Knocked Up (2007)

Knocked Up (2007)
Written and Directed by Judd Apatow

I've caught the last train after the last train on this one, and so much has already been said about TV-vet turned film-comedy-superstar Judd Apatow's most recent success that I'm practically speechless. As one might suspect from the title, the film concerns a pregnancy, and an unexpected one at that. In the weeks since it has come out (and boy, it's been out for a while) there has been some controversy in regards to the absence of abortion discussion in the film -- but I think these people (Pat Graham) are missing the point: Knocked Up isn't about much (especially morally) -- unless morality somehow has transformed itself into "an excuse for a group of friend-colleagues to get together and make hilarious jokes and references in front of a camera."

What's especially interesting about Knocked Up, in the critical sense, is it's strangely dualistic nature: it treats moral conflict and drama in the most rudimentary and unimportant of ways, yet it's nature as a contemporary comedy is not only timely but filled with painstaking detail complete with an inexhaustable, relentless barrage of references, insults, one-liners and impressions. Of course it's not a first for a high-profile comedy like this to have actual *emotion* take a back seat, but most mainstream comedies aren't nearly this funny. Apatow is slowly breaking the chains that have binded him in his television-rooted past, most notably his sloppy, close-up driven TV directing style -- but here he shows that he is growing, however slightly. His comedy and work with the actors is far superior here than in anything he's previously done (especially 40-Year Old Virgin) -- and maybe I hang out with too many stoner-fueled, film loving fantasy baseball playing dudes, but it's hard not to enjoy scenes that felt so painfully hilarious to real-life that I couldn't contain myself. It helps that he's basically worked with the same group of actors since Freaks and Geeks, but their casual camaraderie, improvisation, and culture-obsessed humor hits home in the best of ways possible.

Starring Apatow regulars Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Loudan Wainwright III, Leslie Mann, and Jason Segal, and also with Katherine Heigl and a bunch of other people I'm too lazy to list, although Harold Ramis has a particularly funny bit.

[129 minutes. Rated R. Color.]

Tite Times Update -- 7.12.07

All I can offer for the time being is a recent and most excellent article concerning Woody Allen's 1979 masterpiece:

Defending Manhattan
by J. Hoberman (Village Voice, 7.10.07)

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Somehow graduating college has left me with less time to write than before, or maybe I've been spending my summer days with beers, baseball, and Built to Spill instead. That being said, there is plenty of fun stuff to look forward to here at the Tite, including and not limited to reviews of a handful of Ross McElwee films, Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy, Knocked Up, and some other junk I've been watching. Soon, friends, soon.