Knocked Up

I saw Knocked Up yesterday. Normally, I'm a hater of romantic comedies, but this one was pretty good. It was formulaic (which you expect from a rom-com (HAHAHA, I just invented the next Hollywood buzz word: pronounced Rawm-Cawm)) but it was still hilarious and somewhat romantic. There were moments that made me go "Awww" but that's probably because I'm a big softy at heart. The true strength of this movie, however, was the cast and the hilarity that ensued. The side characters were, without a doubt, the best part of the movie.

Paul Rudd (40 Year Old Virgin, Anchorman, Wet Hot American Summer) was great, absolutely hilarious. If there were an Oscar for best supporting actor in a comedy, he would win, hands down. The guy's just fucking funny. His attitude and the way he delivers his lines are genius.

I wasn't all that familiar with the other supporting actors and actresses, but they were all excellent. The funniest parts of the movie weren't the punchlines you'd see in commercials or trailers, they were lines that needed context to be funny, but were perfectly hilarious within the context of the scene.

It was nice to see the leading man of a romantic comedy not be a gorgeously handsome man. Seth Rogan was decent, nothing too special. To be honest, I never really liked his character, but that's just me. And there were parts of the movie, as his character grew, that seemed way too easy.

Katherine Heigl did a solid job as the love interest. She was much funnier than Rogan, I felt. But maybe her lines were better.

I did have a slight problem with the focus of the film. In the style of The Break-Up and most other contemporary romantic comedies, the movie had two perspectives: the man and the woman. However, the perspective was definitely more on the man. Moreover, Katherine Heigl's character never really did much growing or changing, at least not in a clear way. This irked me a bit, because the movie is more about a guy dealing with impregnating a woman as opposed to a woman dealing with being impregnated. There's a difference there. It's somewhat typical of "Hollywood" films to focus on men dealing with problems, even if they're much bigger problems for the female character. But anyway, that's the film theorist in me deconstructing a movie in a genre that never stands up well to deconstruction.

If you want a laugh, a good laugh, see this movie. I don't know if all the funniness has much staying power, but some of it definitely does, as I woke up laughing about Paul Rudd's character.

Sidenote: I saw a preview for Evan Almighty a quasi-sequel to Bruce Almighty with Morgan Freeman returning in the role of God, and Steve Carrell being the main character. In short, Carrell plays a US Congressman who is told by Freeman that he must build an ark for an impending world destroying flood. So Carrell becomes like Noah, everyone thinks he's crazy, he grows a beard, and pairs of animals follow him around.

Apparently, the producers, and screenwriters never read Genesis 9:11:

"I [God] establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth."

I know, Catholic school ruined me, and even though I think the Bible is 100% symbolism and not history, the fact that I know this verse exists, and it's a very important verse, has already destroyed this movie for me.

I also think it's odd that this movie is coming out only a few years after Katrina and the Indian Ocean tidal wave. I would not be at all shocked if this project was supposed to be made earlier, much sooner to 2003's Bruce Almighty but was pushed back due to those disasters (tidal wave in '04, Katrina in '05). That's the bizz for you. The first Spiderman got pushed from winter to summer so they could remove the World Trade Center from the skylines after 9/11, and it wound up having the biggest opening weekend ever. And many other movies with certain types of violence and deconstruction were put on hold because of 9-11.