed as one-note, unfunny, vain, self-absorbed hormonal crazies. It's also a hilarious movie, so you know, whatever.

If you're one of those Knocked Up audience members whose bullshit-sensing adrenal glands went haywire watching Judd Apatow's blockbuster paean to chubby, jobless, weed-huffing types and the attractive, upwardly mobile women who drop everything to carry their accidentally conceived children to term, then you are not alone, as even the actress called upon to bring such an improbable scenario to life has expressed her own misgivings about taking the role in the current issue of Vanity Fair: