Knocked Up - Could this be bigger than Borat?

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Precious Doll
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Post by Precious Doll »

I saw a teaser to this the other day.

It was mildly amusing but seemed to go down well with the small handful of people at the cinema (there to watch the overlong Hot Fuzz).

I read the Variety review yesterday and my interest in the film rose.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Perhaps a screenplay nomination in its future... and maybe more? Two reviews, check it out:


Knocked Up
Peter Brunette in Austin
13 Mar 2007 17:18
Screendaily



Dir/scr: Judd Apatow. US, 2007. 126 mins.


In 2005, Judd Apatow scored big with the surprise hit, The 40-Year Old Virgin, which, with its novel combination of gross-out elements and old-fashioned, recognisably human emotion, earned critical plaudits and went on to do some $177m box-office world-wide. With his new film, Knocked Up, Apatow, who is listed as director, writer, and producer, stands to do even better.

The jokes, which are in the absolute poorest taste, remain hilarious, while a newer, deeper humanism, sensed in momentary flashes in the earlier film, is now fully on display. This is a movie in which audiences will both laugh and cry, which used to be the gold standard of viewer reaction, and Universal should do very well indeed with this film across the malls of the US, though the particularities of the ultra-American jokes may not travel as well in foreign territories. (Only one-third of Virgin's take was non-domestic.) One suspects, however, that masturbatory, excretory and vaginal jokes have a built-in audience worldwide, even if the ultra-topical one-liners drawn from American popular culture will remain impenetrable to many. It premiered in the Special Screenings section of Austin's SXSW Festival, with wider local release scheduled for June 1 and international territories from mid-August.

Seth Rogen, cast in a secondary role in Virgin is now Ben Stone, our improbable leading man. He's still a fat-boy slacker, a perennial loser with women, who lives fraternity-house style with a bunch of soulmates whose incredibly gross personal habits and ultra-irresponsible male worldview, like a Greek chorus gone awry, provide a great deal of the film's humour. Their excuse for gainful employment is a website they're working on that will provide data regarding the exact timing of the appearance of bared breasts and vaginas in recent movies on DVD.

One night Ben has a drunken sexual encounter with Allison (Heigl, from TV's Grey's Anatomy), which results in her becoming pregnant. The dilemma then becomes whether to have the child or not, whether to leave or to stay, whether, ultimately, to embrace the vagaries of human existence or to stick to an inhuman game plan concerning the direction of one's life and career. Comically gifted Virgin veterans Rudd and Mann play a constantly bickering married couple who provide a brilliant foil to the Allison-Ben relationship.


It is quite simply amazing how much laughter, sadness - and yes, if one dare say it regarding a movie that sets a new standard for grossness - even insight into the human condition that the talented Apatow wrings from this most basic of plot situations. For all its surface silliness, this movie probes the eternal questions regarding male-female relationships more deeply than most serious movies that deliberately set out to do so.

Knocked Up runs a little long - as did Virgin, especially the unexpurgated DVD cut - and could profit by some discreet trimming. At whatever length, it's a film supremely of its own time. Many of the jokes are so topical that one can imagine them turning meaningless, even to Americans, in a year or two. But by then the money will have been made, so who cares? It will be interesting to see whether cinephiles still watch this film 50 years from now, as they do, say, Bringing Up Baby. But a crucial part of a comic movie's task is to try to capture the moment's Zeitgeist, as tellingly as possible, and Apatow and his talented team have brilliantly succeeded in doing so.



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Knocked Up
By JOE LEYDON
Variety


"Knocked Up" is uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory. Indeed, even more than the filmmaker's smash-hit sleeper "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," his new pic is bound to generate repeat business among ticketbuyers who'll want to savor certain scenes and situations again and again, if only to memorize punchlines worth sharing with buddies. Currently set for a June 1 release, this hugely commercial comedy likely will remain in megaplexes throughout the summer and, possibly, into the fall.

The basic setup -- pregnant with comic potential, naturally -- is simplicity itself: Ben Stone (Seth Rogen), a contentedly underemployed slacker, meets ambitious Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) at a trendy Los Angeles nitery. She's feeling celebratory because of her promotion to on-camera correspondent for E! Entertainment Television; he's ready to party hearty because, well, that's his natural state of being. One thing leads to another, propelled by ample amounts of alcohol, and the mismatched strangers wind up connecting for what they assume will be a one-night stand.

A few weeks later, however, Alison discovers she is pregnant.

For Ben, a scruffy layabout who shares a disheveled home with four similarly slackerish stoners, news of his impending fatherhood comes as a rude awakening. (Until now, his primary goal has been designing a Web site listing when and where actresses appear nude in homevid movies.)

For Alison, pregnancy initially seems like a career impediment -- it's hard to do red-carpet reports during one's third trimester -- but she's ready to accept motherhood with a little help, if not a permanent commitment, from the baby's father.

After a surprisingly smooth start, however, this unlikely bonding (which quickly evolves into a friendship with benefits) turns rocky. Alison has certain expectations -- for one thing, she'd like Ben not to get stoned quite so often -- and Ben has a few hang-ups. (During what is, hands down, the funniest sequence in an extremely funny movie, he turns squeamish while attempting sexual congress with his extremely pregnant partner.)

It doesn't help that their less-than-encouraging role models are Alison's control-freakish sister Debbie and her discontented husband Pete (Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd, who, along with Rogen, also appeared in "Virgin").


Much of what happens next can be predicted by anyone who's seen a movie in which a feckless ne'er-do-well reluctantly comes of age when adult responsibility is thrust upon him (or her). What sets "Knocked Up" apart is Apatow's gift for balancing the madcap swagger and uninhibited bawdiness of a high-testosterone farce with the unabashed sweetness and romantic yearning of a chick flick. That formula, so effective in "Virgin," proves even more potent here. So much so that Apatow is able to sustain the pic for 132 minutes -- unusually long for a comedy -- with no visible strain and precious little filler.

Apatow has a perfect-pitch ear for dialogue that is at once profanely funny, persuasively colloquial and pop-culture-aware: The characters repeatedly reference "Spider-Man 3" -- which, come summer, will be playing next door in the megaplex -- in precisely the ways one would expect them to reference it.

Apatow relies relatively little on sight gags or physical slapstick, preferring to earn his guffaws from characters revealing themselves in conversations and quarrels, bull sessions and soul-bearings. The insult-heavy interplay among Ben and his roomies (well-cast Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel and Martin Starr) recalls the hectoring give-and-take among the title character's co-workers in "Virgin." But there is much to amuse during the quieter moments as well. When Ben gets his first glimpse at Alison without her clothes, he exclaims, with equal measures of disbelief and gratitude: "You're prettier than I am."

That line -- which likely will cause a shock of recognition among many male ticketbuyers, though few would ever admit it -- is one of many Rogen adroitly employs to construct a performance that winningly underscores Ben's blunt-spoken crudity and puppy-dog sweetness.

In his first starring role, thesp vividly conveys both the appeal and the emptiness of eternal adolescence without ever turning too grown-up to tax believability or disappoint auds. He's also a terrifically effective foil for Heigl, who brings a compelling edge to Alison's fear and befuddlement and a ferociously funny frenzy to the character's pregnancy-fueled mood swings.

Casting is spot-on from the good-sport celebs who cameo as themselves (Ryan Seacrest is fearlessly self-satirical) to fleeting bit players. Rudd makes not-so-quiet desperation even more affecting here than he did in "The Oh in Ohio," while Mann subtly reveals the aching dissatisfaction beneath Debbie's toxic snippiness.

Slick production package enhances pic's overall entertainment value.
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Win Butler
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