This summers two big bad taste(-ish) sex comedies(-ish) appear to have helped create an all new genre. At least they think they have. The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Wedding Crashers are happily vulgar comedies, which switch (usually uncomfortably) in the last reel into romantic comedies. There is clearly a market for this, and it is almost cynical the way they have been put together. The first half is raucous, often potentially misogynistic (though never as misogynistic as you expect) and then the second half drifts slowly into rom-com land. First half is for the boys, second half for the girls = wonderful date movie.
This could well be the formula, though both are a bit overlong and are so hands off with the main love interest that they may as well be neutered (esp in the 40 Year Old Virgin, but hey…) But this is not a formula these films invented. Instead you need to look at There’s Something About Mary which not only managed to staple gross-out humour on to a surprisingly effective rom-com but previde an amusing comic character in the female lead. 40 Year Old Virgin seems to realise this, and apes There’s SOmething About Mary with its end cast singalong to a Hair montage (TSAM used Build Me Up Buttercup). They are all entertaining films, but new? No.