It hit me last weekend (along with several thousand others) that the failure of The Heartbreak Kid could mean that the Farrelly brothers are finished. It seems as if they are right now — yes, I’ll admit that, the curtain has come down. But they can get it right back if they make that Three Stooges movie they’ve been talking about for three or four years now, and I mean with Russell Crowe as Moe. I don’t care if he’s told them “no” a hundred times. He’s the only guy for that part. No one else.

It’s true that the Farrelly’s moment of perfect cultural synchronicity — a four-year stretch that began with Dumb and Dumber and ended with There’s Something About Mary — has passed, and that Judd Apatow has taken the king of comedy crown away from them. (Mary was nine years ago…the train has moved on.) It all comes down to the Stooges. Make it right (which hinges upon casting it right) and all is forgiven. And they can do it. I know they can.