“As of today all of the feedback has been so positive that it is hard to trust it,” Judd Apatow has written about responses to Funny People. “I hope people are telling me the truth,” he says, “but don’t feel obligated to go that way. If you like my film tell me in great detail what you liked about it, and if you don’t, please lie and tell me in even more detail what you loved about it so I believe your lie.

“And please don’t ask me what I am up to next. That’s a dead giveaway. I don’t think I could handle it.”

Apatow is presumably talking about junket whores. He should know that these guys never do anything but flatter when they’re in a room with talent. They’re gladhanders. Genuine honesty just isn’t in their DNA. And if it is, they’re certainly not going to let it out. What matters to them is one thing and one thing only, which is keeping their seat on the gravy train.