Was Your Vagina Drunk?: Judd Apatow's Knocked Up {SPOILERS}

The way I understand it, he was cast for his first role in 'Freaks & Geeks'; he hung around the production all the time picking Apatow and Paul Feig's brain about the business; he tried his hand at writing stuff and was pretty good; Apatow let him write an 'Undeclared' ep; Apatow recommended him to some showbiz pals to help punch up scripts; he got a job with, and ended up writing a huge chunk of, the 2nd HBO series of Ali G; Apatow put him in '40-Year-Old Virgin'; and they came up with the 'Knocked Up' script themselves.

(x-post)

Me too.

I have such love for Seth Rogan.

Me too.

slocki gives it two thumbs up?

it's great.

i liked it even more than 40 year old virgin (which i liked a lot). but same total likeability & charm, and wall-to-wall roffles.

some of the humour is so filthy, but so good-natured at the same time, it is a really wonderful combination.

Katherine Heigl is a revelation?

she was awesome

oh, good. she's so pretty.

"shimmy shimmy ya" over opening credits

i really loved this movie

You should take it behind the school and get it pregnant.

i can't wait to see this now!

xpost lolz

did i mention this movie is full of freaks & geeks alums (prominent haverchuck role!!) and tons of folks from the office show up too??

HAVERCHUCK!

this is my most anticipated

if superbad is half as good as this it's gonna be one heck of a rogen-led comedy summer folks

I was supposed to go see this last night, didn't work out. :(

such a great stoner movie too

did i mention this movie is full of freaks & geeks alums (prominent haverchuck role!!) and tons of folks from the office show up too??

wow... SOLD.

Loudon Wainwright was on Conan the other night doing one of his songs from the soundtrack. If there is any justice in the world, he should at least get an Oscar nom.

I R EXCITED O YES

a 'deleted scene':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=154KVUTpe7A

heigl's trying to not pee her pants during the whole sequence.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=j6xjV16MBGw

Featuring Dr. Jimmy The Mod...

*kick

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ykLj2Wzc9rk

pube trimming humor.

I think I'll go see this tonight.

I am seeing this tonight for sure

Me too! Just bought tickets.

no work today so I'm seeing a 12:30 show

oh shit i think maybe i'll see this this afternoon!

24 August! screw you, britannia!! argh.

ah, download it tomorrow

i maybe will see this? ao scott liked it.

yeah, he raved. Everybody is raving, really.

saw it last night
it was great
i am tired

Hilarious, but it kind of ran into the same problems as Wedding Crashers with length and segueing into seriousness.

I saw a screening of this a while back. fantastic. I hope Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen make movies together FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.

oh shit i got drunk and forgot to see this.

srsly, after seeing this - i could not be anticipating Superbad and The Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall with any more excitement. this next year is going to be great

so so good. lots of minor characters and not a one of them wasted.

also, Paul Rudd's brief Steely Dan spiel reminds me of every time I talk about them with anybody born after 1960 (irl, of course)

hahaha yep too real

rly funny but i feel sort of queasy considering it now

because of the crowning right

one part gender politics two parts never ever ever wanting to get pregnant i guess

Oh man, the Paul Rudd / Seth Rogan Las Vegas trip did a great job of capturing that guys night out thing where everything is crazy and amazing and then all of the sudden there's some confessional time where everybody's talking about how they've fucked up in some way and it turns into some sort of man support group.

I mean, not that that happens, or anything.

ummm sorry guys but this completely sucked

What didn't you like, Mark? I saw it last night and thought it was pretty good, if overlong. I tend to cringe at some of the gender politics, too ("what's the deal with women?!?": ugh), but the overall silliness made up for it. I wanted more Jason Segel.

I was reminded, though, that I should never see movies like this in theaters full of 19-year-old boys, because they're always going to find it much funnier than I am, thus throwing off my sense of whether the movie was actually good or not.

mark waht??!

Not as good as 40yo Virgin, but good def. Played up the 'oh noes! pregnancy is nasty and crazy!' a bit too much.

I liked it more than 40 YO virgin. (Which i liked fine, except for the reunion at the end). Sure, there were more than on on few "women, amirite?" Moments, but i thought it did the same to men. Or tried to. It was written by acouple of dudes after all...

Paul Rudd is shockingly attractive.

xpost

Yeah I think the gender cliches went both ways. But I'm talking more specifically about the 'pregnancy is gross and crazy' aspect. When they showed her, the night she went into labor, with her tank top pulled up above her belly a guy loudly said 'ewww'.

same thing happened in the theatre i was in!

but that's not the movie's fault! the movie is pretty upfront about showing pregnancy for what it is. if ppl get grossed out that's their prob.

the movie is pretty upfront about showing pregnancy for what it is.

There was definitely some impliled grossness there. The crowning scene?

i dunno man

crowning is hott

I laughed my ass off at this movie

liked it waaaaay better than 40YO Virgin

it is a little bit too long though. comedies should be an hour and a half. then again I think almost every movie should be shorter.

There was definitely some impliled grossness there. The crowning scene?

But she was shaved!

I noticed she was shaved too. It was like they thought the crowning was one thing but to show actual bush would have been way to much for viewers to handle. Women have pubic hair! Shocking!
I don't know, I'm probably just too sensitive about the whole shaved women thing. *shrugs*
All in all I loved the movie, but MM is right - the ew pregnancy stuff was a little much.

good flick, but my biggest problem with was definitely that it was too long, and felt like it could've been much shorter had they edited out some of the redundant scenes/gags (like the 4 or 5 laugh lines punctuated by the word "vagina," per the subject line of this thread).

I loved this movie but it made me really sad. A B C, what about its gender politics made you queasy?

also, Paul Rudd + Seth Rogen=cutest couple ever.

1. it was 25 minutes worth of hilarious jokes surrounded by 100 minutes of complete tedium. rogan's character was completely unlikeable, the love story aspect was total bullshit, the observational stuff on marriage and commitment was one-dimensional to the point of being cringeworthy, the overall tone changed roughly 6,000 times, and it was WAY too fucking long. there's absolutely no way this is better than 40yov.

(shit. 2. = that was one fake-ass belly?)

I noticed she was shaved too. It was like they thought the crowning was one thing but to show actual bush would have been way to much for viewers to handle. Women have pubic hair! Shocking!

shaving pre-delivery is very common for women

this was better than 40yo virgin cuz there was by and large no weird racial shit

(ie. no "Indian men swearing is funny!"/"white guys talking like black guys is funny!" gags)

In other words, you're saying that it's not about the butthole pleasures.

I don't know why the fact that there are "men, amirite?" jokes in addition to "women, amirite?" jokes makes it OK. What I object to isn't misogyny but the canard that men and women are alien species who just don't understand each other.

men are simple creatures who just need a bit of freedom! women can get hormonal sometimes! babies are a lot of responsibility!

cuz obviously IRL men and women understand each other so well...

I like how your objection is to one of the most basic, ancient premises of comedy

like have you heard of this Shakespeare guy? Better stay away from him!

men are simple creatures who just need a bit of freedom! women can get hormonal sometimes! babies are a lot of responsibility!

cliches have power for a reason, mark

as per usual though i feel dirty as hell basically agreeing with shakey

thanks shakey. i had no idea knocked up was a bill shakespeare joint.

crowning is hott

Okay wtf. W. T. F.

and obviously i don't object to the cliches, i object to the cliched way they were handled.

i liked this quite a bit, laughed a lot, but had a hard time believing heigl's character woulda fucked this guy in the first place. if she had already been wasted when she met him, maybe...

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/455/art02zr7.gif

xposts

Benedick: My life is like an unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Beatrice: Everybody Loves Raymond is funny?

Okay wtf. W. T. F.

it was a joke, son.

this is probably splitting hairs, but to the extent that the movie relied on gender stereotyping, I thought it did because people in heterosexual relationships fall back on gender stereotyping all the time, particularly when they're fighting. The Paul Rudd v. his wife fight after she (SPOILER) discovered his fantasy baseball draft rang particularly true to me.

Anyway, I know that "men and women are DIFFERENT!" is the basis for a lot of mainstream comedy, which is why I stay away from a lot of mainstream comedy. Seriously, the trailers before Knocked Up included the one where the Rock plays a macho football player who discovers he's the father of a princess-worshipping 6-year-old girl and the one where firefighters Adam Sandler and Kevin James have to go around pretending like they're gay, even though they're both horrified at the idea. Both looked absolutely horrible.

i liked the paul rudd v wife fight but a lot of the rest was :/

that gay Adam Sandler and Kevin James movie looks unbelievably bad/offensive, yeah.

The Paul Rudd v. his wife fight after she (SPOILER) discovered his fantasy baseball draft rang particularly true to me.

Actually, one thing I did like about this was Paul Rudd admitting later that the biggest problem in his marriage is that his wife wants him to be around, sort of recognizing that in the grand scheme of things, this is a funny thing to complain about.

those were the scenes that made me really sad! his wife seeming human for the first time and being all "sometimes I want time by myself, too" during their fight and Paul Rudd being all disbelievingly "why does my wife like me so much?" later in Vegas hotel room (awesome 5 different kinds of chairs scene) so sad! /issues

it is a fight that i have had, is the thing. and it was sad.

also any scene with Katherine Heigl crying got to me.

the tone was uneven for sure, but I thought that was kind of a mark of its goodness because it was like growing out of its genre or something.

haha sorry Kenan, I guess I have lost all ability to tell jokey internet tone from serious internet tone (re "crowning is hott").

I need to stop looking at this thread until I've seen this, I guess.

also any scene with Katherine Heigl crying got to me.

I am sure this will apply to me to, based on my hilariously teary-eyed reactions to Izzie Stephens' completely ridiculous Grey's Anatomy storylines (DENNY NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!).

and Paul Rudd being all disbelievingly "why does my wife like me so much?"

This reminds me of the end of an essay that I like, about things -- scary, risky, human things -- that the writer wants to say "yes" to every day, and one of them is "the puzzling wonder of my wife's love".

shaving pre-delivery is very common for women

I knew it was common in some cases but I didn't know it was standard. Interesting.

The Adam Sandler/Kevin James movie that JayMC mentioned pretty much looks like the worst movie ever.

What difference does shaving make?

shaving is a pretty common thing for any sort of medical procedure. get it out of the way so you can wee what's going on

haha, "wee"

To whether or not I thought this was a good movie? Not a bit of difference - it was. Someone mentioned it upthread and I went off on one because I have issues with why a lot of women do the whole totally clean shaven thing. The whole medical aspect of it didn't even occur to me. Or wait, did you mean what difference does it make in regards to giving birth?

I don't really understand what the rationale is myself - I only mentioned it because a friend of mine is a nurse who does prenatal/delivery care and she was talking just the other day about how weird it is that the majority of women shave before coming in for delivery. (There isn't any medical reason for it, and the nurses/doctors aren't the ones that do it.)

x-post

huh.

huh

Or wait, did you mean what difference does it make in regards to giving birth?

Yeah, that's what I meant. "Get it out of the way" almost makes sense, but from those Google results it just seems like a matter of tradition or something, not something that really makes a lick of difference.

I think shaving makes it easier for the doc to quickly see, altho that's probably debateable and could easily be jettisoned along with the stirrups, but also if there's going to be any wound care at some point, ie an episiotomy, the prep work is already done.

Oh XXP

The enema makes more sense.

yeah the tone-shifting didn't really bother me at all. It's funny tough, as that's usually something that would annoy me to no end. I kind of liked the way it was used here - if that is indeed what they were going for (i.e. a relationship/pregnancy/life doesn't really have a tone. Or something. I'm probably reaching here or giving the screenplay/ execution too much credit)

(they probably coulda shaved a few minutes off here and there)

xxxxxpost

the enema thing, though, makes sense.

xpost to kenan

isnt it more likely that the chick who volunteered to have her vadge filmed for this movie just happened to be shaved

stunt vadge

Should have been credited.

At least a "special thanks"

imdb entry with one credit

Are we sure it's not a digital effect, like in Children of Men?

GIS #1 result for "pre-delivery shaving" = roffles

nsfw?

My groaning at the "men just don't get women!" bits weren't because they were so stereotypical, but because I think I've had extremely similar conversations and been just as idiotic. Kind of like the entire "men are happy when the woman just continues to show up, women like to be told/shown that they're liked" cliche. You would think this stuff would be painfully obvious to any member of western society by age five or something, but the stereotype leads me to believe otherwise.

so who is that an indictment of then?

I think it's too small to be NSFW.

xx-post

I don't think it's an indictment of either gender, just an acknowledgment that yeah, on the general men and women in mainstream society do tend to fall into the same sort of roles and some things ring true, and the same mistakes are made by a great many people. I guess there are some comedies that work outside of societal conventions for humor, but throwing in pretty stock characters is par for the course and I think Knocked Up did a good job of it.

Also, how great was the scene where Rogen screams at Rudd for fucking up his reconciliation by mention the Las Vegas shit and storms out, and Rudd kind of keeps walking and starts singing happy birthday?

"I think it's too small to be NSFW."

Are you talking about the pig picture?

http://www.piercecollege.edu/faculty/shapirls/smilingpig.jpg

http://pic.aebn.net/Stream/Movie/Boxcovers/a49122_bs.jpg

http://pic.aebn.net/Stream/Movie/Boxcovers/a49079_bs.jpg

possibly NSFW, depending on your boss's eyesight

That pig is freaking me out.

Also, how great was the scene where Rogen screams at Rudd for fucking up his reconciliation by mention the Las Vegas shit and storms out, and Rudd kind of keeps walking and starts singing happy birthday?

haha yeah that was a perfect bit

yeah, agreed, that was amazing. rudd was completely hilarious throughout. i think he's even funnier when he's reined in and not trying to be kooky or tortured.

the five chairs and sticking his whole hand in his mouth = classixxxx

I coulda done without the Ryan Seacrest cameo

Also wtf with all the SpiderMan 3 references? Was Franco shooting that at the same time or something, and Apatow was just throwing him a few bones?

re: Ryan Seacrest

u crazy

The scene where Rogen proposes to heigel is so sweet and heartbreaking :(

now if it had been Josh Dunkelman there mighta been a worthwhile joke in there somewhere

i liked this a lot, thought it was very funny. unfortunately some of my viewing experience was made uncomfortable by the fact there was a middle aged couple sitting next to me, sighing and gasping and saying "ew, that's just disgusting" every time there was a filthy joke in the film.

The Adam Sandler/Kevin James movie that JayMC mentioned pretty much looks like the worst movie ever.

i know, i wanted to throw my drink at the fucking screen during that preview

awful

I saw that trailer plus one for the new version of Hairspray w/ Travolta

UGH

aforementioned couple of course making everyone sitting near them all-too aware of their homophobic disgust at the gay-related content in that one.

why middle-aged couples like that even attempt seeing movies that don't have tom hanks and/or meg ryan in them is beyond me

Who's your favorite actress?

Mary Tyler Moore.

Uh... that's not gonna work.

agreed that the Sandler thing looks reprehensible on many levels

interesting that Alexander Payne has co-writing credit on that

i saw that trailer in french people

this movie was ok.
looks like kevin smith meets "Diner" (barry levinson)
good things about the movie:
the serious parts of the scripts about relationship and differences between man and woman, the acting, the jokes (some of them).
bad things about the movie:
the overall story is going wayy to much acorfing to holywood formual, too kitshy in parts, the jokes (some of them).
overall,it was ok.the sort of a movie that the micro is better than the macro of it.some scenes are really great and well written,some are just bad.

lots of complaining on the IMDB that people should boycott the movie because of it doesn't promote family values. words fail me...

traditional family values = she says yes to empty ring box proposal?

I actually really appreciated that it didn't end with them getting married

Followed by a dance number to something irreverent, no doubt.

The scene where Rogen proposes to heigel is so sweet and heartbreaking :(

Yes, though I bet that all the guys in the audience who ever shelled out too much money for an engagment ring felt a bit peeved that Rogen was able to make it seem so romantic to be cheap.

I didn't have a ring when I proposed to my wife and it worked out fine (we got one later with her input, I don't know shit about jewelry)

Yes, though I bet that all the guys in the audience who ever shelled out too much money for an engagment ring felt a bit peeved that Rogen was able to make it seem so romantic to be cheap poor.

fixed.

It was also painfully obvious when he called his dad to scream about how stupid it was to take his advice, and his dad says, "hey, I've been married three times, what did you expect?" Because, you know, every reassuring anecdote you're building your life outlook on is probably about as stable as a house of cards.

I liked this a lot, but agree that it was about 20 minutes too long. The mood faltered for a few minutes after the big fight at the OBGYN scene.

The thing I enjoyed the most was how the supporting cast stole the show in a lot of ways. Esp. Jason Segal and Jonah Hill. The scene where she visits their house for the first time might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Also, the deleted scene on youtube with Hill talking about Brokeback Mountain could have stayed. I'm really looking forward to Superbad now...

I'm going to make a protein shake.

Plagiarism!

I don't particularly care if its ripped off or not - the movie is still funny cuz of the script and the actors.

yeah, it's not exactly a one in a million idea to write a light-hearted story about unwanted pregnancy and called it "knocked up." the only thing that gives me pause is that the book and Apatow's script had really similiar cover images.

er i guess 'unplanned' rather than 'unwanted' per se.

i still haven't seen this for some reason.

until now, I didn't even know scripts had cover images at all!

if you think apatow designed the cover for the script and not some intern you are insane

(who probably did take it from the book)

anyway, meet canada's most hated journalist

O RLY? do tell

she is a horrible smug self-obsessed lifestyle journalist every other writer despises

http://ninepounddictator.blogspot.com/

http://ninegrambrain.blogspot.com/

This was not as funny/good as I wanted it to be, but it had its moments (like whenever Paul Rudd or Jason Segel were onscreen!).

I agree with Lisa Schwarzbaum: more insightful about matrimony than Scenes From a Marriage. Agree that it's too long, but so what?! Another director less brilliant would have eliminated the bouncer, the Chinese doctor (worthy of Sturges), and the chair scene in the Las Vegas suite. In fact, this is the closest a recent American comedy's come to Paul Mazursky -- a rawer, vulgar Mazursky, to be sure. This was miles better than The 40-Year-Old Virgin. The tonal variety sometimes within one scene bespeaks real confidence.

I fell in love with Paul Rudd, who does indeed get better looking with each movie (Seth Rogan's line about wanting to grab that face and kiss it totally OTM). Every scene between him and Leslie Mann reminded me of every fight between a long-mismatched couple I've ever eavesdropped.

Seth Rogan does stuff I've never seen before: reminded me of John Goodman at times, that combination of the absurd, puerile, and sweet.

Also: I never would have thought it possible that Harold Ramis would be believable as a beaming, proud father.

Anyone notice Joanna Kerns of "Growing Pains" as Heigl's mom? She gets to deliver that devastating line about having a "real" baby.

I couldn't place where I'd seen her before. Woulda been better if Kirk Cameron had told her to get it taken care of.

would you really call her canada's most hated journalist, slocki? i'd put her at a solid number two, behind you know who. (still, she's terrible.)

Who would believe that harold ramis was once a skinny young man...

strange how nobody mentioned the homage to "fear and loathing in las vegas"
in the stoned scene in vegas of course, and also - the movie poster appears somewhere in ben stone's room

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23ll0_michael-cera-gets-fired-from-knocke

This is amazing.

i wonder if there was any rhyme or reason to all the movie references, or if they were just paying homage to movies they liked. munich? eternal sunshine? back to the future? fear and loathing? breathless?

or you can all sum it up and say - kevin smith's influence )his movie also namecheck hollywood flicks by bunch of young losers)

was anyone else already familiar with mrskin.com before the movie?

Mr. Skin's quite popular with two different groups of local shock jocks.

like two different cliques of shock jocks?

I know a couple of people who once worked at Mr. Skin.

worked?

haha I dunno where milo lives, but I was gonna say, the morning show people on 98 Rock talk to Mr. Skin every Friday. when they talked to him on Knocked Up's opening weekend, he sounded very flattered/excited about being mentioned in the movie.

I loved this film. I have no complaints about it.

Best comic writing I've seen in a long time, great performances, and made me feel all fuzzy too.

There was a great little Zucker bros. homage --

"He's at a Bar Mitzvah in San Fransisco"
"A Bar Mitzvah?!"
"It's a Jewish rite of passage"

During the Steely Dan scene I had the realization that I was watching me five years ago arguing with me five years from now. Scary.

The Steely Dan scene made me imagine John Darnielle being the inspiritaiton for the Paul Rudd character.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that Michael Cera thing above is fake.

fake & awesome

"probably"

"Happy for you...I am"

God bless this movie! FROM THE WRITER OF CELTIC PRIDE! We should all take inspiration from that, I think.

There was way more chemistry between Rudd and Rogan than any of the other couples, which actually worked fine and was perfectly believable.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that Michael Cera thing above is fake.

-- Hurting 2, Monday, June 18, 2007 2:06 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

no shit sherlock

pretty funny though!

BTW Cera and Jonah Hill (one of Rogen's house mates in Knocked Up) are starring in Superbad, which looks to be deliciously bad taste. Apatow-produced, co-written by Rogen.

I don't get all teh 70's window dressing on the website though. It's kind of unnecessary as I'm pretty sure it takes place in the present.

I did take issue with the "EARLY Steely Dan" comment - cliched and inaccurate. But considering the film generally got a lot of things more right than a lot of other films, I wasn't that bothered.

I think the accuracy of that line hinges upon whether he means earlier than Aja or earlier than Two Against Nature.

I think Superbad is going for a very subtle retro thing cf. the (awesome) use of "Panama" in the trailer.

Remind me of the line?

I'm thinking he was either:
1. referring to pre- Two Against Nature, or
2. just making that generic, defensive argument folks make when getting guff about the artist they're defending: "well, you know, the early stuff was ok" etc.

Jay, it was something along the lines of

Rudd: The way the industry is now, Steely Dan would never even get signed.
Rogan: Steely Dan gargles my balls
Rudd: Steely Dan is great -- the *early* stuff -- one day you'll see
Rogan: Yeah when I do please slice my head off with an Al Jarreau record

My first reaction was "another pretty but ordinary-looking blonde," but Katherine Heigl is starting to haunt me now

She purty huh huh

OMG, it took me this long to get the joke of "Ooh baby I like it raw" during the credits.

awesome

Denby on this film and the evolution of romantic comedy. Lots of thoughtful remarks, but this guy is such a gasbag.

...But I wonder if Apatow, like his fumy youths, shouldn’t move on. It seems strange to complain of repetition when a director does something particularly well, and Apatow does the infantilism of the male bond better than anyone, but I’d be quite happy if I never saw another bong-gurgling slacker or male pack again. The society that produced the Katharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard movies has vanished...

A fine example of the "Good Lord I'm not reading the rest of that" sentence.

its weird to me that he can complain of never wanting to see a particular plot element again (ie, bong-addled buddy crew), and in the same sentence bemoan the passing of a similar plot element (ie, 40s romcom personalities) that has now vanished precisely because people got fucking tired of it.

Pretty good piece tho, Alfred OTM

The sentence Chuck cited above could easily be changed to:

"But I wonder if Hawks, like his articulate heros, shouldn’t move on. It seems strange to complain of repetition when a director does something particularly well, and Apatow does the infantilism of the male bond better than anyone, but I’d be quite happy if I never saw another martini-sipping slickster. The society that produced Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle has vanished...

I wonder if David Denby shouldn't move on.

yeah its a weak conclusion - "gosh, things were better back when I wasn't bored so easily"

As long as the society that produced Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks has vanished, I'm cool with whatever comes next.

I think it expired in a fit of adorable nose-wrinkling

I'm cool with his finely calibrated discomfort for Knocked Up, but Denby's been pulling his hair for many years now. For being a former Paulette, he sures whines a lot!

I think Denby's insightful points of comparison and context are put to use to support a poor complaint, a little more thinking and he could have made a much better piece discussing how these films seem to be honing in on a collective, somewhat repressed feeling of utter uselessness and insecurity in western white males, and coming to grips with it. but I think maybe he's too removed from my generation to recognize that - though a quick look at the salary surveys for the average white male college graduate would provide at least a significant objective start.

I mean it's all well and good to get smart and windy about how I Don't Think I Really Love This Movie but it's much better to try and figure out what that might really mean. Of course I just want to apply demographics to goddamn near everything nowadays, then again I did go to college for cultural anthropology, that one time.

the changing economic backdrop seems obvious to me as well (and one of the main reasons for my disconnect from old 30s-40s romcoms is the alien nature of the socio-economic setting - who are all these rich bastards in suits sippin martinis all the time etc., the priveleged setting is SO taken for granted)

one of the main reasons for my disconnect from old 30s-40s romcoms slacker comedies is the alien nature of the socio-economic setting - who are all these rich bastardss poor fucks in suits sippin martinis all the time in shorts, bad hair, getting stoned all the time etc., the priveleged setting squalor is SO taken for granted)

ha this is a fun game

I think I have been zinged

You suspend your beliefs for both socio-economic settings, no?

well I'll happily admit I'm much closer to one than the other. I'm sure Denby is too, it just seems like he doesn't wanna talk about it or examine it.

The "emotional realities" of both settings is what counts -- who wouldn't want to be Cary Grant going head to head with Rosalind Russell? who hasn't known someone (or been that someone themselves) trapped like Seth Rogan?

i would rather be having sex with katherine heigl than going head to head with rosalind russell

Well, it would hurt. Wear a helmet.

http://www.born-today.com/Today/pix/russell_rosalind.jpg

Anybody in the east midlands might be interested in a preview of this at Leicester Vue tonight for those brits who can't wait until august the whatever. I know I am. I expect it's on in other places too.

yeah 2nite in manc. and last night.

Are they trying to build it up or something, a month before it opens officially? Is this usual?

yeah i just saw it in cambridge. builds word of mouth?

I guess, it just seems like a month is a long time. If someone tells me about a movie a month before it comes out I've forgotten what it's called, who's in it and weather it's any good.

Anyway I will certainly be building word of mouth on this one because i found it hilarious and all the other good things people said about it upthread. Also I didn't find it too long at all which is very rare for me.

Whether

i didn't find it too long, and i think people who find changes in tone difficult need to go to film-watching school.

BUT i think there was a problem with the pacing, that maybe some of the transitions were a bit fumbly, that it felt too long because the narrative line was weak.

main example was ben moving out of stoner flat and getting a job (as a web designer) was done in a musical montage. it's quite an important development? and the outcome of the parallel nights out when ben and rudd go to vegas was a bit vague.

but there were so many brilliant gags it doesn't really matter. rudd and heigl were particularly great.

haha looks like we've done EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANTED, ned.

We are such suckers!

Anyway, I agree with you about the moving into a flat/getting a job bit. It was as if they kind of thought - well this bit isn't very funny let's just skip over it with some music!

I could watch Rudd and Rogan all night long. Even when the jokes were 40yovirgin rehashes...

"You're the gay Babe Ruth - Gabe Ruth..."

this was better than 40yo virgin cuz there was by and large no weird racial shit

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, June 4, 2007 7:14 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

by the magic of only casting white people...

I thought this:

Usually, she’s the same age as he is but seems older, as if the disparity between boys and girls in ninth grade had been recapitulated fifteen years later. She dresses in Donna Karan or Ralph Lauren or the like; she’s a corporate executive, or a lawyer, or works in TV, public relations, or an art gallery. She’s good-tempered, honest, great-looking, and serious. She wants to “get to the next stage of life”—settle down, marry, maybe have children. Apart from getting on with it, however, she doesn’t have an idea in her head, and she’s not the one who makes the jokes.

was a good insight, and maybe one of the stronger grounds for criticism of Knocked Up. Heigl's character was just sort of flat and unconvicing compared to Rogen. What does she like about him in the first place? Well, she just kinda goes along with stuff, right? But women who just kinda go along with stuff don't look that perfected and don't become on-air television personalities.

"What does she like about him in the first place?"

he's funny, she's drunk.

it works, trust me

this was better than 40yo virgin cuz there was by and large no weird racial shit

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Monday, June 4, 2007 7:14 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

by the magic of only casting white people...

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 26 July 2007 14:35 (2 hours ago) Link

There was Charlyne Yi, who was hilarious.

Let's swap boyfriends!

Glancing back at that Denby piece, what's most irritating is his complete lack of curiosity as to why the movie appeals to the youngish audience he sees it with. But I guess I shouldn't expect too much from a guy whose claim to fame is that Pauline Kael told him he sucked.

okayish first half but WHAT THE FUCK is with that second half?!
total stunned silence in the cinema for the back 45 minutes. boring too, with characters you can't believe in doing things you can't believe. and it looked like it was shot-for-tv.

the suspicion is that the only reason they have her wearing her *bra* all through the sex scene is so they can market an 'unrated! scenes you didn't see at the cinema' version where she takes it off cause that's where the money is these days.

made me feel like wanting to go to the movies *less*.

doubt she takes her bra off in the UNRATED version

yeah, I think the bra in those scenes (which is totally distracting partly because it's all "hey this an R rated comedy!" in every other respect) has more to do with the fact that the actress is a famous TV star and not some random Shannon-Elizabeth-in-American-Pie type chick all ready to put 'em on the glass. agreed that most fans/critics have really glossed over how overlong it is and how much the 2nd half drags in parts.

Off the money

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2161867,00.html

this looks like a pile of shit, can't believe the good reviews it seems to have got everywhere

I remember thinking there was an awful lot of male wish-fulfillment going on in this film. It was funny in bits... but not often enough. Also it ranged from sour to sickly sweet with not enough in between. I liked the main guy but his uncanny resemblance to Rory McGrath was distracting.

... the audience loved it tho!

todally. i love male film critics who call out other film critics for being predominantly male.

but mainly his argument is like "yeah right a hottie like katherine heigl wd never go for a schlub like seth rogen". apart from being as shallow and looks-oriented as his imaginary fratboys who like the film, FFS IN THE FILM SHE IS DRUNK, HE IS FUNNY, JUST GO WITH IT*.

at the screening i went to, which was not a film critics one (i.e. there were some women there), the women were lolling too.

*similarly if she'd had an abortion that would be another film.

xpost

steve u r rong, this film is amazing.

but if it can transform into anything why does it stay as a pregnant woman?

really enjoyed this

I'm amazed anyone could say this film is amazing. Also, she is drunk but he isn't that funny.

haha me and rjg like something.

Hollywood has turned over the keys to the industry to the 40-year-old producer/director/screenwriter, whose upcoming projects include a film about high-school losers (Superbad), a film about a stoner who witnesses a murder (The Pineapple Express), a film about a sad little man who just broke up with his girlfriend (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and a film about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death so that he can become a hair stylist.

but that last one sounds awesome!

at the screening i went to, which was not a film critics one (i.e. there were some women there), the women were lolling too

And the women seemed to love the main character too! There a few "ahhhhhs" when he proposed and got rejected!

he was kind of a sweet and thoughtful guy, in a way...?

Oh yes, he reminded me of a friend of mine

I think one of my main problems with this is film is that I don't find "vagina" a funny word

i just watched the 2 and a half minute trailer again. why didn't they put anything funny in it? (i'm sure i'll come across as a dick here but really am shocked by the praise).

maybe Apatow will make a movie starring Gervais as a porn star next oh yeh please

the trailer is not good.

it is quite a profane film. plus some of the jokes -- the birthday part scene where rudd goes out with the cake, ppl who've seen it -- wouldn't be funny in a trailer, but they're some of the best jokes in any recent films.

or the five chairs
or the bouncer
or the doctor at the end
or 'hey, kohagen, give these people air'

The chairs and the bouncer are v. funny

the trailer is not good.
wouldn't be funny in a trailer

i know it's beyond the director's control but the way trailers have in recent years made films look so much worse/unfunnier than they are is out of control.

If you thought this was profane, Superbad will blow your mind.

Queenan's piece is sooo flawed. I mean, it's not even as if Heigl actually has a stunning rack.

Queenan makes several good points imo (writing as someone who hasn't seen the film)

Queenan's piece is sooo flawed. I mean, it's not even as if Heigl actually has a stunning rack.

Well... uhhhhhh... it's, ummmmmmmmm, not, ummmmmmm, to be sneezed at

it's not even as if Heigl actually has a stunning rack

ah so that's why she keeps the bra on?

i'm so stoked for 'superbad' it's insane.

heigl is v pretty but also really fkn good.

my sister says anne hathaway refused to take the role coz of the crowning shot. most hollywood actresses these days don't show their tits, it's not really a thing that she doesn't.

Yes, but those good points could have been made at any point in the last, what, 90 years of Hollywood cinema.

I don't really have an opinion on her rack, I was just trying to be funny.

Many x-posts to blueski there.

bouncer was v funny

they used 'hey, kohagen, give these people air' in undeclared too

Yes, but those good points could have been made at any point in the last, what, 90 years of Hollywood cinema.

are you saying that this film could've been made anytime in the last 90 years also?

i don't know what queenan's comparison point is? european art house?

breathless: yeah right a hottie like that would end up with a petty crim
three colours red: ew
last tango in paris: "
fear eats the soul: oh come on
vivre sa vie: most convincing prostitute since julia roberts

French movies are full of ugly geezers bedding hawt babes

ugly bastard/hot chick in French cinema is actually realistic over there tho

i gotta move.

and i believe they take their bras off

they used to

That's the only reason people bothered watching the films

otm

bouncer scene = funny. as cancer.

uh?

Wasn't as good as 40YO, and I saw that after KU, so it clearly wasn't a matter of a stale schtick.

heart-rending tragedies about beautiful young women who are doomed to spend the rest of their lives with juvenile, not especially good-looking dorks. This is the premise of There's Something About Mary, the film that arguably spawned the genre, pairing the charismatic Cameron Diaz with the gnomish Ben Stiller

WTF? It's not like Ben Stiller is hideously ugly or 50 pounds overweight. Sounds like Queenan is suffering from self-loathing and/or man-guilt and or bitterness that HIS wife doesn't have a "stunning rack" (ok, I don't actually know this)

I guess if a woman had written it she'd be dismissed for self-loathing and bitterness too (I agree the TSAM/Stiller comparison is off-base tho)

guardian should have found a woman to write it, though not the one who said all the women in 'the wire' were gangster's molls.

if a woman had written it it'd still be wrong anyway.

as opposed to "amazing"

does blueski mean written the film and That one guy that hit it and quit it mean written the review?

i hope i am not to this film what momus was to kill bill

xpost

i think so

just go and see it, blueski, then eat your words.

Here's a possibly more measured and fair version, written by a woman:

http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/la-et-knocked1jun01,0,3575880.story

And she's saying the same thing as Queenan. She's not saying "WTF THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN BARF!" so much as "this is a longshot so it needs more explanation."

Mann, who plays Debbie, is married to Apatow in real life

I didn't know this!

the kids are atapow's, too

and hers

that LA Times review makes it sound v depressing

stop reading

start watching.

stop living

BTW Kathy yr rack is very stunning:

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=en&safe=off&q=heigl&btnG=Search+Images

Is "it's not real life, it's a COMEDY MOVIE FROM HOLLWOOD" no longer an accpetable argument?

Queenan's become much more pedant-y in the last few years.

if that LAT review is right re the premise (and outcome) being so dubious/bleak but this being saved by the jokes why even bother with a consistent theme/story at all? Apatow and co. could just make more feature length sketch shows and still rake it in

the Not Eugene Levy Dad in the trailer is the worst

No way, Ramis is great. Just shut the fuck up, you have nothing to contribute to this discussion. Go do whatever you're procrastinating.

The alternative view of course for the film may well be "give the dork a chance". In the film she never falls for him completely, but once she gets past his general slackerness and lack of prospects she likes the man. Remember he remakes himself, she doesn't tell him to do it (and indeed the Rudd / Mann relationship shows exactly what can go wrong, and yet still be salvageable). It remains a very funny, very warm film.

And unlike any other childbirth scene in the last year (Apocalyto, Waitress, Children of Men) this one took forever.

If we're arguing men be writing from mens POV then slap my forehead. If you want women be writing from womens POV go see 2 Days In Paris. (Actually, go see that too.)

awww, just like real life (xp)

I enjoyed this

Pete's last sentence does highlight the dearth or lack of interest in women writing ('smart' romcom) films tho. things are slightly better in TV but still huge imbalance.

i finally watched this and i loved it! it was all the little comedy bits throughout that held it together as much as the big plot/character/etc usual big-movie stuff

i am a woman who wants to write comedy films/tv. but i have not yet done much research into how to break into all that.

I've heard from a few semi-informed friends that these days you can kind of start by putting together some low-budget sketches for youtube and the like, elbow your way into a lesser-known comedy group (like an internet-only deal) and work up from there. They say it helps if you also do some kind of acting or improv. Stand-up is also a way in, but it sounds like such a hateful field.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/libby_brooks/2007/08/nappily_ever_after.html

this is such weird shit. if a person doesn't consider abortion she's therefore 'pro-life'?

Very very very funny. Laughed like hell. Yes, it's the little bits as well as the bigger picture that makes this work. "No I don't wo... No, no work today!".

Really really good soundtrack too. "Police On My Back", "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" etc.

Great scene: http://www.motionbox.com/video/player/1f99dab9171ee692

shmashmortion

little girl: "they've been talking about you"
ben: "oh yeah? what have they been saying?"
little girl: "they've been saying things like 'blah blah blah blah blah blah... ben's a prick'"

I saw this yesterday. Had lots of laughs, but I agree that there was some weird conservatism and riding on gender stereotypes here, more so than in 40 Year Old Virgin. If you look at the main story, it's about two people who get pregnant by accident, then the woman decides to have the baby despite having all the reasons not to, then they decide to try to become a couple despite being totally mismatched, then the guy straightens up, gets a job and stops living like a stoner in order to become a proper father, and in the end they're both happier than they would've been if they hadn't kept the baby. Sounds like a conservative pro-lifer's dream story, doesn't it? Thankfully the actors are good enough and the characters fleshed out well enough that the movie gets past its own shaky premises.

I have to say though, that this movie confirmed again my theory that abortion is a total taboo in mainstream American films. No one ever has an abortion in Hollywood movies, they always decide to have the baby, and in the end are happier because of it. And I do realize that this is a movie about pregnancy, so it'd be pointless

(Whoops, something was cut out, let's try it again...)

And I do realize that this is a movie about pregnancy, so it'd be pointless to critcize it for the fact that the woman didn't have an abortion. But it felt kinda weird that she never even considered it, and there was no basis at all given to why she decided to keep the baby, despite having every reason not to, as if that wasn't a question at all.

Though I thought her character was in general the weakest in the film, her motivations and character were left kinda hollow unexplained and compared to the guy.

If you look at the main story, it's about two people who get pregnant by accident, then the woman decides to have the baby despite having all the reasons not to, then they decide to try to become a couple despite being totally mismatched, then the guy straightens up, gets a job and stops living like a stoner in order to become a proper father, and in the end they're both happier than they would've been if they hadn't kept the baby. Sounds like a conservative pro-lifer's dream story, doesn't it? Thankfully the actors are good enough and the characters fleshed out well enough that the movie gets past its own shaky premises.

you douche. how does this even function as a criticism? the story in the film is: she keeps the baby and they make a go of it. if she hadn't and they didn't -- no film. she considers abortion, and doesn't want to do it. it's weirdly anti-choice to say that therefore the film is pro-life.

why is it 'shaky premises' that she makes this decision? a lot of the film is devoted to her considering giving up on him; and some of her reasons not to have the baby aren't really hers -- they're the pressures put on her by her employers. the film hardly skimps on the reasons why having the kid is a bad idea. your problem with the film is the simple fact that the woman decides to have a child.

xpost

"it felt kinda weird that she never even considered it"

it came up when she met her mother. but even then: it that such a big problem for you?

The mother was sort of portrayed as a monster.

not even 'portrayed as' -- she is a bit of a monster. but she's also the most conservative person in the film. it's not a 'real' baby because her daughter isn't properly 'with' someone. (is there also a note of anti-semitism there?) anyway, if she's a monster, she isn't a liberal monster.

Whereas her big sister was probably the most interesting character in the whole movie. The couple of poignant scenes she had were really quite touching: the one where she tells her husband that she wants her own time too, and the bouncer scene where she says he can still remain attractive after he gets married and has kids and grows older, but that isn't the case with women in our society. I think those moments did manage to somewhat balance the otherwise masculinist air of the movie. Though scenes like these (also the birthday cake scene) were also kinda irritating, 'cause they didn't really lead anywhere. As if the filmmakers wanted to have a serious, adult side to the movie, but then got a bit scared and fell back to raunchy comedy.

(xxx-post)

the film contained a variety of moods and situations.

anyway, if she's a monster, she isn't a liberal monster.

She might be a little of both worlds, tho. Some might see her as belonging to the only American generation whose women could afford to be totally blase about abortion.

Still, this isn't a movie about the suppression of abortion so much as it is the ability for a newborn baby to turn everyone into blithering, pie-eyed piles of mush.

Enrique, I wasn't criticizing the film for her not having an abortion, like I already said, obviously there'd be no film then. But to me it felt weird that the film didn't bother to give her any scenes where'd she'd even think about abortion, nor did it illuminate her motivation for keeping the baby. In the scene where she talks to her mom it's already clear she's decided to have the baby. I think most people in her situation would at least give some thought to all possible options, but in the film it seemed like it was no decision at all.

And I don't really think the film was pro-life, the problem was more that the woman's character was written worse than any other in the movie, all of her motivations were left kinda unclear.

Maybe she had no motivations because she didn't plan to get pregnant.

Er, even if you get pregnant by accident, that doesn't mean you won't think about the pros and cons of having a baby after the accident has happened.

So let me get this straight, you wish Knocked Up would have been longer?!

I think most people in her situation would at least give some thought to all possible options, but in the film it seemed like it was no decision at all.

i wouldn't be so sure that everyone would do that -- for some people maybe it isn't so hard a decision. in other words it's not so much about motivation 'to keep' but motivation 'to abort' that's lacking in her. keeping isn't easy -- cf most of the film -- but it's out of your hands unless you choose otherwise, and she doesn't.

i don't find it a big stretch that a woman of means in her late twenties decides to keep a baby, is what i'm saying, and i didn't find her underwritten.

it's not like there was a huge amount of motivation for him to stay the course either except initially the desire to 'do the right thing'.

This was probably a bad example to illuminate Hollywood's abortion taboo, though I do think such a taboo exists. Seriously, how many Hollywood films can you name where someone gets pregnant but has an abortion? Or films where someone has an abortion, but afterwards gets on her with her life and doesn't become totally traumatized by it?

(xx-post)

I'm imagining Tuomas asking pregnant women he just met why they didn't opt for the 'bortion.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33680

Also: where are you seeing this "masculinist air"?

i don't find it a big stretch that a woman of means in her late twenties decides to keep a baby, is what i'm saying, and i didn't find her underwritten.

I don't find it a stretch either, but I do think it's almost always a decision (especially for someone like her character who obviously had a good job, was afraid of losing it, and didn't have religious obligations which would've forced her to keep the baby), and the film wasn't very successful in getting inside her head regarding that decision. Maybe she'd already decided beforehand that even if she get pregnant but accident she'll keep the baby... But even then the film could've had, for example, a scene where she talks about the issue with her sister and tells her that.

(xxx-post) I'm imagining Tuomas asking pregnant women he just met why they didn't opt for the backdoor sex.

Maybe she'd already decided beforehand that even if she get pregnant but accident she'll keep the baby...

i've known people who make decisions like that, others who go with how they feel, etc etc. a friend of mine is keeping a baby and i personally think it's an even worse idea than the couple in this movie, but they aren't doing it because they think abortion is "wrong" or whatever. sometimes people do coutnerintuitive things.

I'm imagining Tuomas asking pregnant women he just met why they didn't opt for the 'bortion.

Actually, a couple of my friends have gotten pregnant by accident, and I did talk with both of them about whether or not they wanted to have the baby. One of them did have the baby and the other one didn't, but I do think most women in that situation (getting accidentally pregnant in your twenties) have to give at least some thought for all the alternatives.

they "have to"?

But, like I said, my main criticism was how lazily the woman in the movie was written in general, this was just the most obvious example of that.

Eric still hasn't given his opinion.

they "have to"?

I meant that not in the sense of "are forced to", rather than that something or someone (friends, relatives, most likely their own fears and doubts) will probably make them think about the alternatives in a situation like that. Or do you think otherwise?

Eric still hasn't given his opinion.

I think abortion should be compulsory.

Seconded.

my main criticism was how lazily the woman in the movie was written in general

Here I was thinking you were mourning the lack of comparative lack of slapstick abortion musical comedies emanating from mainstream Hollywood compared against the film product of other nations.

I thought he was referring to how slack God was in making woman.

The writers were pretty lazy. She didn't even know who Doc Brown is.

I would just like to point out that there are actually American films that deal with abortion/women having abortions (Citizen Ruth - an ABORTION COMEDY springs to mind. See also a bunch of 80s teen sex comedies/movies including Fast Times at Ridgmont High, Last American Virgin, etc.)

I forgot about Citizen Ruth. Alexander Payne used to be funny.

that's the one mainstream Hollywood film I can think of where abortion is the actual key plot point/issue... I'm positive there are other films where a character has an abortion in the course of the story, but this isn't a very easily google-able topic.

When I said abortion is a taboo that doesn't mean that there's never been any Hollywood film where someone has an abortion - of course there are always exceptions to the rule. I've never seen Citizen Ruth, but it doesn't look like a big a mainstream film though (according to IMDb it opened only on 6 screens).

it wasn't a huge success or anything but it was made by a major studio with a relatively well-known director that's all I meant. It wasn't some no-budget straight-to-video polemic. Its funny, altho the predictable ending is a bit of a cop-out. Swoozie Kurtz is hilarious in it.

I'm curious if you've seen Fast Times...

I haven't seen Fast Times, how does it handle abortion? Part of my point is that even in films where it is dealt with, like when a character reveals she's had one in the past, it's usually portrayed as a massive trauma instead of, you know, something that most people get over with.

If you do keyword search for "abortion" on IMDb, most of the results seem to be either indie or non-American films, or pro-life films. Of course this is not the most objective way of research...

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/abortion/

main character (teenage girl) has sex with an asshole, decides to get abortion (upon the advice of her friend), goes by herself to clinic but her cool older brother gets wise and follows her and helps her get over it. girl recovers and finds true love with nerd who has longed for her from afar throughout film.

In the Last American Virgin, the object of the main character's affection has similar knocked-up-by-asshole dilemma, he steps in and helps her get the abortion (pays for it, cares for her in recovery, etc.), girl then dumps him and goes back to asshole. Guy cries, film ends.

I'm pretty sure one of the characters' in Foxes has a similar abortion experience but I can't remember that film as well...?

There's also the girl in V: The Final Battle, who begs her dad for an abortion after she finds out she's carrying reptile twins.

Hmm, maybe things have gotten worse since the eighties? I can't remember any teen film from the 90's or 00's where someone would have an abortion. Even Saved!, an otherwise subversive indie film, totally dodged the issue.

there was also a lot more casual drug use in teen sex comedies of the 80s. abortion's become a much more polarizing subject since then, I think.

Hmm, maybe things have gotten worse since the eighties?

I'm no rabid pro-lifer (the threat of getting a girl pregnant is almost zilch with me), but you are revealing your bias here.

abortions for some, tiny American flags for others

twirling, twirling, twirling!

Yeah, I guess the most likely explanation is not that Hollywood is full of pro-lifers, but that they don't want scare away possible viewers and therefore tend to sidestep the issue the best they can. I mean, it's not like most the films where someone has gets pregnant by accident and keeps the baby can be seen as pro-life... Usually abortion is at least presented as an alternative, but then the protagonist decides to keep the bay anyway, often at the last moment, like when she's already at the abortion clinic.

(xxx-post)

Fuck yeah I'm showing a bias, did you miss the memo that said I'm the regular feminist here? ;)

Haha ... to be fair, it's the woman who wants to keep the baby in the movie, not the man.

To be even more fair, the movie was written and directed (as nearly all movies are) by a man.

this is an intriguing definition of feminist.

it's usually portrayed as a massive trauma instead of, you know, something that most people get over with.

i can't say it's usually portrayed as a *massive* trauma, but nor is it shown as a walk in the park. you'd have to cite chapter and verse which films you mean, but to be honest from people i know, it's not something you just 'get over with'. that doesn't make it a 'massive trauma' either but i think you're being a bit flippant about the experience.

I guess you're right, I didn't mean to suggest it's a walk in the park, but I do think it is often overplayed too. Though obviously I have no experience of my own with abortion, all this is just based on talking with friends and reading about it.

abortions for some, abortions and tiny Finnish flags for others

Upthread, someone said that the scene with the bouncer was filler. But I think it showed something important about the nature and intensity of Mann’s insecurities and angst. It shows that she’s equally vicious – not just to her husband, which can happen in intimate relationships, but even to strangers who cross her (“You’re just a doorman. Doorman! Doorman! Doorman!”) and insecure (she was really upset at the idea of getting old and her fear that Rudd would leave her (and with him having much better prospects)).

What didn’t ring true to me was her big fight with Rudd and, especially, Rudd’s confessional in Las Vegas with Rogan. Rudd’s upset because he can’t accept her love? What hogwash. That’s like what an interviewee says when they’re asked to give a negative assessment of themselves, answering in a way that puts the interviewee in a positive light (“My worst quality? Oh, I’m too much of a perfectionist and I drive myself too hard.”). Instead, Rudd could have used that confessional moment to really highlight his character, who I thought was sadly trapped in limbo, unhappy but (a) recognizing that he’s still, at many levels, in love with Mann (despite her sometimes seething hostility toward him), because, you know, she’s hot and smart and faithful and had his kids and (b) he’s willing to stay at a low, constant level of unhappiness to avoid even bigger unhappiness (messy divorce, emotional damage to his kids, who he obviously loves a lot).

But that’s quibbling. The movie was great. There was a lot of “male wish-fulfillment” in the Rogan-Heigl relationship, but that’s a whole different can of worms.

funniest bonus disc of all time

FUCKING POSTAL STRIKE. i ordered this day it dropped.

if dr. morbius did the dvd commentary, i would buy it

^^^^^
otm

Slate: The women ain't funny. This is a little better than the Denby article published last June on which O'Rourke's thesis depends.

I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy?

I didn't get that all.

casting my mind round what films i've seen this year, i think heigl and mann were better written than the run of female parts. two big end-of-year films barely have any female characters in them, that said (zodiac, there will be blood).

I didn't get that all.

I did!

xp

And where are the women in Fred Claus?

I don't think she's a bitch. She's under a lot of pressure, I think she behaves pretty well.

i watched superbad last night; seth's crush jules is pretty funny, and none of the chicks are humorless, although the boys get all of the best lines

People who complain about the female roles in Knocked Up not being rich and/or funny obv do not see most american comedies.

"Oh, Adam Sandler with a funny voice, I'm here to prove you're straight!"

"Yabba-dabba-doo!"

also, while the guys in Knocked Up were portrayed as more easygoing, they had a lot of issues, issues that were responsible for much of the women's frustrations. It's not like the movie was about awesome, caring dudes stuck with unappreciative, nagging bitches. Also, Leslie Mann was hilarious!

and hot

is there a Good Luck Chuck thread?

how many recent comedies give women a scene as good as the "just because you don't yell you think you're not mean/I like Spiderman too" one?

I can understand wishing women got to have as much fun as the men in Apatow films, ESPECIALLY Superbad. But its really blinkered to say they represent a regression or disturbing trend in American comedy something.

leslie mann was great, i thought she came across as much more real and balanced

(than heigl)

The Sweetest Thing sucked but the three girls in it were having fun.

But there was a time when romantic comedies, as Denby points out, were more egalitarian in their assignment of playfulness.

Really? I can think of movies where the man was a square and the woman was psychotically whimsical (like Bringing Up Baby), but I can't think of a time where BOTH people in a rom com were consistently playful.

I mean, do we really want to go back to Adam's Rib?

also complaints that today's better romcoms don't hold up to screwball classics kind of ignores the relative quality of romcoms between now and then.

This doesn't change her point (and she was responding TO criticisms of Knocked Up when she made her recent comments), but when Heigl was promoting Knocked Up, more than once she noted how this movie gave her a lot more to do than she did as the love interest in Johnny Knoxville's The Ringer.

The comparison with screwball comedy, as I wrote a few months ago, is just wrong. I mean, it's called SCREWBALL comedy – the leads are both nuts!

While we're talking about Katherine Hepburn: I wouldn't consider The Philadelphia Story true screwball, but how almost every character expends a considerable amount of dialogue on dismissing Kate as a moon goodess, an ice queen, or whatever says a lot about how men viewed independent women then.

Really the comparisons to screwball just mean "i have to go back over fifty years to find romantic comedies to negatively compare this one to."

TS: Leslie Mann Vs. Meg Ryan

and why is gender parity an ideal in romantic comedy?

the conceit is that they're supposed to be mismatached.

most movies are told from het male pov.

While we're talking about Katherine Hepburn: I wouldn't consider The Philadelphia Story true screwball, but how almost every character expends a considerable amount of dialogue on dismissing Kate as a moon goodess, an ice queen, or whatever says a lot about how men viewed independent women then.

Not to mention Cary Grant pushes her in the face and she falls down in like the first scene!

and Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar!

conclusions and screwball comparisons aside, i think that article makes some very good points.

there is a gender disparity in these movies, and this piece phrased the problems better than most. But the more aggressively anti-Apatow articles calling him out as a sexist really rankle me. It's like he's being punished for making a movie that was funny and engaging enough to actually make their radar.

The analysis of the "tastes like a rainbow" bit seems a little much considering Rudd probably made it up on the spot.

yeah, the whole attempt to contrast the scenes really were a stretch.

if i could be bothered i'd do a list of other $100m+ grossers from 2007 and go through all the amazing and challenging female character roles, starting with 'transformers'.

My problem with the Slate article is how it overpraises the humor/pathos of the guy scenes. Yeah, the guys make lots of wisecracks, but they're also lying around an apartment growing their beards out and creating a tits-in-movies databse. At least Leslie Mann and Heigl dress well and smell good.

not all guys are complacent slobs seething with resentment towards those who make them realize their inadequacies, Judd! WTF!

my beard and my tits.db smell like roses and lavender

I just realized neither this film nor superbad had the clean-cut asshole character competing with hero for the woman's attention. The guy who represents what she THINKS she wants. God bless!

smell-o-vision

main weakness was that hot and successful heigl didn't have a bunch of guys after her (or indeed any friends at all?)

and Knocked Up denies Leslie Mann an infidelity with Seth Rogen's pal from the club, not to mention the tearful I'm-glad-we-did-this-but-I'm-married scene.

i like apatow and all but i think the more aggressive articles calling him out probably just spring from getting sick of hearing how well he does women and overreacting thusly, i mean there was a pretty big jizzfest over the movie when it came out

i mean there was a pretty big jizzfest over the movie when it came out

You'd have to ask Stephanie Zancharek.

This movie is way more funny than most screwballs I've seen.

WE WERE WAITING FOR YOU

Denby and O'Rourke forget that Irene Dunne played it straight while Cary Grant tripped and did double takes.

just because the female characters in this are better and funnier than 99% of other modern romantic comedies doesn't mean that there's not a weird vibe going on there, or that the male characters aren't way more fleshed out.

to respond to this, way up the thread

yeah, I think the bra in those scenes (which is totally distracting partly because it's all "hey this an R rated comedy!" in every other respect) has more to do with the fact that the actress is a famous TV star

well, it's a small point of contention, but as someone who was just recently pregnant, i found the fact that she left her bra on entirely natural. pregnant boobs and gravity are not the best of amigos if you know what i mean? but a bra, any bra, is their bff!

I keep hoping Morbs will post that he's seen and loved the film.

Heigl's (and others') complaints that the movie's women are all uptight killjoys and whatnot conveniently forgets Jodi, who gets a lot of funny lines and bears a rather eerie resemblance to a particular stoner-chick friend of mine

Saw it. Have seen worse comedies, even this year. And it is, in fact, "Everybody Loves Raymond" gone pottymouthed stoner.

(Apatow calls ELR "brilliant," no lie)

also who was the "famous TV star" in this?

heigl

I've never seen "ELR."

well obv you'd love it!

I've never seen Heigl.

At the very least, you've got new material for your Apatow jihad.

Above all, this movie demonstrates there is no depraved context in which Teh Straightz cannot coat their well-established ability to rut and reproduce with bathetic treacle.

Seth Rogen sounds very much like Penn Jillette, and appears to be much less funny.

I mean, do we really want to go back to Adam's Rib?

FUCK YES

Since Adam's Rib is 10 times more condescending towards women, it's perfect homo fare.

Alfred, adjust for era, plz. 1949 is not 2007.

And if you think Irene Dunne is "playing it str8" when she does the hick-cousin act late in The Awful Truth...

http://cdn-i.dmdentertainment.com/cracked/img/articles/mquotes/knowhowiknow.jpg

"you know how i know that you're gay? you like george cukor."

see, Paul Rudd isn't even cute anymore.

btrw, "famous TV stars" are known to ppl who don't watch their shows: James Gandolfini, Sarah J Parker, Clooney in the "ER" years. Katherine Heigl is not a famous TV star.

Alfred, adjust for era, plz. 1949 is not 2007.

Noted. But I don't find Adam's Rib a particularly good movie, even adjusting myself to Hollywood's view of women in the postwar era. I'm the guy who thought Denby was fullashit in praising the "independence" or whatever of 1930's and '40s women's roles.

Seth Rogen sounds very much like Penn Jillette, and appears to be much less funny.

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 11:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

morbz is o_O all over this thread

i find seth rogan immensely punchable even if he is* wearing FOABP t-shirt

*or particularly because he is, can't decide

btrw, "famous TV stars" are known to ppl who don't watch their shows: James Gandolfini, Sarah J Parker, Clooney in the "ER" years. Katherine Heigl is not a famous TV star.

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 11:45 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

my point in calling her a "famous TV star" was that she was the most famous person involved in the movie when she signed on, and probably had enough leverage to say she wouldn't be topless/nude in the sex scene, moreso than if she were just some no-name hot chick in her first onscreen role. way to miss the point and harp on that phrase out of context repeatedly as if I was saying she was Julia Roberts-level famous, though.

That Apatow cast his little daughters and has one of them say "Ben is a prick" -- the R-rated version of adorable-moppet sitcom cracks -- suggests there are assholes on both sides of the camera here.

Two of the more resonant moments are Ben as film critic: His appraisal that Munich is about "Jews kickin' ASS!" bolsters his moron credentials. Then glimpsing Parenthood on TV (which looks like Lubitsch next to KU), he moans "It's not FUNNY, it's sad" -- OTM.

Also, the E! channel gal sticking with him is on a much more distant planet of Unreality than the one where they fuck. (I also can't identify with the problems of people who go to dance clubs.)

and has one of them say "Ben is a prick"

this was hilarious

ultimately I respect your gangsta, DM, because you're basically taking the same going-against-the-grain party pooper role that I took here and many other places re: Borat

I'm sorry if I missed your point, Alex, but apparently they auditioned a few dozen actresses for the role, so you may be overestimating the leverage of supporting-"McDreamy" fame.

Jordan, may your first daughter be cast by Judd Apatow. :D

His appraisal that Munich is about "Jews kickin' ASS!" bolsters his moron credentials.

I know what you mean, but he's still sort of right in a broad sense.

xpost, haha

Also, the E! channel gal sticking with him is on a much more distant planet of Unreality than the one where they fuck.

I'm not sure why this remains such a point of contention. She learns to like him! Plenty of scenes show them warming, warily, to each other -- and there are enough to suggegst that warming to each other is still no substitute for loving each other. Besides, she does give him an out after she learns the news.

And what does working at E! have to do with it? She's written as a conservative girl -- why wouldn't she give a fat guy in a jewfro a chance?

spielberg thought the munich line was funny.

morbs get one vanity fair cover

I also didn't think it was convincing that they stayed together, not necessarily on general principle, but they didn't quite sell it.

xp: Where's my gift subscription?

Plenty of scenes show them warming, warily, to each other

Didn't buy any of em. They stayed together so there could be a "touching" birth-climax.

btw I don't think I can watch Superbad if it requires 90 minutes of looking at Jonah Hill. That face could stop a giant earthbound meteor.

They stayed together so there could be a "touching" birth-climax.

yeah except they don't; they break up.

I'm sorry if I missed your point, Alex, but apparently they auditioned a few dozen actresses for the role, so you may be overestimating the leverage of supporting-"McDreamy" fame.

Jordan, may your first daughter be cast by Judd Apatow. :D

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 1:06 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

well I'm just saying, there was all kinds of bare tit in that movie, I'm sure noone behind the camera would've objected if the lead actress joined in on the fun, so my guess was the reason she didn't is that she was on more or less the highest rated show on TV at the time (which is, at least, a better theory than pisces saying they were saving a few extra nip shots for the unrated DVD).

yeah except they don't; they break up.

yeah, even tho everything about the last 20 minutes of the film suggests that's temporary.

y'all are sucking every last drop of fun out of this movie

let Morbius be Morbius and don't keep poking him

yeah except they don't; they break up.

nrq-a-durk saw a version that doesn't end with Ben driving Mother and Child into the fucking sunset (or sunrise)?

I think he means they broke up (temporarily) before the birth.

yeah coz morbz said 'They stayed together so there could be a "touching" birth-climax.' they weren't together prior to birth.

Ha ha, like the idea being on the biggest non-reality TV series today (like 18 million viewers) doesn't make you "a famous TV star."

*that* being

"When I was a young man, stars were STARS, mister. Lucille Ball? Pure class. That Audrey Meadows coulda been a hoofer, if she'd wanted. And maybe you should just jump on our little Internet hoonja-doonja and find out about Ms. Imogene Coca!"

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1555209/20070321/story.jhtml

"I feel just as bad when I get a negative review in The Village Voice as I do when some kid blogging in Thailand says I suck." -- judd apatow

That 18 million is the biggest drama show's audience, MVB, illustrates how massively the network audience has shrunk.

And no, it doesn't.

Anyway, the Shakespeare of unwanted pregnancy comedies remains

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VB0DPFJCL._AA240_.jpg

AGREED. But come on, no one's come close to being anywhere near as funny and good and weird as that movie in any significant way since then.

Doesn't mean people can't try though.

no one's come close to being anywhere near as funny and good and weird as that movie in any significant way since then.

overstate much gramps?

Have you seen it?

OK, those two movies aren't in any way comparable. As much as I like Morgan's Creek, Eddie Bracken is fine to meh; in certain moments I'll take Jonah Hill.

Anyway: a bit surprised to see Leslie Mann scoring so high in the VV Supporting Actress category.

how was Jonah Hill a standout among the slobs in KU? aside from the blindingly ugly thing?

Ah we've gotten back to "only beautiful people should exist," perfect.

He's got a way with a line while looking like Chris Penn – no easy trick.

That's a funny thing to say on a thread about a Homunculus Falls For Model film, D5.

I didn't think this movie was hyper-great.

Have you seen it?

-- Dimension 5ive, Thursday, January 3, 2008 6:57 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yes.

holy shit this needs to be remade with tuomas as the lead guy.

Jonah Hill is cute!

how was Jonah Hill a standout among the slobs in KU?

He's excellent in the extras. Actually, thinking back some of my favourite bits ARE him. Freaking out in the hospital, insulting the beard guy and when he says "Just another day in the office".

His appraisal that Munich is about "Jews kickin' ASS!" bolsters his moron credentials.

It also represents probably the only instance in pop culture where someone registers total approval of that film.

What were the other popcult reactions? did Young Jeezy have sumthin to say?

the extras are great. paul rudd's multiple runs on the 'back to the future' scene for just one thing.

i don't seem to have REALLY laughed at a hollywood comedy since
RAISING ARIZONA.

finally saw this, real funny but her motivation for even trying to make it work w/ him in the first place (after the hookup) did seem pretty shaky. I thought it was farfetched enough that she called him before even going to the dr.

not that a relationship couldnt work, but that she initiated it based ostensibly on him being a 'funny guy' seemed kinda o_O

I didn't realize Haverchuk from F&G was the beardo in this!

I mean, I just now realized.

"When I was a young man, stars were STARS, mister. Lucille Ball? Pure class. That Audrey Meadows coulda been a hoofer, if she'd wanted. And maybe you should just jump on our little Internet hoonja-doonja and find out about Ms. Imogene Coca!"

-- Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 3 January 2008 18:38 (3 weeks ago)

Still LOLing over this 3 weeks later (and appreciating its OTM-ness as a zingle).

stop talking like that

(it's Juno speak. Honest to blog Homeskillet.)

Seriously, Morbius' idiotic comments about Jonah Hill's looks suggest he has less of an understanding of vintage film comedy than he thinks he does.

oic... I understand the history of funny-looking people in comedies. Not repellent ones.

At least one observer (NY Times Carpetbagger?) has suggested Juno is being embraced as the Academy-friendly but similarly overcelebrated phony pregnancy comedy of these two.

Jonah Hill isn't repellent looking, his problem is that he looks like Brett Ratner.

this harping on hill's looks is kind of shallow.

is jonah hill uglier than wc fields? rodney dangerfield? redd foxx? emo philips?

As I could comfortably eat while watching the others, yes.

Damning with really creepy praise

So being able to eat while watching is the criteria for watching a film?

Morbius holds "popcorn movies" to a strict literal standard.

lololol

that, and there's the mitigating factor that J Hill didn't do or say anything funny in KU, so I assume his ugly fatassedness was supposed to be hilarious.

plainly you admire Taliban-inspired beards on men then.

also I didn't get the beard-joke ref to that Hasidic reggae star, and if you did, as Pacino sez, FOKKKK YOUUUUUU!

I do think they could have picked someone more attractive and less brimming with psychotic rage for Jonah's role in Superbad (esp. if they had to leave any possibility open that Jules was gonna actually get together with him), but I don't see why that would be a problem in Knocked Up, where it was less central to the story.

not that I agree with anything Dr. Morbius is saying here.

ugly fatassedness

What the fuck is your problem?

also I didn't get the beard-joke ref to that Hasidic reggae star, and if you did, as Pacino sez, FOKKKK YOUUUUUU!

-- Dr Morbius, Friday, January 25, 2008 9:22 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

what the fuck? are you 12?

it'd be less of a problem if he was hooking up with Evan.

(xpost)

http://towleroad.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/07/vf3.jpg

oh well

http://towleroad.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/07/vf3.jpg

i just saw this.

i thought it was funny and sweet.

i didn't think the women seemed like unfun bitches at all, i thought the guys seemed like shitheads that needed to grow up.

but mostly i was just enjoying the story and the jokes, i guess i haven't thought about it as much as a lot of y'all.

....a film about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death so that he can become a hair stylist.

is this the Zohan movie? : (

Heigl... good? Movie wasn't terrible, but not really a fan.

i saw this for the first time last night because i am sick and cannot go out.

i certainly laughed in some parts, but really it came down to two moments for me:
1) when the little girl is explaining how babies are born. that shit made me laugh/cough very hard, for some reason, if only because of the adults' blase reactions.
2) when Rogan and Rudd are impersonating DeNiro getting amniotic fluid all over his shoes, i totally lost my shit.

Kinda Sorted Sequel Due June 2012

This was on last night, hadn't seen it, saw about 45% of it this time.

thought Rudd and Mann's characters were some of the best parts of KU and could probably make for a good movie, but Apatow needs to stop trying to make his wife happen

I think it is kind of sweet, but yeah.

why? i think she's pretty great

she had pretty much the best scene in Knocked Up (the dialogue with the bouncer outside the nightclub)

i'd make his wife happen

That and the "dad" scene, I was reading that a lot of the scenes were improvised, and I can believe it about that one.

she's ok depending on the role (ie fine in 'knocked up' and nothing else i've seen) but it's kinda suspect that she's never in anyone else's movies

Yeah, I thought she was fine in KU too. I know she's in most of his movies but can't remember any of the other roles which probably isn't a very good sign.

Maybe that's enough work! (xpost)

she's been in lots of other movies, they've just mostly sucked

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005182/

- she was a hot teacher in the truly unmemorable even-owen-wilson-was-boring 'drillbit taylor
- she was also opposite o.w. in 'the cable guy' (i can remember his scene but not her)
- she was in the misfiring 2008 comedy epic 'funny people', the lame parts not the good ones

She was forgettable in I Love You, Phillip Morris but essential to Knocked Up and even Funny People.

- 'drillbit taylor - didn't see
- 'the cable guy' - don't remember her at all in that
- 'funny people' - didn't see - should I?

I feel like the second half of Funny People should have been a separate movie. Make a film about Seth Rogen and his pals trying to make it as stand-ups, let Adam Sandler get an Oscar nom as the cranky old guy, THEN make a sequel where he's the lead and tries to chase his ex.

Leslie Mann is great, and so are his kids, but its a bad sign when you're adding them to movies that are already overpacked. And making a plot point out of someone not showing the proper respect to your daughter's vocal recital is NAGL.

those are all Apatow projects btw

again, i don't dislike her, but history mayne is right, she should go out and work with some other directors. and it's not just her being in all his movies but getting a bigger part every time -- small role in 40 YOV to 4th billed in KU to 3rd billed in Funny People to co-headlining this new one.

xpost

funny people's two movies smushed together and suffers for it, but there's some good stuff in there

Mann was not good - or at least her entire part of the movie was no good - in Funny People, a movie that exists as far as I can tell simply to get Apatow's kid's school talent show performance on the public record.

Can't he wait until James L. Brooks is dead before becoming James L. Brooks? Hope this new movie isn't 3 hours long and named How About That.

yeah i dont think she's 'bad' as a performer in 'funny people', it's just that that whole thing didn't work for me

i was more disappointed in eric bana tbh -- it would have been more meta-lol if he'd been bana-from-'munich' -- but again, it was all kind of mistaken

none of judd apatow's films are models of structure or economy

xposts

bana was great

maybe the new movie will be a Get Him To The Greek-style wacky spinoff about Rudd A&R guy's misadventures in the music industry

ok don't get this whole "apatow is married to a good actress but he shouldn't give her parts in his movies and she should work with other directors for some reason" deal but whatevs

Well, quite.

Nothing wrong in being together for a movie, they obviously like each other.

And hey, if the movie suffers as a result, they don't get to make another one, those the breaks.

pretty sure no one's in the Telling Judd Apatow What To Do business at the moment.

given that Funny People's weakest parts hinged on a not very compelling love triangle involving her and that he's building his next movie around her supporting character from a previous movie, my criticism is partly that his drive to make her a star seems to be guiding the content of his movies and probably not for the better

pretty sure no one's in the Telling Judd Apatow What To Do business at the moment.

probably Leslie Mann is

touche!

lol

Yeah, it's cute that she shows up, slightly less so that he casts his kids, too, but I really lost patience when he literally played that clip of his kid singing the song from "Cats."

he literally played that clip of his kid singing the song from "Cats."

uhhhh

I think I have to watch this now.

I may have said this in the Funny People thread, but it is weird to have a "if you spend your life making millions off comedies you don't get to have a wife and kids" hook when Adam Sandler has a wife and kids, Judd Apatow has THESE PARTICULAR wife and kids, and just about every major comedian has a wife and kids.

I accept that many of Apatow's problems stem from his generosity towards his wife and kids, but it's not Mann's fault: I like her voice and the way she makes nagging funny.

x-post Sometimes they even have more than one wife, in succession.

I may have said this in the Funny People thread, but it is weird to have a "if you spend your life making millions off comedies you don't get to have a wife and kids" hook when Adam Sandler has a wife and kids, Judd Apatow has THESE PARTICULAR wife and kids, and just about every major comedian has a wife and kids.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 10:27 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i dont think that was the message of funny people at all

i think it was more 'if you're a monster it's hard to maintain relationships'

the message of FP: "I can afford to stick Adam Sandler in an unwieldy two-hour-plus comic drama."

And of course, don't forget that Adam Sandler (despite being Adam Sandler) happens to fit in the narcissistic scheme of things. Former roommate and all that. Surprised he didn't cast, dunno, Ben Stiller in the Bana role.

i think it was more 'if you're a monster it's hard to maintain relationships'

that's not exactly different from what I said, but the implication was that his "monster"-hood was based on him being some kazillionaire comedian jerkoff in a tower who couldn't commit, then saw his ex's pleasant life with kids, tried to co-opt it and then was found wanting because he couldn't enjoy Judd's daughter singing CATS. I'm saying that just about every kazillionaire comedian jerkoff succeeds in getting married and having kids.

but the implication was that his "monster"-hood was based on him being some kazillionaire comedian jerkoff in a tower who couldn't commit

i didnt get that at all - he would've been the same asshole if he was a janitor

But boy, would that have been a depressing movie!

Seth Rogen learns the valuable lesson that just because your a janitor doesn't mean you get away with being an asshole

ok, you have a point

Mann is awesome in 40 YO Virgin

i didnt get that at all - he would've been the same asshole if he was a janitor

for the record I didn't like this movie (or at least, the second half of it - everything after the Beatles-cover musical montage is excruciating) but TamTam OTM. the message is that Sandler is just a jerk who doesn't like people, he's a complete narcissist, regardless of his profession. His kazillionaire status has just enabled him to indulge this to the fullest. I did appreciate that the movie at least ends with him still basically miserable and alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8x2amoKIWc

will watch

no jokes about excessive ear hair == not talkin' baout my generation

parents regretting their life choices, how innnnnnnteresting

between this and Django Unchained, you must be really excited for Christmas.

don't forget The Baz Gatsby. No year-end completism for me.

btw, from the HE blog on This Is 40:

Absent from the trailer is the sweet subplot (I'm not joking) where Rudd's character stakes his money on resurrecting the career of 70's Brit rocker Graham Parker, and Apatow, a fan, cast Parker to appear in the movie as himself - apparently in a larger than usual role, as the musician was shooting scenes for a couple of weeks - alongside his recently reunited band The Rumour. Parker joked to Rolling Stone magazine that his role served as a useful metaphor for failure, but Parker's small, fervent fan-base has been over the moon about it for several months (with a long delayed Kickstarter documentary on Parker put back to capture him walking the red carpet later this year.) Parker also did some songs for the soundtrack.

Ok that makes me doubly curious if Apatow's James L Brooks phase will ever play in Peoria.

"Oh man, being 40...dealing with kids, creaky bones, trying to resurrect the careers of the people you idolized in your precocious entertainment-industry-minded youth...you feel me, america?"

and really, what G Parker fan is as young as 40?

why i threw "precocious" in there - if anything, I'm proud of the guy for spreading the wealth and not just making it about Loudon Wainwright

I'm guessing Greg Mottola will do the same for Robert Forster.

Albert Brooks is in this, and the trailer is 5x funnier than the dank slog that was Funny People, so yeah, I'll see it.

this movie is not very good.

yeah...not a ton of replay value

I've always said that Ryan Seacrest's freak out is the best thing about this movie

(oh, by this movie i was referring to 'this is 40' which is i guess doubly not good)

i thought i would relate to its lol-growing-old humor but i don't think this is what growing old is like at all?

it is apparently about what being rich is like

it is very long.

it is apparently about what being rich is like

all movies are about this and it pisses me off

ok maybe not PRETTY IN PINK (JOHN HUGES [1986]) but most movies

this movie is actually a fascinating character study of two self-indulgent narcissists who make one another miserable and are on the verge of breaking up but then realize that they've alienated everyone else in their life who could serve as a support network by their shitty self-absorbed behavior and anyway there's no way they'd find anyone else willing to put up with their miserable excuses for personalities.

yeah this is 40 was dire, it was odd to go from knocked up and seeing his associates popping up in small roles and feeling good about apatow for it (when knocked up came out how long had it been since anyone had seen martin starr?) vs this is 40 where ppl from his various productions pop up in small roles and it feels like they couldn't say no to the boss. loved loved loved 40 yr old virgin, loved knocked up though admittedly have felt zero urge to revisit it (would probably be more interested in watching pineapple express or observe and report again), enjoyed much about funny people, this is 40 was horrid.