I haven’t seen the movie yet. What struck me about the way the movie is being marketed is: when I saw the TV commercials, I thought, “This is a movie about a woman who gets pregnant by the wrong guy, and what she goes through.”
Then I saw some half hour special on the making of the movie, and they were saying it was a movie about a guy who gets some woman pregnant, and what he goes through.
So it seems like it appeals to both sexes and both kinds of people, responsible ones and irresponsible ones. Should do well.
Eckler wrote a book called “Knocked Up” about herself - a young entertainment journalist who gets unexpectedly pregnant. Apparently some of the scenes in the movies are strikingly reminiscent of the book. Hmmm.
The similarities are the title, the pregnancy from a one night stand and a slight simililarity in the professions of the female leads (the woman in the book is a newspaper reporter)…oh, and both stories have Jewish fathers in them.
You can’t copyright a story idea (and it’s not like Eckler is the first person who ever wrote a story about a pregnancy) and Apatow’s movie is much more about the tone, the dialogue and the characters than it is about its retread premise.
Eckler is trying to get some publicity for her book and maybe squeeze a settlement out of the studio. They should tell her to fuck off.
Haven’t seen it yet (and not reading the thread) but I can’t wait. I’m a huge fan of the whole Apatow crew (Freaks & Geeks, Undeclared, etc), and I’m excited to watch him and Rogen become big stars.
I think Paul Rudd should be a Hollywood A-lister already. I’m a straight man, but I will admit he is one good-lookin’ dude, and he has a natural charm and wit that makes him funnier than most well-known comic actors.
Except that Eckler was engaged to the father of the baby, in fact she was drunk when she got pregnant BECAUSE she had been overindulging at her engagement party. Isn’t half of Knocked Up’s premise “They were strangers from two different worlds, and now they are forced to get to know each other! [Nelson Muntz]HA-ha![/NM]” ?
I heard her interviewed on CBC radio and she came off as whiny, entitled and standoffish (actually quite a lot like Candace Bushnell). She also ignored the fact that the “Jewish dad” is Jewish because Seth Rogan himself is a Jewish Canadian and he wanted to draw from his own life (which is not an excuse, he actually said it before the lawsuit was filed). She also claimed that the scene where Allison takes many pregnancy tests was lifted from her book, but someone said in this very thread that it’s already a cliche - it was one before Eckler’s book was published, she can’t seriously think she’s being original with that one.
Her most compelling argument was that one image on the cover of an early version of the screenplay was similar to the image used on the cover of her book. I guess she’s never heard of graphic designers using stock images or layouts.
It’s a classless moneygrab.
ETA: Apatow has already shown that he is capable of coming up with compelling original stories, why would he start plagiarizing NOW? It was just his bad luck that this film had the same title (which is a common phrase) as a book written by a shrill moneygrubbing harpy.
I never say this about movies, but if you liked 40 Year Old Virgin, you’ll like this. It’s essentially a bunch of guys being funny mixed in with some standard rom-com stuff.
Apatow uses great supporting actors. . .not just the main supports, but Ramis, Joanna Kern, Wash from Serenity, Wiig. That all really helps make a movie professional.
When I see Leslie Mann, all I can think of is her pukiung in Steve Carrell’s face, “fish sandwich?”
“uh huh. But I’ll still sleep with you if you want.”
and then, “at least I don’t have to exercise tomorrow.”
Anyway, I saw it in a smallish theater yesterday. I go there because this theater never gets more than 10 or so people during the week. Last night it was packed. A Wednesday. This movie will do great.
with a face like that, great comedic timing, and the ability to play different characters. . .he’ll get his break out role some day. Might just be another Apatow movie, but if Seth Rogan is headlining a movie, I think Rudd will.
There are so many good throw away lines in this movie it’s hard to remember them all but the whole subplot where they were breaking the shoe bomber rommates’s balls might have made me laugh the hardest. For some reason the line, “Was it a difficult adjustment when you changed your name from Cat Stevens to Yusef Islam?” just killed me. I think a lot of it had to do with the understated delivery and sarcastic reactions of the roommate.
Like the “You know how I know you’re gay?” stuff from Virgin, Apatow has an ear for realistic dialogue between male buddies – especially the way the low-key smack talking stuff is always there but he never lets it get truly out of hand or mean-spirited.
Can I just add, that this film has an absolutely amazing soundtrack? Strange Wierdos by Loudon Wainwright III. The best movie I’ve seen all year led me straight to the best album I’ve heard all year. Check it out.
I came away with a totally different take on that scene. I was entirely on Pete’s side in that fight. Yeah, he shouldn’t have lied to his wife, but if he hadn’t, he’d never get to do anything at all. Every single time in the movie he says he has to go somewhere, his wife says he can’t. Look at the opening scene: he makes plans for something weeks in advance, tells his wife, marks it on the calendar, and she claims that he never told her and can’t go. The only way he can get around that is by claiming it’s job related. Anything else, and it’s a huge fight, every single time. Hell, I’d probably lie to avoid that. She’s trying so hard to control him (and she admits that she’s been doing just that to Alison at one point) that she’s been driving him away, and I think it’s this scene, and the scene with the bouncer at the dance club that finally drive the point through to her that she needs to take other people’s needs and perspectives into account before she goes off on them. The scene in the hospital where Ben throws her out of the hospital room finishes her character arc: Ben pushes back against her, refuses to let her control him, and she respects him for it. If that had happened in the first act, I think she would have just hated him more.
This illustrates exactly what’s so great about this movie, and Judd Apatow’s stuff in general: no one is the “worst” person in the movie. No matter how big of an asshole a character is, the film always leaves them with a humanizing touch. The aforementioned bouncer’s speech is the most memorable example, but even the asshole doctor gets a little humanity after Ben talks to him in the hallway. (And speaking of the doctor, check out this very NSFW YouTube clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=B2v-AkSj260 )
But I gotta say this much: Leslie Mann does have the second best line reading in the entire movie, when she says, “I like Spiderman.”
The best line reading in the movie goes to Iris Apatow, after Ben tells her what “prick” means.
Saw it this morning; enjoyed it a lot, though not quite as much as The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (Speaking of Steve Carell – it was strange to see him doing a cameo as himself, in a movie in which at least a couple of his co-stars on “The Office” appear as fictional characters.)
The audience at the matinee seemed a bit unsophisticated; there were guffaws at every “fuck” and I heard people literally scream when we saw the baby’s head crowning in Allison’s vagina. You’d think they’d never seen a depiction of gentials before.
The movie was stunningly funny. Possibly the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. I love the actors and I worship the dialog. I liked the story and the cameos. It’s as if the movie was MADE for me. Utterly and completely awesome.
Definitely funnier than 40 year old virgin and I say this as someone who loved that movie and who’s a huge fan of Steve Carell.
Love everything Apatow does, and this was no exception. Like a nice big reunion of all his best cast members. Plus you just know he turned the camera on and had them dick around for an hour, then edited it all down.
I did find Rogen’s character was a little… harsh. At times. Like when he gives her the finger in the OBGYN office, had that been me, he would be dead. But overall, a nice balance of funny and sweet, as usual. The Vegas scene was dead on. I did find it odd that abortion was barely considered (and what kind of idiot doctor just acts like ‘Okay, there’s your baby. Have fun’ when he can clearly see the father’s a stranger and the mother’s upset?), but I guess it could have been worse. At least the women characters actually got to be more than eye candy.
Also, I’m in love with Jody (Martin’s girlfriend). She’d better make a reappearance. In fact, she should star in a stoner comedy – there are never enough girls in those.
Except Heigl’s mom in the movie who was played by Joanna Kerns. She comes off as a real bitch when she is advocating an abortion. Especially the line about the sister having a “real baby”. I get that the movie is about the pregnancy, and that her having an abortion would ruin that, but I felt that this scene was poorly thought out, and kinda cowardly. This Slate article points out some of the problems I had with that scene. It took me out of the movie, if only temporarily. Still, great movie.
