Knocked Up (Judd Apatow, 2007)

[margot]

Knocked Up

Trailer

I really enjoyed this movie. Judd Apatown is an amazing writer/director who brings out the best in his amazing comedic cast. What shocked me about this movie was how realistic the dialogue and the arguments were. Even the whole situation was handled in a believable realistic way. Great comedy.

Even better than The 40 Year old virgin I'd say.

[THX1378]

So far this is the best of the big-hyped up summer films. Apatown shows that Virgin wasn't a fluke, and that he can make a gross out film with a lot of heart. Wouldn't be surprised with all the great reviews it's getting *seems so far to be the best reviewed film of the summer* that this makes some top ten lists at the end of the year.

[justeleblanc]

Virgin was better. I liked Knocked Up but there were issues with it. Mainly, it seems that there was some aesthetic tension between Apatow's character-driven script and Rogan's school-boy sense of humor/amateur acting skills. By the end, Rogan became an asshole-moron as opposed to a good guy with an extreme lack of priorities. Not to mention the fact that their relationship was completely unrealistic, something that wasn't the case with Virgin.

Plus, the pack of immature guys wore thin quickly and started to emulate bad Farrelly Brothers humor (Pink Eye, The Vagina).

The movie has some incredible moments, mostly between Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, and I would argue the script for the main love story would have been much better had Apatow cast a real actor in the lead, leaving Rogan to play a funny sidekick -- something he does best.

[Barmy]

Virgin was better in that the two leads were actually appealing.

I appreciated some of the perverse elements of Knocked. They didn't overemphasize the ludicrousness of the pairing. The dialogue delivery was unusually low-key, in part because of Rogen's inability to "act". I'm hoping that the "sex" scenes were intentionally meant to be prudish--Heigl is never braless and they are always under the covers. This was a great film to see with an opening night crowd.

Leslie Mann was absolutely the best thing here and blew everyone else off the screen.

Bad bits: Rogen's boring-ass posse and the increasingly sappy, sanctimonious tone. I was hoping that the wee bairn would be born dead. No such luck. The last 30 minutes made "Ozzie and Harriet" seem outre and punky by comparison.

Here's a "deleted" scene:

Brokebacked Up

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and thought it was both gut-bustingly funny and emotionally true. While I understand where the comparisons to The 40 Year Old Virgin are coming from, I don't think they are quite accurate. The film's tone is quite different. It's as much a coming-of-age/relationship drama as it is sex/pregnancy comedy -- to me, it had much more in line with Freaks & Geeks than anything else.

I thought the cast was uniformly strong (and I also think Leslie Mann was incredible) but I also enjoyed Ben's ragtag assortment of roommates. Jason Segel was absolutely hilarious and creepy.

But most of all, I appreciated that Apatow's script, to me, avoided the cliches that movies of this kind can fall in to. The conversations, the disagreements and generally how the relationships were presented were more complex and rich than films of this type generally aspire to.

[The Invunche]

Here's a "deleted" scene:

Brokebacked Up

It's like someone filmed David Ehrenstein's posts in the Brokeback Mountain thread.

[jbeall]

I thought the cast was uniformly strong (and I also think Leslie Mann was incredible) but I also enjoyed Ben's ragtag assortment of roommates. Jason Segel was absolutely hilarious and creepy.

Yeah, I think Jason Segel is underrated. His comic timing can be pretty on, esp. in Freaks and Geeks and his scene-stealing performances in Undeclared.

[miless]

here's a hilarious correspondence between Judd Apatow and Mark Brazill (creator of That 70's Show)... It makes me respect Judd even more.

[lord_clyde]

here's a hilarious correspondence between Judd Apatow and Mark Brazill (creator of That 70's Show)... It makes me respect Judd even more.

That is all kinds of wonderful. To think that Brazill lived with the belief that Apatow stole his idea for a tv show and ruined all chances of it ever coming to pass. You know, Apatow could have made the idea into a tv show and not a 5 minute comedy sketch if he really wanted to fuck him over.
And 'get cancer'. Beautiful.

[Antoine Doinel]

James Franco on set "freakout".

Michael Cera shooting a scene as Seth Rogen's character and losing it.

Another deleted scene.

[Mr Sausage]

James Franco on set "freakout".

Michael Cera shooting a scene as Seth Rogen's character and losing it.

Another deleted scene.

I'm going to assume these are more fallout from the Huckabees video leaks.

[foggy eyes]

Compellingly ludicrous article from The Guardian: Pretty girls are better than smelly boys.

[domino harvey]

I disagree, I think Queenan is onto something there. Very well-argued article, thanks for the link.

[Mr Sausage]

Compellingly ludicrous article from The Guardian: Pretty girls are better than smelly boys.

Oh please. This is not a "new genre of romantic comedy," it's the beauty and the beast archetype.

...heart-rending tragedies about beautiful young women who are doomed to spend the rest of their lives with juvenile, not especially good-looking dorks.

Jesus Christ...

The point it purports to make is that men do not grow up until they have children, and maybe not even then. This will probably not come as a complete surprise to most of the women on this planet.

The other point that Knocked Up seems to make is that women, even the ones who work in television, exist for no other reason than to help men grow up, if necessary by having babies.

God I hate false arguments like this where an isolated, character and context driven event is removed from its context and made to be the sweeping allegorical "point" of the whole movie. If you ever find your eyes staring at "the point of the movie is..." in a review for a movie or book, stop reading, and quickly, for the sake of your brain cells.

The woman gets blind drunk, drags him home, and sleeps with her condomless beau. We never find out why; nobody could be drunk enough not to realise what a schmuck he is, not even an entertainment reporter. So far, this is a generic male fantasy: jobless dink has one-night-stand with gorgeous blonde woman, and hopes she will call him back, though not seriously expecting this to happen. To be fair, loser slobs do, sometimes, get to sleep with gorgeous women in real life. But usually they are 60 years old and run hedge funds, not websites tracking cinema nudity. And they are never stoners

The only thing this article illuminates is the the astonishing level of its writer's ignorance. Look how many blanket claims are casually made, and how little reason enters into any of these judgements. You can take each of these statements, state its opposite in a similar manner, and you will have a response with an equal level of argument and authority.

Amazingly, neither party ever seriously considers the highly attractive option of abortion, which may be a sign that the anti-abortion movement is gathering strength in Hollywood, or may simply result from a realisation that abortion makes a poor subject for a comedy (puking and watching women on the toilet is fine, though).

There is a whole abortion discussion in the movie. It's amusing, tho', that killing the fetus and having our heroes go their separate ways is more attractive to the writer than their getting married and setting up a stable, happy life for themselves.

There is no reasoning with people of this mind-set. A woman dating an ugly man is a misogynist male-fantasy. Ok. So if two ugly, lazy stoners date this is not misogynist because no one is moving out of their particular social position? This sounds chillingly like the hierarchy of degree of Renaissance England.

And well I'm at it, I'm sick of the word "misogynist" and its variations being thrown about so casually with such small regard for the word's meaning and the strength of its connotations. It means simply a hatred, and this is different from, say, sexism, which need not involve hatred whatsoever.

Where is all this leading? It's leading to a future so dark that women will look back on the decade that brought them The Runaway Bride, Notting Hill, My Best Friend's Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding as a golden age.

Ugh...

Joe Queenen does indeed herald a bleak future, but one that has nothing to do with the subject of his article.

[Antoine Doinel]

The whole premise of Queenan's argument is that only male critics and viewers are connecting with Apatow's films. Clearly, he needs to get a movie theater and he'll see that half the audience are women, and they are laughing just as hard as the men.

[Antoine Doinel]

Katherine Heigl bites the hand that fed her. From Vanity Fair:

[quote]
Katherine Heigl Talks About Marriage, Ratings Ploys, and Why She Thinks Knocked Up Is Sexist

For Immediate Release December 3, 2007

NEW YORK, N.Y.—Emmy-winning actress Katherine Heigl tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Leslie Bennetts that she thinks Knocked Up, the movie that catapulted her onto the A-list, is “a little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you're portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.â€

[domino harvey]

She's been pretty self-righteous lately, but she is right about this.

[Antoine Doinel]

I disagree. But it's good to see she's using her position to make such feminist films like 27 Dresses.

[Jeff]

She's been pretty self-righteous lately, but she is right about this.

She is absolutely right about it, but it was all right there in the script and she didn't turn it down. Apparently her sensibilities weren't offended enough that she would turn down a leading role in a major feature or the paycheck that came with it.

[domino harvey]

She's been pretty self-righteous lately, but she is right about this.

She is absolutely right about it, but it was all right there in the script and she didn't turn it down. Apparently her sensibilities weren't offended enough that she would turn down a leading role in a major feature or the paycheck that came with it.

All of her public actions post-TR Knight scandal have been to position herself as a Strong Liberal Female. Even if it's all an act for publicity, I honestly don't mind the message getting out there all the same. Maybe some 14-year old girl reads about this and it changes her life in a positive direction. That makes it worth me rolling my eyes at her obvious press-mongering.

[Cde.]

I'd like to echo the sentiments in this thread: she's absolutely right about Knocked Up, but if she's a Strong Liberal Female then why did she compromise her morals and help such a film get made?

[Jeff]

she's a Strong Liberal Female

SLFILF!

Is that sexist?

[domino harvey]

I'd like to echo the sentiments in this thread: she's absolutely right about Knocked Up, but if she's a Strong Liberal Female then why did she compromise her morals and help such a film get made?

Though to be fair, I believe the TR Knight brouhaha happened after the film wrapped, so she had not yet manufactured this persona.

[Antoine Doinel]

I'm kinda expecting Heigl's people to issue a statement about the quote being "out of context" in the next day or two kinda like the way Coppola tried to back out of the comments he made about Nicholson et al.

[Polybius]

There is also the possibility that what she agreed to do and what actually ended up on film were two different things.

If I had to guess, I'd expect Antoine's scenario to play out. If not, then good for her.