Summer '07 movie reviews/discussion (SPOILERS)

[SonofDjugashvili]

[ QUOTE ]
I though Knocked Up was 10x funnier than wedding crashers.
I've always though WC was vastly overrated

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, WC was vastly overrated. That still doesn't change the fact that KUd was terrible, and the only funny scene was the fantasy baseball draft.

[CharlieDontSurf]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I though Knocked Up was 10x funnier than wedding crashers.
I've always though WC was vastly overrated

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, WC was vastly overrated. That still doesn't change the fact that KUd was terrible, and the only funny scene was the fantasy baseball draft.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol u have a wierd sense of humor...that scene was amusing. The rest of the movie was hilarious.

[private joker]

Critics of Knocked Up don't seem to be working hard enough to really read the film. There's a lot going on in it, and to just dismiss it because you were too lazy to read the subtext (and in many cases flat-out text) says more about you than about the movie.

The script has a very keen sense of what it feels like to grow old -- and in fact, much of the film is specifically about aging. Sometimes the pregnancy plot is just a tangent. When Heigl and Mann first go into the club, they wonder aloud if they're too old to be there... if they should feel out of place... if they're the oldest girls in the joint. Later on at the same club, Mann confronts the doorman but what they argue about ends up being age -- the doorman confesses to feeling bad about the job, but realizes that despite his own aging process, he can't let an old lady and a pregnant chick into the club. It has to maintain the appearance of youth.

Similarly, the bosses at E! try to contain Heigl's natural aging by forcing her to "tighten up" her body again after the pregnancy. Ignore the whole being-a-mom thing. But look at Heigl's reaction when Rudd and Mann suggest that with her new job she can finally move out; she says "No way! I'm not that crazy" or something to that effect... she can't bring herself to grow up and get a place of her own.

Now on to Rogen -- here's a guy in a more exaggerated state of arrested development. It's not just the bong-smoking, video games, and internet nudity sites... it's his body's struggle against his brain: remember when Mann first asks Heigl how old he is? She says 23, Mann says he looks 33. It's true, and it's a sign of Rogen's character not being able to catch up with his own age. He's not a teenager anymore, but he acts like it.

A lot of it eventually hits home when we see how the older generation reacts. Rogen talks to his father about being a dad, and Ramis tells his son "you're the best thing that ever happened to me." Rogen replies, "Wow, now I just feel sorry for you." It's a hilarious line, but it says a lot about aging and passing yourself on to a younger generation. There's a lot of sadness in Rudd and Mann's marriage, brought on by the march of their relationship and the growing up of their kids -- even when their daughter celebrates her 8th birthday, it becomes an event full of arguing and pain. The most heroic shot of the entire movie is when Rogen tells Rudd he's a terrible husband and blames him for Mann's wrecked emotional state... Rudd just eats that insult, swallows it for a beat, then walks right outside singing "Happy Birthday" to his daughter and a yard-full of similarly deluded suburbanites.

"Knocked Up" is not awful or terrible.

[CharlieDontSurf]

[ QUOTE ]
Critics of Knocked Up don't seem to be working hard enough to really read the film. There's a lot going on in it, and to just dismiss it because you were too lazy to read the subtext (and in many cases flat-out text) says more about you than about the movie.

The script has a very keen sense of what it feels like to grow old -- and in fact, much of the film is specifically about aging. Sometimes the pregnancy plot is just a tangent. When Heigl and Mann first go into the club, they wonder aloud if they're too old to be there... if they should feel out of place... if they're the oldest girls in the joint. Later on at the same club, Mann confronts the doorman but what they argue about ends up being age -- the doorman confesses to feeling bad about the job, but realizes that despite his own aging process, he can't let an old lady and a pregnant chick into the club. It has to maintain the appearance of youth.

Similarly, the bosses at E! try to contain Heigl's natural aging by forcing her to "tighten up" her body again after the pregnancy. Ignore the whole being-a-mom thing. But look at Heigl's reaction when Rudd and Mann suggest that with her new job she can finally move out; she says "No way! I'm not that crazy" or something to that effect... she can't bring herself to grow up and get a place of her own.

Now on to Rogen -- here's a guy in a more exaggerated state of arrested development. It's not just the bong-smoking, video games, and internet nudity sites... it's his body's struggle against his brain: remember when Mann first asks Heigl how old he is? She says 23, Mann says he looks 33. It's true, and it's a sign of Rogen's character not being able to catch up with his own age. He's not a teenager anymore, but he acts like it.

A lot of it eventually hits home when we see how the older generation reacts. Rogen talks to his father about being a dad, and Ramis tells his son "you're the best thing that ever happened to me." Rogen replies, "Wow, now I just feel sorry for you." It's a hilarious line, but it says a lot about aging and passing yourself on to a younger generation. There's a lot of sadness in Rudd and Mann's marriage, brought on by the march of their relationship and the growing up of their kids -- even when their daughter celebrates her 8th birthday, it becomes an event full of arguing and pain. The most heroic shot of the entire movie is when Rogen tells Rudd he's a terrible husband and blames him for Mann's wrecked emotional state... Rudd just eats that insult, swallows it for a beat, then walks right outside singing "Happy Birthday" to his daughter and a yard-full of similarly deluded suburbanites.

"Knocked Up" is not awful or terrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

good summary...i loved the line by Mann..think it was "My youth is officially over."

Judd's little daughter was adorable.

[SonofDjugashvili]

PJ, it's not that I cannot discern suplots and underlying messages in movies, but KUd just wasn't good enough of a movie to bother trying to deconstruct. For example, you can tell me there are many underlying messages in Friends to which I'll reply "Who cares?"; same here - manure with sublots is still manure. I like 2 kinds of movies - either straight up funny with no particular depth, or something good that makes you think. This is neither. Actually, if you want to talk messages, let's. You say it's about aging. I say it's a thinly veiled anti-abortion propaganda movie (I say this as a confirmed right-winger). Having a baby doesn't hurt the career of a young eye-candy TV personality? Please. A 23 year-old loser suddenly turns into a great husband/father? Please. I want to know who financed this movie. Right to Life Coalition? Family Council?

[MusashiStyle]

[ QUOTE ]
PJ, it's not that I cannot discern suplots and underlying messages in movies, but KUd just wasn't good enough of a movie to bother trying to deconstruct. For example, you can tell me there are many underlying messages in Friends to which I'll reply "Who cares?"; same here - manure with sublots is still manure. I like 2 kinds of movies - either straight up funny with no particular depth, or something good that makes you think. This is neither. Actually, if you want to talk messages, let's. You say it's about aging. I say it's a thinly veiled anti-abortion propaganda movie (I say this as a confirmed right-winger). Having a baby doesn't hurt the career of a young eye-candy TV personality? Please. A 23 year-old loser suddenly turns into a great husband/father? Please. I want to know who financed this movie. Right to Life Coalition? Family Council?

[/ QUOTE ]

In my opinion, you are reading too much into the political nature of this movie. I don't think that the director has any political motives whatsoever. In order for the story to move along she has to have the kid, otherwise there would be no movie.
I thought there was a lot of laughs and a lot of insight into what people are really like, and I thought it was pretty beautiful.

[CharlieDontSurf]

haha lol...I'm sure thats exactly what Judd A was thinking post 40 Year Virgin...hmmm what should I write next that can star Seth Rogan...I got it...a thinly veiled anti-abortion propaganda movie. Yes!

[CharlieDontSurf]

The movie is called Knocked Up...having the girl get an abortion in the 1st act would probably screw things up slightly.

[SonofDjugashvili]

[ QUOTE ]
haha lol...I'm sure thats exactly what Judd A was thinking post 40 Year Virgin...hmmm what should I write next that can star Seth Rogan...I got it...a thinly veiled anti-abortion propaganda movie. Yes!

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe watching Thank You for Smoking made me a little too paranoid. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] That was a great movie btw. I just don't appreciate the "HAVING A CHILD IS GREAT NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE AT IN YOUR LIFE" message being hammered into my head. Producers sell out for product placement, why not message placement? I know I am probably wrong, but I'd still like to know where the financing came from.

[CharlieDontSurf]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
haha lol...I'm sure thats exactly what Judd A was thinking post 40 Year Virgin...hmmm what should I write next that can star Seth Rogan...I got it...a thinly veiled anti-abortion propaganda movie. Yes!

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe watching Thank You for Smoking made me a little too paranoid. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] That was a great movie btw. I just don't appreciate the "HAVING A CHILD IS GREAT NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE AT IN YOUR LIFE" message being hammered into my head. Producers sell out for product placement, why not message placement? I know I am probably wrong, but I'd still like to know where the financing came from.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ughh how did u get that message from the film.
Cuz it didn't seem to me that having a child was great for either the young couple or the old one. It seemed more like having a child is a TON of work and can be a major strain on a relationship almost to the point of destroying it.

Universal financed it...they are a hardcore right wing think tank.