Wait A Minute

I just saw a "For Your Consideration in All Categories" ad for Knocked Up.  To which I can only say... really?

Comments

[Noah]

Well, definitely screenplay and maybe director. Seriously. I honestly think the film is a masterpiece.

[Joshua James]

Yeah. It's good. It's that good. And what about it?

[isaac]

Okay. First off, that film is *terribly* directed. It is clearly cropped together from disparate improved takes, the lighting and design elements are bad, and I'm pretty sure it violates the 180 rule a few times. It's a good movie, but the screenplay has serious structural problems (really? an illegal immigrant can get a job and an apartment during a montage? etc.) It's a *good* movie, but it's certainly not a great one Superbad is both funnier and better directed.

[Abe Goldfarb]

I adore Knocked Up, really cherish it, but Apatow is an almost unbelievably mundane filmmaker. His films live or die on the quality of their writing and performances. The former is always sharp as a tack (a writing nomination is not out of the question, though the script's origins in improv may call authorship into question), and the latter uniformly excellent. As a director of actors, no doubt about it, Apatow knows how to draw the best out of people. Paul Rudd, for example, has emerged as one of my favorite film presences thanks to his work with Apatow. But Isaac's right, Apatow's films are ramshackle in nearly every other department, and that more or less removes him from contention. Not unfairly, I'd say. Can the man evoke mood, atmosphere, anything? At ALL?

I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it's a film of immense intelligence, charm and good humor. It's just that it had the bad fortune to open in the same summer as Hot Fuzz, a film that fuses an even smarter screenplay to direction so precise and inspired that it takes the breath away. And Superbad IS funnier and better made than Knocked Up, though I'm not as moved by it.

I don't think Apatow violates the 180 rule...but I'd have to go back and check.

[Joshua James]

Um, just watched it again, and it ain't nearly as messy as a number of films I could name . . . and I can tell you, from experience, that an illegal alien from Canada can get a job and an apartment, you bet . . . I know at least three people from other countries who've done so . . . I lived in a house with seven or eight Irish illegal immigrants who did so (one of whom began his own business, bought a boat and a truck and a motorcycle) . . . another of whom became a partner in a construction firm . . .

so yeah, it happens.

Every time it looked like it would get predictable, it swerved and caught it along side in an unexpected way (the bouncer, the touchy doctors, etc, the bonding, etc) . . . maybe it's becuz I just went through it (saw it before the birth, saw it again afterwards) but it ain't that far fetched . . .

The biggest stretch of disbelief was the fantasy baseball sequence.

The biggest beef I've heard anyone go on about is that she would never end up with him, and I can certainly attest that many a beauty has fallen in love with a beast, so it happens.

Now about the, uh, production values, it seems you're complaining about? Listen, as long as I don't see a boom mike or a grip picking his nose, I figure the look is what it is for that film . . . come on, it ain't Kevin Smith - if you want gloss, there's always Transformers . . .

KNOCKED UP was funny, that's all it needed to be.

SUPERBAD was funny, too . . . but are you seriously telling me that those two cops and their actions are easier to believe than anything in KNOCKED UP?

I mean, I loved 'em, I did . . . I accepted that in the fucked up world of this movie, it might happen . . . okay, what those cops do would never happen, not even in a movie, but I didn't care too much because they were funny.

Both films were funny, the people were fun to listen to and I liked where the stories go . . . as far as production stuff goes, again, as long as it does the job . . .

[sashanaomi]

That's awesome. I loved that movie. I didn't think I would, but I did. Knocked Up and Super Bad are a return to dumb comedies that are actually funny.
They're both great movies to see in a big theatre with a rowdy audience. I saw Knocked Up at midnight in Times Square. Ten minutes into it, the entire theatre reeked of pot.