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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Knocked up

lille christina

08:28 / 26.08.07

My boyfriend took me to the movies yesterday, we saw Judd Apatow's Knocked Up and it was hilarious.

The movie is about a stoner guy who lives with his stoner friends. One night they go out to a club where the main stoner (Seth Rogen) meets a girl (Katherine Heigl). They get drunk and have a one night stand. 8 weeks later she finds out that she is pregnant.

The cast who is mainly consisting of the Freaks and Geeks mafia (Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel and Martin Starr. Also Paul Rudd from 40 Year Old Virgin) is - just like their acting - super.

I was laughing all the time. The gang managed once again to make real life situations very realistic with the twist of the insane.

Has anybody seen it?

02:53 / 27.08.07

Yes, and I thought it was hilarious.

03:04 / 27.08.07

Absolutely loved it; I consider this a 'perfect comedy.' Some of the stuff (especially the scene where the bouncer at the entrance to the club tells the 2 women why they can't come in) was just uproarious, audacious and terrifically surprising in all the right ways. I've been a fan of Rogen & Apatow, the whole usual gang of contributors, etc. since when FREAKS & GEEKS first aired and it's great to see such fantastic things coming from them.

Not much else to say but damn, this was good stuff. Smart, intelligent, funny, and carries a lot of heart and actual character development. More comedies should be this good.

14:37 / 27.08.07

(The other Perfect Comedy (in my opinion) of 2007 is Hot Fuzz by Pegg & Wright)

14:45 / 27.08.07

I quite liked it. Mostly because the film (and eventually the character) nodded that they knew the guy was just not good enough for the girl at all -- "yes we're all very aware of that, shut up ok?".

It had glimpses of heart, character development, its sense of humour came from many different places (much in the way 'Superbad' -- and even '40 Year Old Virgin'e -- do). It's all very sweet and extremly hilarious.

But I need (and want) too see it again. Although the acid scene is still fresh in my head (as is the birth scene, the baseball club scene, the bouncer scene, the... etc etc).

15:27 / 27.08.07

Oh goodness! The acid scene! I found it to be worryingly familiar. I thought the casting was brilliant and the dialogue spot on. And for some reason the young giggly stoner girl really tickled me. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much tbh. The childbirth scene really put me off having kids though!

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:21 / 28.08.07

I read quite an intersting article in Slate about "Knocked Up" and its treatment of abortion, by Dana Stevens. Relevant section:

Allow me to briefly divagate here on the nonexistence of abortion as an option in Knocked Up. This omission smells of the focus group, and it's a disappointment in a movie that otherwise prides itself on its unsentimental honesty about the realities of unplanned parenthood. It's just not believable that, in Alison and Ben's upper-middle-class, secular L.A. milieu, abortion would not be matter-of-factly discussed as a possibility in the case of a pregnancy this accidental. If she doesn't want one, great—obviously, there'd be no movie if she did—but let's hear about why not. Otherwise, her character becomes a cipher, a foil for Ben's epiphanies about growing up, without being allowed any epiphanies of her own. The biggest unanswered question about Heigl's character is one the movie never tiptoes near—why does she decide to keep the baby?

This is followed up on here.

Is there something in Apatow's treatment of abortion that resonates with these concerns, do you think? Having just watched Anchorman, I'm not sure how much realism one might really expect...

05:44 / 28.08.07

Um, if she has the abortion, there's no movie/the plot is effectively at a dead end, no pun intended? The plot mechanics revolve around the lead couple's preparation to have a baby. And I guess the movie asks us to believe that she really has feelings for this guy and also wants to have the baby, after much reflection and conflict, etc. Not so outrageous. I know a lot of people who aren't so into the idea of having an abortion, and they're not at all regligious. (one friend at the moment who is in a longterm committed relationship and got pregnant, unplanned and a shock to the couple, and she's leaning towards keeping the baby and raising it with her boyfriend. Hardly shocking 'focus group' kind of stuff.) In real life, people make decisions that run the gamut of all possible options. This movie happens to be about a girl that decided to have the baby. I think the article is trying to push an agenda that's not even really in the movie.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:23 / 28.08.07

So, you think that it would be credible for a young pregnant woman in California to find the idea of abortion raised in so cursory a fashion? This is not a question of what the characters feel about abortion, because they are characters who would certainly not be able to _have_ an abortion without ending the film, but more about the credibility of the presentation.

13:16 / 28.08.07

Actually I'm with Haus on this one - I found the complete omission of abortion (and even, given this is an American film, adoption) as a possibility in this movie quite weird. She's not signified as religious in any way - she's not given any kind of moral or ethical framework within which to locate her apart from pretty upper middle class white american. at no point does she have any kind of reflection about the options available to her - it would have been more interesting I think if there was even one scene (probably with her sister, maybe some kind of revelation as she watches her sister's kids who are pretty damn cute) where she at least raised the question about whether or not to keep the baby.

The other weird bit was the birth scene, where for some reason they decided to have this completely unrealistic, totally hair free prosthetic vagina with a bit of head on show. Why bother?

(Mind you, I only went to see it because I think Katherine Heigl is hot. Not really fair of me to pick holes.)

13:40 / 28.08.07

To be honest, I don't think the abortion omission is an issue at all. It's entirely believable to me that a given woman just might not be interested; if anything, that Slate article pissed me off when I first read it because of the assumption that women of a certain age and locality would have to act a certain way.

My wife's guess about the fake, shavey pudenda in the birthing scene is that, for whatever prudish reasons, Apatow & co figured that pubic hair might make the ratings boards view the crowning as erotic and dirty instead of medical and interesting. It's as good an explanation as anything I can come up with.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:45 / 28.08.07

Because shaved genitals crop up far less often in pornography than they do in real life.

The trailer for this film made it look like a new low in "hurr hurr hurr" single entendre gross-out stoner jock bullshit. What makes it not?

14:20 / 28.08.07

The trailer for this film made it look like a new low in "hurr hurr hurr" single entendre gross-out stoner jock bullshit. What makes it not?

Character growth. Emotional weight.

14:41 / 28.08.07

Sorry. That came across way too snappish.

The better answer is that it _is_ a gross-out comedy featuring stoners, but (at least one of) the stoners actually do some thinking about their life and undergo some personal growth. The Seth Rogen character goes through a transformation (abetted by dick jokes, yeah; but hey, dick jokes can be good fun) that I can relate to, having gone through a lower-dick-joke-quotient version of it myself when I passed through my late 20s and got married.

The movie also benefits from some secondary characters whose marriage gets a very frank portrayal- it generates laughs, but the laughs come from exaggerations of stresses and ironies you'd observe in a real marriage, not the bog-standard men-vs-women bullshit that married-couple sitcoms lean on.

Basically, Knocked Up is good because it does the work to earn its emotional moments. It stands above other crass-humor movies the way Freaks and Geeks stands above other angsty-teen TV shows.

03:02 / 29.08.07

Yeah, the thing that makes Knocked Up so successful for me is that it would still work as a film without any of the jokes. The characters were that compelling and the story that interesting, throw the jokes on top and you've got something really great. It's not a groundbreaking movie, but it's just so much fun to watch. This is the kind of movie that should be a mainstream hit.

19:21 / 29.08.07

I found the complete omission of abortion (and even, given this is an American film, adoption) as a possibility in this movie quite weird.

I wonder if you saw a different cut of the movie than was shown here. The version I saw had one scene where Heigl's mother urged her to get an abortion. And another where one or two of Rogan's pals urged him to.

lille christina

05:30 / 30.08.07

Yeah, that's what I saw as well, but I think people complain about that she (Heigl) did not have some kind of a monologue about the abortion, or at least asking her sister for help. Because, I guess, abortion is a big step for some.

After I had seen the film I did not think about the abortion issue. Some of my friends would also never think of abortion, one of them got pregnant after knowing a guy for a couple of days. I asked her what she'll do about it and she said that she will have the baby. Abortion was not an issue she told me. Now, 3 years later, the second baby is on its way (the father is the same guy for both of them).

So I think it is quite possible for women to not want to have abortion no matter who the father is.

lille christina

05:41 / 30.08.07

The characters and the acting is what makes the movie for me. The coolest characters are Pete and Debbie (and their kids). Also, Mann's acting reminds me a bit of Madeline Kahn's acting. Extremly funny.

07:31 / 30.08.07

I thought the abotion issue was raised, and rather than her slipping into a monologue, she just presented that it wasn't right for her. In fact, I thought it was very well handled.

13:22 / 30.08.07

I didn't think abortion had been omitted. Her mom tells her not to keep the baby, and one of the guy's friends just straight tells him to get it aborted. Some time passes and she rings him in tears saying she's keeping the baby and he says he hoped she would.

I'm assuming the "keep the baby" talk referred to not getting an abortion rather than the older-fashioned meaning of not putting it up for adoption like some people might take it to be.