Movies of the Week
Knocked Up, Severance
See it or skip it? This week's new movie releases By Paul Matthews
Knocked Up
Like its predecessor, 40 Year-Old Virgin, Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up walks the line between Woody Allen and the Farrelly brothers, somehow finding a style that complements one’s intelligence even as it plumbs the depths of frat boy humour. Ben Stone (Apatow surrogate Seth Rogen) is yet another in a long line of bong-cradling man-children that contemporary Hollywood has embraced. One night, Ben gets drunk, stumbles into a bit of luck and beds the miles-out-of-his-league Alison (Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl), an up-and-coming TV entertainment journalist. When Alison gets preggers, she decides to take a risk and involve her baby dada in the parenting process. For all the dick and boob jokes, Apatow is a romantic soul with an abiding interest in how men really age. Ben’s journey to adulthood is a surprisingly touching one, offset by Alison’s older sister Debbie (Apatow’s real-life wife, Leslie Mann) and her husband Pete’s (the ever wry Paul Rudd) regrets about their own stagnating lives. While Apatow’s interest in keeping conservative Middle America happy keeps his script from being as fresh as it could be, Knocked Up is nonetheless the sharpest comedy to come out of Hollywood in a while. SEE IT NOW
Knocked Up is now playing at the Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond St. W.), the Varsity (55 Bloor St. W.) and others.
