Knocked Up, F**k Yeah!

*Edit: I just realized that that title could be construed in a personal way so I just want to make absolutely clear that this post is about the new movie, Knocked Up, and the not-so-new movie, Team America:World Police which I referenced using BER and Josie, Hair Goddess' favourite theme song line. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with me physiologically. Nothing.*So I obviously didn't upload the expected image of Canuck Seth Rogan and pretty-enough-to-be-a-Canuck Katherine Heigl for this review (there only seems to be the one of them in the waiting room anyway). But this picture is every bit as relevant as Knocked Up is truly a family affair with Judd Apatow casting his wife, Leslie Mann, and two daughters as Heigl's on-screen sister and nieces. Furthermore, he seems to be good friends with everyone else in the cast as well.
And I'd like to point out before I get into this short review that, with the exception of some episodes of "The Critic" and "Newsradio" that he apparently wrote/consulted on, I had never been exposed to either Apatow's cinematic or small screen prowess, having never seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Fun With Dick and Jane, Anchorman, or any of his other myriad films before seeing this last Thursday. (Oh wait, I saw most of The Cable Guy - let's not count that :P - the C.S.I. episode was better anyhow). Sadly, I have also yet to see "Freaks and Geeks" which I've been meaning to get on DVD for years.

Knocked Up is a nice movie. Crass yet funny, stupid yet clever, and, at times, startlingly honest but, at the core, nice. Sure, Ben (Rogan) is looking to get improbably laid when he meets Alison (Heigl). And, sure, Alison realizes that she would never have slept with someone like Ben - chubby, childish and basically unemployed - if she hadn't been incredibly drunk. But when the unplanned pregnancy rears its embryonic head, the two of them and a fabulous group of supporting characters react in natural and believeable ways. There are moments of clever, biting humour (eg. Alison's co-worker). There are moments of anger and angst (the leads are, respectively, a juvenile illegal Canadian immigrant and a pregnant entertainment reporter... of COURSE there's going to be anger and angst). There is a LOT of silly, stoner, "guy"-humour (pink eye, anyone?). There are moments of verbal and visual shock-value (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it - THREE times) And then there are these moments of incredible clarity where real fears about life and relationships for both guys, girls (and bouncers) are laid bare. The movie's a lot deeper than one would expect. And, for one historic, cinematic moment, a trip to Vegas doesn't cause the guy more problems than he started out with (well, not many more in any case) and it was damn funny. Love that Paul Rudd...

After seeing Once on Saturday evening, we found ourselves with most of an evening still free and we decided to round out some of my pop culture references (BER had seen most of it in bits already) by watching the DVD of Team America: World Police that I'd borrowed from the library. I'll admit that I may not have been fully conscious for the whole thing but Parker and Stone don't really need me to be to get me to laugh. It was a surprisingly dramatic film. And puppet sex is always a crowd pleaser (see Avenue Q). I'll probably always prefer South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (and probably Orgazmo too) but this was an ambitious and successful foray for the Partners in Pervosity. F**k, yeah!