Xixax Film Forum

Apatow adds Hathaway to 'Knocked Up'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Anne Hathaway is joining the cast of Universal Pictures' "Knocked Up."

The actress, who most recently played Jake Gyllenhaal's icy wife in "Brokeback Mountain," is set to star opposite Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann in the Judd Apatow romantic comedy.

Apatow is writing, producing and directing the movie, which follows a twentysomething guy who finds out he impregnated his one night stand. The picture will be similar in budget to his last film, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," which grossed $109.5 million at the domestic boxoffice and garnered a WGA nomination.

Shooting is slated to start in the early summer.

Shauna Robertson also is producing "Knocked Up," while Rogen and Evan Goldberg are executive producing.

Universal president of production Donna Langley, senior vp production Holly Bario and creative executive Erik Baiers are overseeing for the studio.

Hathaway, who made her feature debut with the Walt Disney Co. hit "The Princess Diaries," will next be seen in "The Devil Wears Prada." She is repped by CAA and Management 360.

I saw the rough cut of Knocked Up and I will go ahead and call this a better movie than 40 Year Old Virgin.
It's very similar in tone and timing, but I think he's found a way to make it all come together a little better.
Also, Seth Rogen has needed a lead role like this and he can finally prove here how great he really is.
The relationship between Rudd and Rogen's characters is definitely a well-built expansion of the "you know how I know you're gay" scene from FYOV.
The end is kind of sappy like Virgin, but it doesn't feel tacked on like Virgin did... everything builds up to it.
I laughed pretty non-stop and hope that the cut we saw remains pretty similar because with a few very small exceptions, it's pretty consistantly hilarious.

awesome news. very much looking forward to seeing thing.

how was katherine heigl?

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The similarity has to be intentional:

Quote from: modage on January 30, 2007, 08:32:09 PM
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Domestic Trailer here. (http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1550103&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300)



International Teaser Trailer here. (http://tracker.thinkjam.com/?h=eafd1902e2c98ba3dd6249409d046f9a&q=hi&m=qt)

"what the hell is a dental damn?"

"it's like cyran wrap, it's disgusting"

once again the international trailer is way better

Quote from: ddiggler6280 on February 03, 2007, 12:45:59 AM
once again the international trailer is way better

i don't think they're comparable. the international is a teaser and has swears in it. it's a real sample of what you'll get. the domestic is a full spoilerful trailer that uses many great gags to tell you pretty much the whole story and remove any element of surprise from the viewing experience. the distinction is more typical of teasers vs trailers. i suspect the full inter trailer would be spoilerful too but with swears.

hiegl looks really good in this, and not sagging, old and tired like she's been looking in every other pic i've seen lately.

I loved this movie so much that it makes me sad how revealing the domestic trailer is... I recomend anyone who hasn't watched it not to.

Judd Apatow Says Critics Are Always Right — Even If They're Not
In his latest column for MTV News, 'Knocked Up' director says he fears 'painful backlash' to good reviews.
By Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow is the writer/director of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and the upcoming summer comedy "Knocked Up," and the producer/writer of the acclaimed television series "Freaks and Geeks." The following is the latest in a series of guest columns by Apatow for MTV News.

This has been an odd week because "Knocked Up" premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, and has been getting fantastic reviews. Reviews that make me think that a painful backlash is inevitable. I feel like starting the backlash, just to get it over with. It makes me want to examine my entire relationship with criticism.

Throughout my career I've gotten good reviews and bad reviews. I have gotten reviews that are so bad a weaker man would never get up off the canvas after reading them. I recently saw Maya Angelou on the TV show "Iconoclast" on the Sundance Channel telling Dave Chappelle that when it comes to what people in the press say, her theory is "don't pick it up, don't put it down." I think her point is that you shouldn't believe them when they're good and you shouldn't believe them when they're bad.

I have a different theory: I like to pick it up and never put it down. I like to put my name in the Google news and blog alerts and receive every single thing written about me and my work on the Internet. Then I can go home and stew on all of it, feeling both good and ashamed in quick succession. There is really no limit to the amount of time I can spend looking for any madman's rambling about something I have been a part of. Time never moves faster than those hours I spend after midnight sitting at the computer searching for criticism and insults, which inevitably leave me feeling soiled to my core. I feel just as bad when I get a negative review in The Village Voice as I do when some kid blogging in Thailand says I suck.

I never think about critics when I'm making a movie, so it doesn't affect the process. But when the filmmaking is complete, the ongoing conversation about the movie's value never bores me. One would think that after the beating I have taken on movies like "The Cable Guy," I would have decided that critics don't know what they're talking about. But if I did that, then I couldn't enjoy the moments when they are so clearly on the money. So I always think of them as being brilliant. Because if I didn't I couldn't enjoy today. If I ignore the jackass slamming "The Cable Guy" then I am not allowed to enjoy his incredibly insightful review of "Knocked Up." On this day, when the reviews are good, I say to all who have written anything about a project of mine: You have always been right about everything. And you continue to be right today.

The first review I ever received was from The Hollywood Reporter for an HBO special I wrote for Tom Arnold called "The Naked Truth." The only line I remember in the review was something about it being the worst cable special ever made. At the time a lot of people were down on Tom Arnold, and I'm not really sure why. I always found him really funny and unpredictable, but I was instantly able to rationalize this bad review as an attack on him and not on my work, which I am sure was very strong. I knew then, as I know now, that if that special had starred someone other than Tom Arnold, they would have said it was perhaps the best cable special ever written.

The reviews for "The Ben Stiller Show" [which Apatow produced, and in which he appeared] were mixed. People seemed to love it or hate it in equal parts. I remember one reviewer said it was like watching scraps from MTV's editing-room floor, but I knew that the review was only bad because castmember/writer Bob Odenkirk made a joke at a press conference after that same reporter repeatedly asked Ben Stiller about his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Bob rudely shouted out, "Why aren't you asking about me? My dad's Bob Hope." A month later we were trashed in the paper, and the reporter surely won that battle of wits. By the way, Bob's dad is not Bob Hope.

The first film I co-wrote, "Heavyweights," was panned across-the-board. It has become a little bit of a cult classic since then, if you define cult classic by this standard: More than 1,000 people in a country of 300 million really dig it. I consider myself one of them. "The Cable Guy" is remembered as a movie that got terrible reviews, but I always remind people that Gene Siskel loved it, as did Michael Wilmington in Chicago. If you e-mail me, I will send you a list of every good review that movie got. Almost 20 percent of the reviews were good, not that I'm counting. I really loved that movie, so the bad reviews were especially painful. We were all very proud that we did something different, and we were quite happy with the result. Not that I didn't realize that a Jim Carrey movie that ends with his suicide attempt was a bit of a risk.

I remember thinking at the time that reviewers would appreciate the fact that Jim Carrey had taken a chance and tried to blaze some new territory. I must say I actually thought the reviews were going to be great.

As clear as day I remember standing at the premiere when a publicist walked up and handed me two faxes containing two brutal reviews from major magazines. One of them said that there was not one funny moment in the movie, and that was enough for me to disregard that particular review. One could argue how good or bad the movie was, but it certainly got a lot of laughs. I used that rationalization as my way of not crawling into a ball and moving back to Long Island, New York, to recapture my previous job as a busboy at El Torito.

"The Cable Guy" is still one of my favorite films that I've worked on, and it never ceases to make me laugh. I must say, however, that the rough critical reaction made me doubt my instincts and sense of humor. I didn't make another movie for eight years. I spent those years making critically well-regarded television shows that were canceled instantly. In television, the network executives don't like good reviews because it makes it more embarrassing for them to give you the ax.

I was thrilled when "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," my directing debut, was warmly received. In fact, I was somewhat shocked because at no point during the making of a movie called "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" do you expect anyone to go out of their way to praise you. It may be the first time that a movie in which a man pees in his own face got a good review from The New Yorker.

So now, as I sit here having felt the pain and pleasure of critical response, I must again state that the critics are always right. They are certainly right about "Knocked Up," which Variety says is "uproarious" and "more explosively funny, more frequently than nearly any major studio release in recent memory." They were right about that Tom Arnold special and they are right about this.

Quote from: apatow @ alt.nerd.obsessive on March 21, 2007, 03:13:06 PM
I like to put my name in the Google news and blog alerts and receive every single thing written about me and my work on the Internet.

the jig is up, apatow. i know you're on xixax and i even know your username. (http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=1377.msg22163#msg22163)

you thought you could hide, didn't you... DIDNT YOU.

Giving the Last Laugh to Life's Losers
By SHARON WAXMAN; New York Times

schlub U.S. slang. A worthless person, a "jerk," an oaf. — Oxford English Dictionary

IN the world of "Knocked Up," the latest big-ticket comedy to take on American mating rituals, the formula is basically thus: Girl meets schlub. Schlub nails girl. Girl hangs around to discover schlub's inner mensch.

However unlikely a premise, this territory has already been staked out and explored, with considerable success, in television shows like "According to Jim" and movies like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," the runaway hit of two summers ago, with a virgin nerd (Steve Carell) in place of the schlub. But "Knocked Up," whose main promotional image is a close-up of Seth Rogen as the pudgy, pot-smoking, porn-addled, job-free hero of the tale, Ben, may well take its celebration of American schlubitude (loserdom? schlemieliness?) to a new level.

In the film he wins the carnal attentions, then seeks the romantic ones, of Alison (Katherine Heigl), a statuesque, blond-haired, career-oriented entertainment journalist who is carrying the fruit of their drunken one-night stand.

And Ben's not the only schlub in the picture, which opens on June 1. He lives in an apartment surrounded by fellow losers who spend their days in pajamas trolling movies for the dirty parts, which they tabulate for an eventual Web site. Their world — a stark women-are-from-Venus, geeks-are-from-Mars zone — has precious few women in it, and almost none who could qualify as friends with whom they might, say, share conversation, or even a video game.

The film is the product of a dedicated core of comedy geeks, led by the writer and director Judd Apatow and including Mr. Rogen and Paul Rudd, propelled by social sensibilities that all of them acknowledge are lodged firmly in high school. Their high schools.

"I always thought of myself as a nerdy guy," said Mr. Apatow, in a trailer during a break in the filming of yet another satire from the ever-growing Apatow comedy oeuvre: "Walk Hard," a comedy he wrote starring John C. Reilly as a faded rock star. "I was a kid at home watching 'The Dinah Shore Show.' I relate to underdogs. It may be my way of saying to every girl who ever broke up with me, 'Why did you do it?' "

The feeling has apparently never gone away, despite the fact that Mr. Apatow, 39, is now married to an attractive actress, who is in his film, with whom he has two daughters, who are also in his film. "We've been married for 10 years in June, and he's still really uncomfortable with me sometimes," said Leslie Mann, Mr. Apatow's real-life wife, who plays Debbie, Alison's unhappily married sister. "He still spills things before giving me a kiss. He'll knock a glass over and get flustered by it. Sometimes it feels like we're on a first date. He didn't outgrow the geeky boy he was. It's still there in him."

But what is most amazing about Mr. Apatow's sensibility is just how deeply it resonates with an entire generation of young American men, and perhaps of women too. Not only was "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" a blockbuster hit, but raucous audience reactions to "Knocked Up" in test screenings held in numerous cities by Universal, which is releasing it, suggest that it too may hit a nerve. Mr. Apatow said a common response after screenings was from young husbands, who said they felt guilty that they weren't at home more with their families.

What is it about these American men? The reactions to Mr. Apatow's work suggest something close to catharsis in the depiction of hapless losers as heroes, a notion that, in movie terms, probably starts with Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate." But Mr. Apatow turns out mainstream comedies, not cutting-edge fare, and unlike Benjamin in that 1967 film, the men in these contemporary comedies often consider women as scary (like the self-pleasuring vixen in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") as they are unattainable (Alison in "Knocked Up"). Perhaps there is something in the culture, a generational cue that may come from the rise of women's economic and sexual independence or from the arrival of a recognizable geeky archetype, that makes this paradigm comforting for audiences.

Call it the revenge of the nerds, and there are plenty of those in Hollywood. "The culture in the last 5, 10 years is one of shame and humiliation, and Judd gets that," said Jon Kasdan, a writer-director who worked for Mr. Apatow on the short-lived television cult hit "Freaks and Geeks" and recently released his first film, "In the Land of Women." He continued: "Part of the experience of being a man in this postmodern life is humiliation, and wearing it as something to be proud of. This is a true frustration that Judd is expressing in his work, almost a romanticized version of being a schlub."

In that same vein, immaturity in the pursuit of women is, if not a virtue, then at least a hallmark of this genre, a reinforcement of the American man's reluctance to give up childish things and face adulthood. In the film Mr. Rudd plays Pete, Debbie's husband, whom she suspects of cheating, though he is actually sneaking out to be with his buddies. And as Alison grapples with the stark choices of an unwanted pregnancy, Ben's friends shudder at the thought of what one will refer to only as a "shmashmortion."

This reflects a view thoroughly shared among those who made the movie. "Guys who behave like our characters and the guys in '40-Year-Old Virgin' are the gross majority, if anything," said Mr. Rogen, who called from the set of his next movie, "Pineapple Express," based on a story by Mr. Apatow about two pot-smoking buddies being chased by drug dealers. "I look at the people I meet. No one's dying to have a lot of responsibility in their lives. Very few people are looking at life and thinking, 'Gee, I wish there was another thing to occupy my time and energy.' Our characters are definitely trying to avoid that type of thing."

Mr. Rudd, who contributed to the "Knocked Up" script, said: "We were all pretty nerdy dudes. I had horrible skin. I was Jewish, living in the Midwest. And I don't think we're alone. I think there's an army of young dudes out there who are really into comedy. They're not on the first string of anything. They're varsity nothing. That's just us, and we're older now, with the studio giving us a little bit of money."

As for the dreaded pursuit of the female species, no confidence is the norm. "So much of your psyche growing up is 'How am I going to obtain a woman?' " Mr. Rogen said. "Most people who are married are half convinced their wife might dump them at any second and they'll be thrust into the world of finding a mate."

Mr. Rogen has been dating the same woman for two years. "I had a dream last night that she broke up with me," he said. "I woke up in a terrible mood, feeling terribly betrayed. Deep down inside we all feel like 40-year-old virgins. It's lame, but true. Everyone, no matter how many times they've had sex, is still afraid he might be bad at it."

In Hollywood, humor tends to go in cycles, with the late '80s and early to mid-'90s heavy on romantic comedies ("Pretty Woman," "When Harry Met Sally ...," "Sleepless in Seattle,") and I'm-with-stupid-style movies ("Dumb & Dumber," "Kingpin," "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"). The latter part of the 1990s was thick with gross-out comedies like "There's Something About Mary" and "American Pie."

This decade seems to be the province of Mr. Apatow and his broader group of comedy buddies — Mr. Carell, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn among them. But not everyone thinks this vein of humor is entirely worthy. Mike White, who worked with Mr. Apatow on "Freaks and Geeks" and recently directed his first film, "Year of the Dog," wonders if his friend has wandered away from championing the underdog to validating the underdog's flaws.

Mr. White is particularly bothered by jokes in both "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" that skewer gay men and dismiss women. "To me, I definitely stand in the corner of wanting to give voice to the bullied, and not the bully. Here's where comedy is catharsis for people who are picked on," he said.

"There's a strain in 'Knocked Up' where you sort of feel like something's changed a little bit," he continued. "My sense of it is that because those guys are idiosyncratic-looking, their perception is that they're still the underdogs. But there is something about the spirit of the thing, that comes under the guise of comedy, where — it's weird. At some point it starts feeling like comedy of the bullies, rather than the bullied."

Mr. Apatow continued to chew over the subject after an initial interview in which he said he believed "Knocked Up" was about taking responsibility, rather than the reverse.

He sent a series of e-mail messages and finally concluded: "I think there is a nerd's fantasy involved in many of these films. We all wish that somebody would take the time to get to know us, and love us, warts and all."

He added: "I always wanted to be given a shot. And the sick part is this: No matter how many shots I get, I never completely lose the feeling of inadequacy that makes me wish I would get a chance to prove myself."

I saw an early screening tonight and was underwhelmed. The "dirty mind with a heart of gold" concept is very difficult to pull off but Judd Apatow did a better job with it in "40 Year Old Virgin". With "Knocked Up", the lead character isn't as likeable or amusing as the Steve Carrell character. He's more annoying and irresponsible. Of course they try to make up for that in the last 10 minutes but at that point it's a little late. The sentimentality was better earned in "40", while it seems a little too forced here.

Some funny scenes here, but not much substance.

you're crazy.  this was a million times better than 40YOV and its the best movie of 07 (so far).

I'm still in awe of Mod's great counter to Red Vines, but man, I hope he is right. I talk and reminscience about 40 Year Old Virgin the way fanboys of John Huges do about him.

Quote from: modage on May 23, 2007, 10:59:05 PM
you're crazy.  this was a million times better than 40YOV and its the best movie of 07 (so far).

How so? Explain yourself.

Quote from: RedVines on May 24, 2007, 12:12:23 AM

Quote from: modage on May 23, 2007, 10:59:05 PM
you're crazy.  this was a million times better than 40YOV and its the best movie of 07 (so far).

How so? Explain yourself.

have you ever accidentally gotten a girl pregnant?
its funny...

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Judd Apatow's Family Values
By STEPHEN RODRICK; New York Times

For his second film, Judd Apatow chose locations that gave him a chance at making it home to Pacific Palisades in time for dinner. That meant much of "Knocked Up," Apatow's follow-up to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," was shot in the summer cauldron of suburban Los Angeles. While the set had a cozy family feel to it — the cast consisted of Apatow regulars, including his wife, Leslie Mann — 12-hour days in Northridge began dragging interminably. The curious appearance one day of Joey Buttafuoco (of Amy Fisher fame) manning a craft-services ice-cream truck only momentarily lifted the torpor.

Fortunately, an oasis loomed. Apatow's one out-of-town extravagance was two days of filming at a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. The concept of "Vegas" quickly took on a spring-break-like aura for the young cast. Toward the end of another 100-degree day, Seth Rogen, the 25-year-old star of "Knocked Up" and Apatow's on-screen alter ego, gurgled with excitement about the coming trip. "Now Vegas, that is going to be a good time," Rogen said, unleashing an illicit laugh that was half dirty old man, half the Muttley character from Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Apatow overheard and momentarily broke away from a Red Bull drinking contest he was having with Evan Goldberg, Rogen's best friend and an executive producer of "Knocked Up." "You have a girlfriend — what are you going to do in Vegas?" Apatow said to Rogen. "I can't wait until she breaks up with you. It'll suck, but you'll be so much funnier."

Both of the films Apatow has directed offer up the kind of conservative morals the Family Research Council might embrace — if the humor weren't so filthy. In "Virgin," the title character is saving himself for true love. "Knocked Up," which opens on June 1, revolves around a good-hearted doofus who copes with an unplanned pregnancy by getting a job and eliminating the bong hits. In each of the films, the hero is nearly led astray by buddies who tempt with things like boxes of porn, transvestite hookers and an ideology about the ladies possibly learned from scanning Maxim while scarfing down Pop-Tarts. By the end, Apatow exposes the friends as well meaning but comically pathetic and steers his men toward doing the right thing.

The Vegas trip went much like an Apatow script might go. The first night some of the cast participated in a medicinal-brownie-aided excursion to Cirque du Soleil's Beatles show. Everyone agreed they would never listen to "Blackbird" the same way again. The next evening, an assistant arranged for Apatow and his friends to gain entree to Pure, an of-the-moment nightclub at Caesars Palace. If not for a scraggly beard that trickled down into a thick thrush of chest hair, Apatow might have been carded. He had changed out of shorts and tube socks at Mann's insistence, but he was still wearing one of his customary Penguin striped short-sleeve shirts. That night's entourage included Rogen; Goldberg; Rogen's "Knocked Up" co-star, Paul Rudd; Apatow's producing partner, Shauna Robertson; and her boyfriend, the actor Ed Norton. A rope was removed, and everyone glided toward an elevator that opened to the Caesars roof. There they found a private cabana bursting with plush pillows, bottles of vodka and a towering bald man who by way of introduction said: "My name is Kordell. I am your problem solver."

The club was jammed, and it wasn't long before beautiful young women were craning their necks to get a glimpse of Norton and Rudd. A few of Goldberg's single friends had tagged along and tried to formulate an assault plan. But Apatow looked uneasy, his hand never venturing far from his wife's side.

"If you're walking with Judd and say, 'Hey, look at that hot chick,' he gives you the death stare," Adam McKay, the director who had Apatow produce his comedies "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights," had told me. "You can say, 'Hey, I still love my wife; I was just looking,' and he still hates it."

"He's right," Apatow told me later when I brought up what McKay said. "I'm the guy who gets uncomfortable. That's why I was able to write 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' and 'Knocked Up.' I believe in those guys. There's something honorable about holding out for love and not breaking up for the sake of the baby. I see people get divorced, and there is a part of me that thinks, I wonder how hard they tried?"

In Vegas, the hour stretched past midnight, and none of the bachelors had moved one molecule toward conversing with any of the young women. The night teetered on the edge of a washout until Apatow had an idea. "Let's go around and have each person tell their most embarrassing penis story," he said, his wide green eyes suddenly illuminated.

For a moment, everyone looked confused. Just as quickly, the guys started talking about zipper mishaps, the misuse of electrical tape and, in Apatow's case, a fear that if he got overly aroused he was going to pee on his eighth-grade girlfriend. A bottle of vodka was polished off, and everyone let his geek-freak flag fly. Eventually, Rudd entertained everyone by pretending he was talking to Treat Williams on his BlackBerry, a routine he kept up for another hour that included a cab ride and multiple hands of blackjack. The beautiful women were all but forgotten. "I'm making a movie about relationships, and I'm surrounded by guys scared of talking to girls," Apatow said on the way out. "I think that's good."

It wasn't too long ago that Cirque du Soleil shoots seemed far out of reach for Apatow. In July 2004, he was anxiously awaiting the opening of McKay's "Anchorman," which starred Will Ferrell. He called his friend and former collaborator, Paul Feig, and fretted. "I can't keep making stuff that loses people money," Apatow said. "They're going to figure out it's me."

His concern was understandable. Apatow had recently produced and championed two network comedies, "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared," neither of which made it to a second season. His longtime friends Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey had become wildly successful, but his projects remained mostly stalled. Apatow arrived in Hollywood at 17 and worked for nearly two decades as a stand-up comic, producer and scriptwriter, but he was still better known to the executives who run the town for losing a legal battle over a writing credit on Carrey's "The Cable Guy" and framing a Time magazine rave of "Undeclared," attaching an obscenity-laced note and sending it by messenger to the Fox executive who was about to cancel the show.

That was then. Since his phone call to Feig, Apatow, who is 39, has written, directed and produced movies that have grossed nearly $700 million at the box office. The number moves closer to a billion once DVD proceeds are included. Now an Apatow comedy empire is under construction. Over the next year and a half, an Apatow-connected comedy will hit multiplexes at a rate of about one every three months. Grosses could surpass the G.N.P. of Djibouti.

None of this has been coincidental. "Anchorman" represented a shift in mainstream American comedy — well, as much of a shift as can be represented by a movie that features a '70s news team rumbling with its rivals (Apatow's idea), including a wilding, turtlenecked public-television host chanting, "No commercials, no mercy." In the previous decade, Apatow's pals Sandler and Carrey made studios billions with a style of humor whose operating principle seemed to be "when in doubt, kick the bad guys in the groin — twice." "Anchorman" was different. The humor was self-deprecating, the loathing turned inward. Ferrell's Burgundy is a flute-playing womanizer who knows deep down that he's lame. Sadly, only his Spanish-barking dog Baxter knows his true feelings. When Baxter gets punted off a bridge by a biker whom Burgundy hit with a burrito, Burgundy falls apart. He weeps in a phone booth, wailing, "I'm in a glass case of emotion."

Just as important, "Anchorman" was bully-free, a key feature in the Apatow-affiliated comedies that would follow. "In comedy, you're playing God," Feig, who created "Freaks and Geeks," told me. "There's a temptation to say, 'Let's show how dumb these characters are, get some laughs and have absolute contempt for them.' Judd's not like that, I think we share a belief in the George Bernard Shaw saying, 'All men mean well.' "

Throughout the writing of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," Apatow wrestled with how to show the joy of the lead character Andy's first time. Often, he would turn on his cellphone and find a message like this one from Garry Shandling, his comedy mentor: "You have to make us understand that Andy's sex is better than everybody else's sex in the movie — because he's in love." In the end, Apatow had Andy marry and then have sex. Andy does it twice. The first time lasts less than a minute. After the second time, he breaks into a hosanna of "Aquarius" from "Hair." The camera switches to a pastoral field where he is joined in song and dance by the rest of the cast. It was completely ludicrous and possibly the most uplifting end to a Hollywood comedy in years. The movie cost $26 million, earned $177 million and made many critics' Top-10 lists at the end of 2005.

Apatow followed up "Virgin" by producing "Talladega Nights," which earned $150 million at the box office. The perks began to multiply. At the Deauville Film Festival in September 2005, Apatow and Rogen stalked the director Harold Ramis, one of Apatow's boyhood heroes. They all became fast friends, and Ramis agreed to be in his next movie. (He plays Rogen's father in "Knocked Up.") Tom Cruise wanted a meeting. Apatow happily trudged to Cruise's Malibu digs, the remnants of a craft-services burrito smeared across his shirt. Suddenly, Judd Apatow had become one of Hollywood's most bankable commodities.

As praise for "Virgin" rolled in, Apatow began writing "Knocked Up." While "Virgin" wasn't exactly complicated, "Knocked Up" was even simpler: Hot girl meets dork. Hot girl and dork have a one-night stand. Hot girl becomes pregnant. Dork freaks out. But this time there was a darker subtext. Some of the dialogue was lifted near verbatim from his marriage to Mann, and both Rogen and Rudd are well-meaning men who keep the womenfolk at a distance with jokes and buddy time masquerading as work.

"My way of dealing with the world has always been to make fun of it and observe it but not take part in it," Apatow told me when we first met in the fall of 2005. "That's how I became a writer. But when you have kids, suddenly you have to be part of things. It leads almost to a breakdown because your whole defense mechanism is now really destructive."

We were talking in Apatow's Santa Monica office. Besides the requisite movie memorabilia, the walls were lined with books alternately highbrow (Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson"), instructional ("Creating Unforgettable Characters") and self-help ("Embracing Your Inner Critic" and "Seven Secrets of a Happy Marriage"). "I'm trying to make a movie about two people starting a family while doing something that takes me away from my own family," Apatow told me. "Sometimes I think the thing that makes you funny is the antithesis of what makes you a good husband and father." He let out a mirthful laugh, then said, "We'll see what happens."

An early version of the script from "Knocked Up" read more like Cassavetes than a popcorn flick. The couple, Alison and Ben, had bitter quarrels and seemed corrosively incompatible. The hospital scenes seemed lifted from a medical-school training film. When Alison is in the delivery room, the stage direction simply read, "You see everything." There would be three shots of the baby crowning. It promised to be the most graphic birth ever shown in a suburban multiplex.

Keeping an eye on his family proved easy: Apatow put them all in the movie. He cast Mann as Debbie, Alison's older sister, who is married to Pete, played by Rudd. Their troubled marriage serves as a scary preview of what Ben and Alison might be entering. He then added his own two daughters as Mann and Rudd's screen kids. "Leslie thinks it's a bad idea, but worst-case scenario, I've got great home videos," Apatow joked last spring, just before shooting started.

The rest of "Knocked Up" was populated with Apatow's television offspring, the postadolescent veterans of his series "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." Both shows were coming-of-age stories — "Freaks" chronicled the high-school traumas of burnouts and nerds, while "Undeclared" was set in a freshman dorm — and featured ensemble casts. Since their cancellations, Apatow has been trying to reunite his TV children. He has become a raunchier — much raunchier — version of Preston Sturges, casting a familiar troupe of actors, with Rogen as his comedy son. When Apatow was in negotiations with Universal to do "Knocked Up," he offered to bring the film in at $30 million, one fifth the budget of "Used Guys," a Carrey-Stiller film that was halted last May because of runaway costs. "The lower the budget, the less there's a need for it to meet the studio's expectations," Apatow reasoned. He had just one nonnegotiable condition: the film would star Rogen, a self-described "weird-looking dude from Vancouver."

Apatow discovered Rogen in 1998, when Rogen, then 16, attended an open casting call in Vancouver for "Freaks and Geeks." Rogen was cast as the burnout Ken Miller, originally a peripheral character who sporadically delivered a surly one-liner. But as the show progressed, Apatow became infatuated with Rogen's comic vulnerability. He eventually built an episode around Ken's falling in love with a tuba player with ambiguous genitalia. Some of the show's writers balked at the idea, but Apatow insisted, and the episode was nominated for an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. When the show was canceled, Apatow cast Rogen in "Undeclared" and hired him as a writer for the show. After the demise of "Undeclared," Apatow hired Rogen to write scripts.

It's not hard to see why the two get along. Both Rogen and Apatow speak in a slightly halting manner, pausing momentarily before dropping the other shoe hard. Rogen's version is delivered in clipped, time-delayed Canadian English, emphasizing odd words, which makes everything he tells you sound illicit and endearingly self-defeating. The first time we met, in January, I suggested the Kings Road Cafe, a Los Angeles restaurant. Rogen, a burly guy with wild, curly hair, countered with a nearby diner.

"I once had a date at Kings Road," he explained. "She never called me back. Then I ran into her in the greenroom for an audition for the film in the second season of 'Project Greenlight.' " Rogen stirred his soda and played with his fries for a moment. "That was awkward."

A few minutes later, an old woman at another booth began shouting at Rogen, saying she knew him from somewhere. In a shy voice, Rogen suggested that maybe she had seen him on television. She stubbornly shook her head.

"No, are you Faye Belogus's grandson?"

"Yes."

"I went to your bar mitzvah."

In "Knocked Up," Rogen's character lives in a ramshackle house in the Valley along with four friends with whom he's planning to start a Web site that tracks nude scenes in films. Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Martin Starr and Jonah Hill play his buddies. In the movie, they all go by their real first names. Off-screen, they hang out together, sometimes play drinking games like Edward Fortyhands, in which two 40-ounce beers are taped to your hands and not removed until they're empty.

Apatow has known all of them for years — Starr and Segel were on "Freaks and Geeks," Baruchel played the lead in "Undeclared" and Hill had a key cameo in "Virgin" — and their characters are barely fictionalized versions of their real selves: they are all in their mid-20s, most have never been to college and they are all profoundly unhealthy. Hill had to be hospitalized for heat stroke after the "Aquarius" scene in "Virgin," while Rogen and Segal needed oxygen after a fight scene in "Knocked Up."

As "Knocked Up" began to take shape, Apatow invited the boys over to his house so he could tape them improvising scenes before fine-tuning their characters. During one of their brainstorming sessions, Apatow asked Rogen: "What if your girlfriend came over and there was an earthquake and weird things fell out of your drawers? What would be the most embarrassing?" Rogen thought for a minute. "There's a picture of me smoking pot with a fishbowl on my head," Rogen said. "And I used to keep a drawer full of all the baggies I got pot in. That drawer was full." Apatow incorporated both ideas into the next draft.

The boys' camaraderie made the casting of Rogen's love interest tricky. It had to be someone who could hold her own as well as roll with the movie's graphic scenes. "Today Judd mentioned Michelle Williams," Rogen told me at the diner. "But that might be weird. She's already had a baby. We want someone that you could go, 'Those two people so should not be having a baby.' "

Anne Hathaway, the star of "The Devil Wears Prada," was originally cast but then withdrew. "Hathaway dropped out of the film because she didn't want to allow us to use real footage of a woman giving birth to create the illusion that she is giving birth," Apatow wrote me in an e-mail message. A few weeks later, Apatow showed me an audition tape featuring Rogen and Katherine Heigl, a classic blonde best known for her role on "Grey's Anatomy," acting out a scene in which Alison tosses Ben out of her car. For a moment, Rogen looks genuinely terrified. "You get a sense that's how Katie actually fights with her boyfriend," Apatow said. "That's what I'm looking for."

Two weeks into the shoot, Apatow set up the scene in which Ben and Alison visit the gynecologist to confirm that she is pregnant. It was a typical Apatow scene, mixing pathos and degenerate humor. As Alison puts her legs into the stirrups, the gynecologist places gel on the wand, starts the exam and says, "Well, you do look a lot like your sister." Then he shoots Ben a look and adds, "You're next." After that, the scene gets dark. Alison and Ben see their speck of a child on a monitor, and Alison begins to cry tears of dread.

Apatow watched on a monitor with Goldberg standing behind him, scribbling alternate lines onto Post-it notes. "Seth, give it the 'You're freaking out' look," Apatow said. Rogen went bug-eyed. "Not like that," Apatow shouted as the crew laughed. Rogen playfully shot him the finger. Apatow suggested a different approach: "Try freaking out like, 'Oh, man, no more reefer.' "

Rogen immediately understood and got the look right. For an hour, Apatow swapped lines in and out, but the scene always ended with Heigl sobbing. By lunchtime, Rogen looked spent. "Man, we are making a seriously demented romantic comedy," he said.

After grabbing some food, Rogen, Goldberg, Apatow and Robertson retreated to a trailer. While shooting "Knocked Up," Apatow was juggling a number of other projects in various stages of development. Next up was "Superbad," a teenage comedy that Rogen and Goldberg had been writing since high school; the film co-stars Rogen, and Apatow and Robertson are producing it. Once everyone sat down, Goldberg switched on a DVD of "Superbad" auditions. For half an hour a parade of pretty faces read lines about scoring fake IDs and hooking up. Eventually, the brother of a famous movie star read for the part of Fogell, the school dweeb. He delivered his line a little too perfectly.

"Who would think this kid would have trouble getting girls?" Rogen said. "I want to have sex with this kid. I bet he's getting pleasured right now, right below the frame line."

Everyone laughed except Apatow, who kept devouring an overloaded plate of macaroni and cheese and chocolate cake. Apatow has few vices, but he self-medicates with food. The progress of "Knocked Up" could be traced by the expansion of Heigl's prosthetic belly and Apatow's real one. Rogen started picking at his fingernails waiting for the boss to chime in, but Apatow remained quiet. Another actor's audition was cued up. This one was the talented son of a pop icon. Apatow finally put his fork down and sighed. "This isn't going to work," he said. "On film, he is going to look like an Adonis."

He turned to Rogen and Goldberg and spoke slowly, as if trying to get a point across to two special-needs children: "Look, you guys have to be hard, you have to be brutal with this. You have to do open auditions in Vancouver and Chicago, see a thousand guys and look for the weird kid and see which one you can teach to act. They have to be the characters. We're not looking for the kids who can do Froot Loops commercials. This is not how we found Seth." (The part of Fogell would eventually be filled by a newcomer, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who was found after the casting director, Allison Jones, a longtime Apatow regular, created a MySpace profile and asked kids to send in their own videos. Mintz-Plasse was one of 4,000 who did).

An assistant opened the trailer door and said it was time to resume shooting. As Apatow walked back to the set, he told me a story: "I had this kid, Tom Welling, come in for 'Undeclared,' and he was great, but too good-looking. We put him in a small part in the first episode as a frat brother. I'd tell people, 'There goes the next Tom Cruise.' Six weeks later he was cast as Superman in 'Smallville.' But I didn't have anything for him." He smiled a bit. "There was no suffering."

When we first spoke, Apatow described a nerdy but tranquil childhood in Long Island. "I had a lot of friends," he said. "I realized what I was good at had absolutely no value, but I didn't think I was a failure. I knew I would succeed, just not until later."

The more we talked over the following 18 months, however, the more painful his adolescence began to sound. Apatow was always small for his age, and he grew adept at making fun of himself before others could. He began audiotaping "Saturday Night Live" when he was 11, transcribing the show and then trying to figure how they made it funny. When TV Guide arrived each week, Apatow would underline all the comics scheduled to appear on "The Mike Douglas Show."

Apatow's childhood hero was Steve Martin. On a summer trip to L.A., Apatow persuaded his grandparents to drive by Martin's home until Apatow spied his hero in the driveway. Martin wouldn't give him an autograph, so Apatow wrote him an angry letter saying it was his patronage of Martin's projects that allowed him to live the high life. A few weeks later, Martin sent Apatow a copy of his book "Cruel Shoes" with an apology: "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was speaking to the Judd Apatow."

"I was always last-picked for teams, and it was devastating," Apatow told me one day just before "Knocked Up" started shooting. "I gravitated toward comedians because they were the ones who were pointing out hypocrisy and lying. I needed someone to tell me that it was O.K., because I felt really bad."

In the summer between eighth and ninth grades, Apatow's parents divorced. The schism blew apart the family: his older brother, Robert, was shipped off to his grandparents' house in California, while his younger sister, Mia, lived mainly with his mother. Judd stayed with his dad, a real estate developer, and on the weekends visited his mother, who was working at a Southampton comedy club. While Apatow told me repeatedly how devoted his parents were to his comedy obsession — his father spent his evenings driving him to comedy gigs while his mother made sure he met every comic who came through her club — their divorce clearly wounded him. "My parents were there for me, but I had that kid's feeling that no one is going to protect me — I have to be hypervigilant," he said. "It made me think: What am I going to do with my life? How do I get there? I started thinking: O.K., I'll just start interviewing comedians. I'll start doing stand-up at 17, it will take 10 years to get good and at 27 maybe I will have a career."

At Syosset High School, Apatow was the host of "Club Comedy," a program in which he interviewed comedians for the school's 10-watt radio station. Through his mom's job, he gained access to Shandling, Steven Wright and an up-and-comer named Jerry Seinfeld. After some prodding, Apatow sent me a CD of his Seinfeld interview. While there is some kiddie chuckling, you can hear Apatow, speaking with a slight lisp, gathering up knowledge with his questions.

Apatow started doing stand-up his senior year in high school. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the screenwriting program at U.S.C. Within a few years, he was volunteering for Comic Relief fund-raisers and introducing comedians at the Improv, the legendary Hollywood comedy club. He finally met like-minded kids who could stay up all night talking about Monty Python. "I felt like the bumblebee girl in the Blind Melon video who finally meets other bumblebees," Apatow told me. "I cried every time I saw that."

Apatow fell in with a slightly older group of young comics, including Feig, who rented a dilapidated home in the Valley affectionately called the Ranch. Apatow would come over, play poker and soak up the banter. "We were all 24, 25, and I was so immature I could barely do my stand-up," Feig recalls. "And Judd's 18, and he's booking comedy clubs. I told the other guys: 'Be nice to Judd. He's going to run the town someday.' "

Apatow dropped out of U.S.C. after two years. He moved into an apartment with Adam Sandler, a young comic he met at the Improv. Apatow would arrive home late at night and come across his roommate making crank calls and cracking himself up. "Every moment of the day he was funny," Apatow says. "It was hilarious and depressing. I was hanging out with him and Jim Carrey, and they had such strong comic personalities. They'd tell these really personal revealing stories, and I'd never join in. I told myself: I don't have it. My point of view is not interesting. I cannot be that funny. I am not going be Jerry Seinfeld."

Instead, Apatow became a joke mercenary, writing material for whoever hired him. "I couldn't get inside my own head, but I could get inside someone else's pretty easily," Apatow said. One day, his manager, Jimmy Miller, called Apatow and told him that Garry Shandling needed material for his Grammy-hosting duties. Apatow stayed up all night and wrote a hundred jokes. Shandling didn't use any of them, but he liked Apatow enough to fly him to New York for the ceremonies.

Apatow concentrated on latching onto projects of other talented and, seemingly, more creative comedians. In 1990, at the age of 23, Apatow met Ben Stiller outside an Elvis Costello show, and the two became friends. The next year, Apatow produced "The Ben Stiller Show," a half-hour of eccentric sketch comedy. Between production meetings, Apatow read "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" in hopes of learning how to manage a staff. The Stiller experience was the start of Apatow's reputation as a strident and slightly insane defender of his projects. When a Fox executive offered some notes, Apatow replied: "I'm not changing anything. Now what happens?" What happened next would happen repeatedly over the next decade of Apatow's career: the show was canceled.

The end of "The Ben Stiller Show" allowed Apatow to join the second season of "The Larry Sanders Show," Shandling's wry take on show business. Shandling played Sanders, a late-night talk-show host, a role he was highly qualified to play after filling in for Johnny Carson throughout the '80s. When I met Shandling for dinner in April, he welled with emotion as he talked about Apatow's booming career. "He's taken every situation in his life that has left him internally marked, and now he's using it creatively," Shandling said. "He's not reaching for some kind of easy, hypothetical comedy."

Apatow and Shandling share a comic sensibility, and at one point, they even shared a therapist. At times, it's hard to say where one begins and the other ends. Shandling told me a story about visiting Apatow at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center shortly after Apatow underwent surgery to relieve terrible back pain brought on at least partly by the stress of having "Freak and Geeks" canceled. "Judd was really happy because he was finally without pain," Shandling told me. "And he was high on painkillers. Just as I was going to see him, they brought out the guy in the next room out in a body bag. There's a metaphor in there somewhere." A few days later, Apatow mentioned that in the mid-90s he bought Shandling's old house. "I was getting it painted, and there was an earthquake, and the chimney collapsed," Apatow said. "If I had been living there, I would have been killed. There's a metaphor in there somewhere."

Shandling is a devotee of converting personal experience into comedy. Pacing the chaotic "Sanders" set, he urged his writers and actors to "go to their core." When Apatow or another writer would come to him with a plot problem, Shandling would ask: "What would the character do? What would he say? What would you say? Is that how you'd react?"

The result was great television, but it also proved challenging for Apatow and the other writers. Some of the "Sanders" key players' cores were not happy places.

Late one night during the show's final season, Apatow and Shandling were feverishly rewriting a script for the next day's shoot. "You think there's another season in this?" Shandling asked. Apatow gestured at the detritus of another late-night session: "Do you really want to do this another year? Come up with 10 ideas, farm them out to writers and then spend the summer rewriting?"

Apatow didn't initially warm to the concept of personalizing his own writing. During the "Sanders" era, he wrote scripts for "Celtic Pride" and "Heavy Weights," two films long forgotten. But then in 1996 he produced and rewrote "The Cable Guy." It starred his old friend Jim Carrey as the creepy cable installer who will not go away. "I was single and miserable," Apatow said. "It was not hard to get into the mind of a stalker." The experience had its upside: he met his wife on the set. But the film opened to mixed reviews, and Apatow lost a battle over a screenwriting credit, which devastated him. Shandling gave his protégé Buddhist books, but Apatow wasn't quite embracing a serenity-now attitude in his own life. The next summer, Apatow flew from Vancouver to Boston for a wedding after pulling an all-nighter punching up the script for "Happy Gilmore," a Sandler comedy. During the ceremony, Apatow's heart began racing, and he beat a quick retreat. The following day, Apatow had to fly home to L.A. through O'Hare. He found himself sitting next to a man with one leg. "He was drinking a lot of beer, and I was freaking out, 'How is he going to make it to the bathroom?' " Apatow recalled. "He was fine, but I was losing it. Garry had given me a book called 'The Wisdom of Insecurity,' and I just wrote over and over again in the back: 'This will be over soon. This will be over soon.' " In Chicago, Apatow couldn't get on his connecting flight. He checked into a hotel and got under the covers. A friend had to fly out and coax him the rest of the way home.

Apatow talked to his therapist about the anxiety attacks. The therapist told him that they were a sign of a larger problem: he was neglecting his emotional needs by burying himself in work. While Apatow's 1997 marriage to Mann and the subsequent birth of their first daughter eased his discomfort, it didn't vanish completely. He still found it difficult to set aside his comedy persona and just be a family guy.

During the writing of "Knocked Up," Apatow and Mann spent hours unpacking episodes from the early days of their marriage that might work in the film. While Apatow insists that the screen version is highly fictionalized, many of the moments play all too real. Some were comic — Mann urged Apatow to include how freaked out he was about having sex with her while she was pregnant — others were not.

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in "Knocked Up" occurs when Debbie, played by Mann, finds out that her husband has been lying about his whereabouts — not to have an affair but so he can hang out with his friends. "You think because you don't yell that you're not mean," Debbie says through tears. "This is mean."

You don't have to be Dr. Phil to figure out what Mann was channeling for inspiration. "There were times where Judd was here but not present," Mann told me one evening in March. Mann, a striking blonde, was curled up in a chair in her husband's study. "I told him you have to be really in our lives, not just physically here."

As Mann was talking, the double doors into the room flew open. Apatow and their daughter Maude stumbled in the room Chevy Chase-style.

"Were you listening?" Mann said with mock reproach.

Apatow said no, but Maude giggled. Apatow grabbed a copy of "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" from the shelf and began reading: "When a man is stressed he will withdraw into the cave of his mind." He comically arched his eyebrow and thrust his hands out, palms upturned. "I was just going to my cave."

Mann smiled. "I don't think that was it, honey," she said.

There's a moment in "Knocked Up" when Pete (Rudd) asks Ben (Rogen): "Do you ever wonder how somebody could even like you? . . . The biggest problem in our marriage is that she wants me around. . . . And I can't even accept that? . . . I don't think I can accept pure love." The maudlin is leavened by the fact Pete's high on mushrooms, but Apatow told me that the line was a moment he has wrestled with often.

"Throughout my life I have used work as an emotional crutch," he said. "I used to always feel inadequate in every area except my ability to work hard enough to succeed in comedy. Then you're blessed with wonderful children and an amazing wife, but still you find yourself sitting on the floor playing Care Bears, and you are thinking about a problem with a script or an executive you are fighting with. It's not fair to them."

After "Sanders" went off the air, Apatow signed a development deal with DreamWorks and began sifting through projects. He called his old friend Feig and urged him to pitch a show. About six months later, Feig sent over a script for "Freaks and Geeks," which was based on his high-school experiences in Michigan. Apatow read it and persuaded NBC to buy a pilot.

Feig's show switched on the creative light in Apatow that Shandling had been urging him to explore for years. "Paul would come in and tell the most humiliating stories," Apatow said. "You'd think, It can't get any worse, and then he'd come in the next day with something even worse."

Apatow began sharing his own adolescent tales of woe. After NBC picked up the pilot, Apatow and Feig hired a staff of writers. On the first day of production, Apatow handed them questionnaires asking them about their most painful childhood memories. He filled one out, too. One of the sweetest moments in the show is a scene depicting Bill Haverchuck, the geekiest of the geeks, coming home after school to an empty house. He makes himself a grilled-cheese sandwich, turns on the television and then proceeds to laugh himself silly to Shandling doing stand-up on "The Dinah Shore Show." It's lifted straight from Apatow's own childhood.

Time named "Freaks and Geeks" the second-best show of 1999, behind the first season of "The Sopranos," but NBC executives kept switching the show's time slot while asking Apatow whether the characters could have more victories. The back pain that eventually would land Apatow in the hospital became excruciating, but he kept working 16-hour days. On March 19, 2000, Feig's mother died unexpectedly. Two days later, NBC canceled the show. (Last month, Jake Kasdan, a producer and director on "Freaks and Geeks," released the film "The TV Set," a satire of network television that stars David Duchovny as a persecuted writer with a beard, a potbelly and severe back problems. Apatow served as the executive producer.)

The following year, Apatow created "Undeclared" on the theoretically more teenage-friendly Fox network. Again, a network moved around an Apatow show from week to week and sent it on monthlong hiatuses. If anything, this time Apatow was even more combative with the network brass. The Fox executive who canceled "Undeclared" happened to be the man who pulled the plug on "The Ben Stiller Show" a decade earlier. Apatow was reading a lot of Ayn Rand at the time, and he responded as Howard Roark might have if the architect could communicate using only the seven words you can't say on television, attaching the NC-17 note to a glowing review of the show and sending it to the offending executive. Apatow's agent caught wind of his client's folly and managed to intercept the package before delivery, but the story spread across Hollywood.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but the thing in life most like a divorce is having a show canceled," Apatow said. "I didn't know what to do. I felt like I kept losing my families."

After "Undeclared" was dropped, Apatow went into a funk and took some time off from writing to do stand-up. He also doubled his therapy and put himself through a great-books program. Adam McKay remembers talking with Apatow around that time: "A friend and I were talking about the ending of J. D. Salinger's 'Perfect Day for Bananafish,' and I remember Judd saying that he couldn't talk about books that way. I recommended a few for him to read, like Paul Auster's 'Book of Illusions.' I ran into him a few weeks later, and he'd read it and couldn't stop talking about it."

Around the same time, Jimmy Miller, who managed both Apatow and McKay, urged McKay to bring in Apatow as a producer for "Anchorman." At first, McKay was hesitant. He worked with Apatow in the '90s and hadn't been inspired by their collaboration. "He seemed like this stodgy Hollywood comedy guy," McKay says. "I didn't see him for years. When I met with him again, he seemed to have changed. He had better ideas and seemed more open to collaborating. I remember going home and telling my wife, 'I've just seen a guy find another gear.' "

"Anchorman" was Will Ferrell's film, but Steve Carell, playing Brick Tamland, a slow-witted weatherman, made a big impression on Apatow. On the set, Apatow asked Carell, a veteran of Second City, whether he had any screenplay ideas. Carrell told him about a sketch he used to do about a middle-aged man playing poker with his friends and trying to hide the fact that he was a virgin.

Apatow loved the idea, and the two began writing. They visited lonely-hearts Web sites and talked to therapists about why a man might be a virgin in middle age. "Judd was adamant about not playing this for cheap laughs," Carell says. "He wanted it based in some kind of reality and for Andy to come across as sweet and understandable."

Universal signed on, and Apatow rounded out the cast with Catherine Keener as the love interest and Rogen, Rudd and Romany Malco as Andy's buddies. Initially, the film seemed destined to be another noble Apatow failure. On the third day of shooting, Rogen and Rudd were on a between-take cigarette break when they noticed a grim-faced Apatow heading to a room on the set. When they tried to enter, an assistant blocked the entrance. A half-hour later, Apatow left. "I thought, This can't be good," Rogen says. "Then someone said, 'I think we'll see you all on Monday.' "

Filming was shut down for a day as Apatow met with an executive from Universal, who voiced concern that Carell looked like a serial killer, Rudd looked chunky and, well, the dailies really weren't that funny. "They weren't seeing any big obvious laughs," Carell says. "But it wasn't that kind of movie."

Unlike previous experiences, Apatow didn't lose his temper. Instead, he incorporated the first note into the film by having Andy's friends riff on his resemblance to a serial killer. The movie was quickly back on track with many of the best scenes improvised. I asked Apatow how he had kept his cool. "I finally learned something maybe most people learn as a kid," he said. "If you want someone to come around to your point of view, it's not wise to curse and then tell them they're idiots."

A few weeks after filming on "Knocked Up" wrapped, Apatow settled into an editing bay in his Santa Monica office with his editor, Brent White. Up on the monitor was a shot of Alison driving her two nieces, played by Apatow's daughters, to school. While filming, Maude accidentally hit her sister, Iris, in the face with her doll. Iris screamed to high heaven. "Let that run past the point of the audience being comfortable," Apatow said. "That way when you cut to Ben and his friends smoking pot and hanging out, you get a sense of what he's giving up."

White fast-forwarded scenes until he reached a segment in which Alison is calling Ben to set up a dinner so she can tell him she's pregnant. Ben and his buddies think it's merely a booty call and pantomime sex acts while he's on the phone. "This is all about how many ejaculation jokes we can get in the movie," Apatow joked. "The push and pull of the movie is making Ben and his friends likeable, but not that likeable, because then they're not real 23-year-old guys."

Last October, the film was ready for a test screening, which was held in suburban Sherman Oaks. During a preview, Apatow records the audience and then has their reaction synched to a DVD of the film. "That way, there's no argument of what got laughs," Apatow said. "I know where to give a pause and let the audience's laughter die down and not bury the next line." I mentioned that this seemed counter to his no-note-taking reputation. He shrugged. "It's different now," he said. "When I'm the final filter, it helps a lot. I can discard whatever I want."

Though some had suggested that the birthing scene was too graphic, Apatow left in the three quick shots of the baby crowning. During the screening, he craned his neck and gleefully watched his audience's reaction. Most roared their approval.

In January, a new cut was tested at the same theater. Apatow likes to see another movie before his own screening, and we ducked into the James Bond film "Casino Royale." But for a few hours, the old Apatow re-emerged: his back was giving him problems, and he repeatedly darted out of the theater. That might have been because Shandling was coming to the screening. Afterward, Shandling beamed with excitement and gave Apatow a hug. He stuck around for a post-film focus group and rankled at even the smallest criticism of his buddy's film. A teenage girl mentioned she thought there was a dead spot halfway through the film.

"Dead spot?" Shandling said. "There was no dead spot. Now, my life has had some dead spots."

Shandling left, and Apatow huddled with Rogen, White and Robertson. While overjoyed by Shandling's benediction, Apatow wasn't content. "I don't feel like the friends are rocking it," he said. "I think they come across as too harsh. You don't get a sense they're really in love with each other. I'm trying to make them come across as soft and childlike, and then they're talking about pubic hair in the first scene. I don't feel the audience is laughing enough."

"There's a point where no one is laughing because they're thinking, Man, this is serious,"' Rogen said. "They are about to have a baby. That freaks them out. I know it freaks me out."

"I don't know, I'm just suffering through this, thinking this is not working," Apatow said. "It's half as funny as it should be."

"Maybe you should smoke a bowl with Seth," Robertson joked. "Then it'll be funnier."

Apatow only half-smiled. "I wanted this movie not to reach for the jokes as much as 'Virgin' did, but it bugs me when people don't laugh," he told me later. "The thing about comedy is that there's something really great about making a room of people laugh. But there's also something really sick about needing to make strangers laugh."

While Apatow's attempt to be more present in the lives of Leslie and his kids was obviously heartfelt, his schedule during the making of "Knocked Up" suggested he was having a hard time letting go of finding fulfillment through being funny. From the time of our first meeting, Apatow had eight more films in development. Late at night, after Leslie and the children went to bed, Apatow wrote a new script for Steve Carell and wrote "Walk Hard," a biopic spoof starring John C. Reilly, with Jake Kasdan.

By the end of last month, when the final edit was done, I had seen five or six versions of "Knocked Up." While the arc of the film remained the same, seemingly every line had been traded in and out as Apatow searched for the right balance of comedy and angst. "That's from my screwed-up childhood," Apatow said. "I just kept filming, covering myself and preparing for the worst-case scenario."

In the end, Apatow chose to make Rogen and the boys less raw and more redeemable. "The movie has a happy ending, but you leave thinking they could break up in three days," Apatow told me.

I mentioned that I had long thought that casting his own kids was a huge mistake, but they had proved to be hilarious. "It works because I love my kids and I'm trying to show them that the conflicts you have in relationships are worth it because of them," Apatow said. He looked exhausted, dark circles ringing his eyes. "The film really has been all about trying to send a valentine to my family," he said.

The next day, he and Leslie were off to the Hualalai Four Seasons, in Hawaii, with the kids. It is where they were married 10 years ago. As soon as he returned, the other films beckoned. "So many good things have happened to me because of how unhealthy I've been mentally," Apatow told me. His eyes filled with tears as he looked around an office featuring many photos of his two daughters but also framed etchings of his "Freaks and Geeks" kids. "It's unfair to them that this thing I do that is a result of me being in pain is now going so well it's trying to pull me away from them."

A few minutes later, Apatow turned off his ever-present BlackBerry. He said goodbye and headed toward his car. It was time to go home.

Judd and Seth at play: A home movie — made for The New York Times Magazine — of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan, plus audio of Apatow, at 15, interviewing Jerry Seinfeld. nytimes.com/magazine

with really long articles like that what i usually do is read the last couple of paragraphs, then read a few more above that, and so on until i've read half the damn thing. this way i can see it goes somewhere interesting. there's a lot of good stuff there about the creative process of someone with backpain.


man i miss freaks and geeks.

Quote from: RedVines on May 24, 2007, 12:12:23 AM

Quote from: modage on May 23, 2007, 10:59:05 PM
you're crazy.  this was a million times better than 40YOV and its the best movie of 07 (so far).

How so? Explain yourself.

alright, i'll try.  i saw this film back in April and as i said it's the best movie i've seen all year.  essentially its the exact opposite of what you said...

Quote from: RedVines on May 23, 2007, 09:43:27 PM
I saw an early screening tonight and was underwhelmed. The "dirty mind with a heart of gold" concept is very difficult to pull off but Judd Apatow did a better job with it in "40 Year Old Virgin". With "Knocked Up", the lead character isn't as likeable or amusing as the Steve Carrell character. He's more annoying and irresponsible. Of course they try to make up for that in the last 10 minutes but at that point it's a little late. The sentimentality was better earned in "40", while it seems a little too forced here.

Some funny scenes here, but not much substance.

40 Year Old Virgin, while very funny, was disappointing for me because it was exaggerated to the point that there becomes a disconnect between really sympathizing with the characters.  after Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared i had expected his comedy to come from a more (painful) true place.  the biggest problem with the film is that the dirty humor seem at odds with the more sweet character moments.  they never quite meshed as naturally as i felt they should have.   

Knocked Up is a different story altogether.  as RK mentions, while very similar to 40YOV in tone, the elements just work together better here and i'm not surprised.  40YOV was Apatows first film as director and with a co-writer in Steve Carell and Rogen pushing to make the film dirtier his voice was diluted.  here, it comes out full force with Rogens influence perfectly meshed with the characters.  most of the actors are playing versions of themselves and that allows you to invest in them.  even the dirtier humor seems to be coming from a more character based place.  it was great to see all the kids from Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared in supporting roles because this film feels much more in line with those shows.  i bought the relationship, i cared, and it never felt out of place.  plus, its just the damn funniest movie of the year.  i can't wait to see it again.

Quote from: modage on May 27, 2007, 01:09:56 PM

Quote from: RedVines on May 24, 2007, 12:12:23 AM

Quote from: modage on May 23, 2007, 10:59:05 PM
you're crazy.  this was a million times better than 40YOV and its the best movie of 07 (so far).

How so? Explain yourself.

alright, i'll try.  i saw this film back in April and as i said it's the best movie i've seen all year.  essentially its the exact opposite of what you said...

Quote from: RedVines on May 23, 2007, 09:43:27 PM
I saw an early screening tonight and was underwhelmed. The "dirty mind with a heart of gold" concept is very difficult to pull off but Judd Apatow did a better job with it in "40 Year Old Virgin". With "Knocked Up", the lead character isn't as likeable or amusing as the Steve Carrell character. He's more annoying and irresponsible. Of course they try to make up for that in the last 10 minutes but at that point it's a little late. The sentimentality was better earned in "40", while it seems a little too forced here.

Some funny scenes here, but not much substance.

40 Year Old Virgin, while very funny, was disappointing for me because it was exaggerated to the point that there becomes a disconnect between really sympathizing with the characters.  after Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared i had expected his comedy to come from a more (painful) true place.  the biggest problem with the film is that the dirty humor seem at odds with the more sweet character moments.  they never quite meshed as naturally as i felt they should have.   

Knocked Up is a different story altogether.  as RK mentions, while very similar to 40YOV in tone, the elements just work together better here and i'm not surprised.  40YOV was Apatows first film as director and with a co-writer in Steve Carell and Rogen pushing to make the film dirtier his voice was diluted.  here, it comes out full force with Rogens influence perfectly meshed with the characters.  most of the actors are playing versions of themselves and that allows you to invest in them.  even the dirtier humor seems to be coming from a more character based place.  it was great to see all the kids from Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared in supporting roles because this film feels much more in line with those shows.  i bought the relationship, i cared, and it never felt out of place.  plus, its just the damn funniest movie of the year.  i can't wait to see it again.

I agree with you about "40 Year Old Virgin" but I felt that movie had enough heart thanks to Steve Carell's performance. But even some of those sentimental moments felt forced. I don't think "Knocked Up" is much different.

The difference between these movies are the lead characters. Carell was sympathetic and charming whereas Rogen is essentially playing the same type of character he played in "40". He's crude, mysoginistic, childish and (yes) funny, but not entirely likeable. Where the movie tries to have a heart is by changing him into a responsible and mature person. It came off as a little forced and all too predictable as if the filmmakers were panicing at the last second for the movie to be sentimental, instead of entirely silly.

Granted, I laughed a lot and I suppose the film should be watched on that level. But I wouldn't say it's a huge improvement over "40".

again, i agree with the exact opposite of what you said. 

Quote from: RedVines on May 27, 2007, 07:15:13 PM
I agree with you about "40 Year Old Virgin" but I felt that movie had enough heart thanks to Steve Carell's performance. But even some of those sentimental moments felt forced. I don't think "Knocked Up" is much different. The difference between these movies are the lead characters.

Steve Carell is playing "a character".  (execs worried that in dailies he came off like a serial killer!)  so it's not exactly someone that most people can relate to. that is the high concept that the film asks you to buy into. 

Quote from: RedVines on May 27, 2007, 07:15:13 PM
Carell was sympathetic and charming whereas Rogen is essentially playing the same type of character he played in "40". He's crude, mysoginistic, childish and (yes) funny, but not entirely likeable.

while Rogen is not entirely likable in his actions he's a hell of a lot more sympathetic than Carell.  you can sympathize with him because you can identify with him.  the high concept of this film is that a driven attractive chick would end up sleeping with a regular dude like him. 

Quote from: RedVines on May 27, 2007, 07:15:13 PMWhere the movie tries to have a heart is by changing him into a responsible and mature person. It came off as a little forced and all too predictable as if the filmmakers were panicing at the last second for the movie to be sentimental, instead of entirely silly.

Granted, I laughed a lot and I suppose the film should be watched on that level. But I wouldn't say it's a huge improvement over "40".

again, the finale of 40 feels much more slapped together as if they needed to end the film but had no idea how.  granted the musical sequence is brilliant, the events leading up to it feel more like they had run out of time.  the thing that makes Knocked Up work better than Virgin more than anything else is that in Virgin, the funniest bits are with Steve Carell and his buddies and his dating mishaps.  everything with Catherine Keener is the more grounded stuff but its not as funny.  so what happens is you end up with a movie thats 2 hours and 15 minutes where the Keener love story is less than 30 minutes.  its more satisfying that he's gotten laid than you really wanted THESE TWO to end up together.  Knocked Up spends the entire film on this relationship and relegates the friend roles to the periphery (where they need to be).  this makes Rogen's change of heart gradual, and it feels earned.  its a HUGE improvement over 40.

I feel that relating has little to do with it. Is "Knocked Up" more plausible than a "40 Year Old Virgin" who plays with toys? Of course. But these are very stylized, silly comedies and I wouldn't call them realistic as such. I'm sure that many, if not most, guys will be able to relate to the Seth Rogen character but I don't think that automatically makes him likeable. With the character of Steve Carell, we had a shy, polite but often amusing guy that we could root for. The Rogen character is also amusing but behaving in quite the opposite manner, thus making it harder for us to care about him. I really felt more sympathy for his pregnant girlfriend than anyone else in the film.

I agree with you about the structure of "40" vs. this film. In a way, the story itself is a step up from "40". And had the characters, particularly the lead, been more appealing, I would've said it was very successful. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

i will disagree to agree. :elitist:

Hilarious 'Knocked Up' Promo: Judd Apatow Pulls a David O. Russell
Source: Cinematical

You have to give the folks from Knocked Up credit for this one; it's truly one of the funniest (and smartest) pieces of viral marketing I have ever seen. You might remember back in March when a certain video featuring director David O. Russell going ballistic on Lily Tomlin while trying to direct a scene in I Heart Huckabees surfaced online. In said video (which was actually two different scenes), Russell could be seen screaming at Tomlin while trashing the set. In the other clip, it appears the roles are reversed -- this time Tomlin loses her cool and goes off on Russell while the cast is attempting to shoot a car scene. If you haven't yet had a chance to watch it, go do so now (if you can find it; seems it has since been removed from YouTube) -- it will make this video that much funnier.

If you've watched any of the trailers for Knocked Up, you'll know that one of them features Seth Rogan and Katherine Heigl sitting down for dinner at a restaurant. Apparently, this is their second date and she decides to tell him that she's pregnant with his child. Well, this new video would like you to believe that, originally, Arrested Development's Michael Cera was tapped to play the Rogan character, but was fired after losing his cool with director Judd Apatow. So, what we see is Cera trying to get through his lines only to be interrupted by Apatow time and time again ("Can you give us a little more energy"). Eventually, both Cera and Apatow lose it; the former tries to rope Heigl into the madness (who just sits there, trying to keep out of it), while the latter screams at Cera, tells him to direct the scene and storms off set cursing and knocking over water glasses. Of course they want you to think this really happened, but it's obviously a piece of viral marketing for the film -- and an extremely smart piece if I may say so myself (because not only does it promote Knocked Up, but Cera stars in the Apatow-produced Superbad later this summer, so it helps circulate his name as well).

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23ll0_michael-cera-gets-fired-from-knocke

that's really great stuff.

Michael Cera's the real deal.

paul rudd did a funnier parody, but that was pretty hilarious, especially the bit about the boom mic not picking up  what heigl was saying.

Quote from: ddiggler6280 on May 29, 2007, 04:18:14 PM
especially the bit about the boom mic not picking up  what heigl was saying.

totally agree. michael cera might yet be one of the few good things to come out of the AD poop-shoot.

prove me wrong, alia shawkat sex tape!

Quote from: shnorff on May 29, 2007, 01:25:42 AM
that's really great stuff.

Michael Cera's the real deal.

Further evidence at www.clarkandmichael.com

The kid's got it. And, you know, either you've got it or you don't got it... or something to that effect.

haha, fuck this noise.  i love all these guys. 

Onion AV Club interview with Seth Rogen (http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/seth_rogen)

'Knocked Up' cast was quick on the uptake
An easy camaraderie helped the actors feel comfortable riffing in improv-heavy scenes.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Even comedy has its regular working hours, so July 26, 2006, was a typical day digging ditches on a Judd Apatow production. It was the 51st shooting day out of 56 on "Knocked Up," the follow-up to Apatow's surprise, $109-million-grossing hit, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

The cast and crew were camped at a one-story house in Northridge that had been dressed as a bachelor/stoner/slacker playground: A lifeguard chair overlooked a ping-pong table in the driveway, the kitchen swelled with empty beer bottles, a "Fraggle Rock" poster shared wall space with porn star Sunrise Adams' one-sheet in the living room, year-round red jalapeño Christmas lights were draped from the ceiling and two yellow chairs sat in a backyard pool half-filled with water the color of lichen. (It was actually iced tea.)

Like "Virgin," "Knocked Up" is a sweetly profane romantic comedy built around a simple story line with a twist. A stoner layabout (Seth Rogen) and a career-minded beauty out celebrating her promotion to E! Entertainment anchor (Katherine Heigl) meet at a bar and have a one-night stand. Two months later, she discovers she's pregnant, and the mismatched parents-to-be spend the next seven months dating to find out whether they even like each other.

But in Apatow's creative alchemy, the distinctive crude-cute (crute?) tenor springs from the finesse of the story's execution by the surrounding players — Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as a handy example of a realistic married-with-kids train wreck, and Apatow regulars Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel and Martin Starr as Rogen's misguided Greek chorus (think college frat, not Aristophanes).

The scene they were shooting that day details the shattering moment when the guys learn that their big, long-developing business scheme, a pay website called "Flesh of the Stars" (you get the idea), already exists in the form of one "Mr. Skin." The five friends stand around a computer desk alternately appalled, enraged, jealous, accusatory and blasé. Apatow and Rogen hastily rewrote the scene that morning over breakfast when they realized that a sequence they had already filmed would have made the original version redundant.

In the disheveled living room, the walls were covered with primitive mock-ups from their website design, featuring naked breasts and vulgar slogans. Scrawled on a chalkboard across from the desk was: "TO SUCCEED WE MUST SMOKE WEED!!" Enormous Port-A-Cool 2000 fans blew cool air through the house using two-foot-wide bendy yellow tubes. (All day, the crew got updates on a brush fire threatening nearby Benedict Canyon.)

Apatow, with a scant beard, prowled the set in a pink-and-orange-striped rugby shirt, khaki shorts and sneakers. The on-set "Knocked Up" icon — a martini glass with a pacifier looped around the stem — adorned director's chairs, shirts and paperwork. The cast, including the stocky Rogen in camo shorts and green Army T-shirt, burned through a straight version of the scene.

And then the fun started — the rat-a-tat-tat improvisational back and forth between director and actors, which Apatow shot with multiple cameras precisely so the actors would know they're allowed to overlap and change things here and there without causing continuity problems.

After Segel ran through some lines, Apatow, seated around the corner at a bank of monitors, said: "Jason, do it with real concern. Maybe that's a little too flowery. Just reword it so it feels a little more real."

As they worked through the scene, Apatow's young, pop-culture-saturated troupe started throwing out an endless stream of references to film, TV and sports celebrities, with Hill displaying a savant-like ability to devise increasingly funny and clever slams of living famous people one after another.

They would burn through an entire 1,000-foot film roll just messing with the contours of the dialogue, much of which would never make the final cut. In between changing the rolls, Apatow wandered onto the set and brainstormed new comic options with the actors until Rogen genuinely giggled and said, "That's funny."

Finally, with the crew cracking up, Apatow chimed in: "You guys could literally end your ability to work with anyone in this industry in this one scene."

As the 39-year-old writer-director ran the set in nearly triple-digit heat, it was obvious that he was willing to push his actors for hours, through roll after roll of film, until they said something very, very funny. "I don't care how many jokes I have to get the actors to tell to get to the two that audiences remember for the rest of their lives," said Apatow, pulling a stick of gum from a large baggie dangling off the back of the monitors.

They kept reworking it, changing details and lines, adding and deleting, tweaking the group dynamic, varying the tone. It was a straight hour of improv.

"When it's a billion degrees it's not that easy," Rogen joked later. "For me, [improv's] the easiest way to do it, because I have a hard time when I'm just told to do one thing over and over and over again. It's my favorite way of working. You never know what he's gonna tell you to do, and you know that you can try doing anything."

Apatow pointed out that the "You know how I know you're gay?" exchange between Rogen and Rudd in "Virgin" — which became one of the movie's signature, oft-repeated bits of dialogue — was actually a random improvisation on set. The filmmakers had no idea anyone would think it was that funny.

"It's tricky with a lot of guys being funny together," Apatow said. "It's very hard to capture the energy of men joking around with each other if it's completely scripted. You just feel its stiffness. It's very hard to fake laughter, the way you laugh when a friend says something crazy."

Of course, it makes it easier when all of your actors are actually friends. In a variety of combinations, Baruchel, Segel, Rogen, Hill and Starr have worked together on "Virgin" and Apatow's canceled underdog TV shows, "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared." In fact, Rogen has lived with both Starr and Baruchel, which is why the rapport on set and on screen feels so real.

"It feels like we're just hanging out a lot of the time," Rogen said.

"A few years ago I realized that no matter how unique you try to be, these are all the same stories," Apatow said. "The only thing that anyone brings to it is their specific texture and the small details of their personal experience. And that has made a big impact on my work and my writing. It's all in those very small shadings."

Any movie with an opening credit sequence set to Ol' Dirty Bastard is going to be a good time. 

I don't think it was a funnier movie than 40YOV but it's easily as funny and definitely a better film.  It's smarter, sharper, much more realistic.  Seth Rogen didn't let me down and Katherine Heigl sold her character in a way that I can't imagine Anne Hathaway being able to.  The one area where I thought it was lacking (in particular over 40YOV) was with the roommates.  The co-workers in 40YOV were so much more diverse that you're laughing at the clashing of different styles of comedy; here, they're all funny in the same stoner way, as well as they do it.  But other than that (and the utter uselessness of Kristin Wiig from SNL), solid. 

It's really hard not to like this movie. It's deffinitely funnier than 40YOV...

SPOILERS:

the cool: the freaks and geeks reunion, the eternal sunshine poster, jonah hill, the munich chat, harold ramis, bright eyes, seeing bush in credits, ryan seacrest, vaj shots (don't pretend like you didn't think they were hot).

the uncool: length (although totally enjoyable from start to finish some scenes just needed to be cut), lack of anything cinematic and (for lack of better words) shots which aren't nice- looking but more lazy and uninteresting.

All in all, Judd Apatow/Seth Rogan deffinitely earn their marks as comedy mothafuckin genius's. I'm excited for Superbad.

Saw this last night and I can't even describe how much I love this movie. The cameo by a cast member of the show 'the office', as well as Loudin Wainright the III, harold ramis were great and of course watching the rest of the heavy hitters from Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared were awesome to see.
I really can't wait till I see superbad.

so, i bought tickets to this movie on fandango last night. after buying them for the wrong theater, i've decided never to buy tickets online again. i'm not smart enough for it.

Quote from: bonanzataz on June 02, 2007, 01:23:39 PM
so, i bought tickets to this movie on fandango last night. after buying them for the wrong theater, i've decided never to buy tickets online again. i'm not smart enough for it.

you really made me laugh with that one.

i just got tickets on fandango for tonight. its raining and it looks like the line to buy tickets will be long, so its better.

'so easy a caveman could do it'.

This was a terrific film.  Funny, insightful, with an underlying sweetness that makes us care for the characters.  Some people may complain about the length, but that just gives the characters more room to develop.  Seth Rogen's stoner friends were funny, but I, like sparrowhoff said, they were basically funny in the same way.  Minor quibbles aside, this is a really smart and well-written film.

SPOILER







The end montage of Seth Rogen getting his act together felt rushed, as if Apatow was quickly tying up some loose ends.

Quote from: Ravi on June 03, 2007, 03:20:57 PM

SPOILER







The end montage of Seth Rogen getting his act together felt rushed, as if Apatow was quickly tying up some loose ends.

The only complaint I had with the movie is that there was quite a bit of character development that felt rushed, which is weird for a two-hour-plus comedy.  Notably the courtship phase, when we get a little glimmer of them hanging out together, then all of a sudden they say they love each other.  But it was a minor quibble in what's just a really sweet, funny, well-done movie.

I loved how Paul Rudd's character was basically this big love letter to how much Apatow and the gang like Paul Rudd.  A good drinking game would be to take a shot every time Seth Rogen mentions how awesome he thinks Paul Rudd is in the movie.

And I will fight hacksparrow about Kristin Wiig.  Sure, it was a one-joke character, but it's a joke she's really fucking good at.

Also, Judd Apatow's daughters are budding comic geniuses.  There's a lot of funny coded into those chromosomes.

Quote from: Ravi on June 03, 2007, 03:20:57 PM
And I will fight hacksparrow about Kristin Wiig.  Sure, it was a one-joke character, but it's a joke she's really fucking good at.

I saw this a month or so ago. Remind me again who this character is and where she showed up?

she was the woman at E! who was a bitch about everything

oh yeah! fuck sparrow that shit was hilarious

yeah, i saw this for the 2nd time today and if you dont like this...

i will fight you.

forgive the movie review cliche, but this is an instant classic. i want to kiss judd apatow on the mouth, like hard.

such a sweet, hysterical, and wonderfully crude movie. and by crude i don't mean in the trey parker/matt stone or farrelly brothers way. crude in the ... well apatow way. the jokes come and go so fast that it definitely warrants multiple theater viewings. it's truly inspiring watching apatow bring so much freshness to what is a simple and overdone premise. the movie has so much to say about sex, family, and marriage but does not feel heavy-handed or preachy in the least.

my favorite of the year (so far).

Two extended clips:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=154KVUTpe7A
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j6xjV16MBGw

Quote from: polkablues on June 03, 2007, 04:24:41 PM
And I will fight hacksparrow about Kristin Wiig.

Quote from: squints on June 03, 2007, 05:58:30 PM
oh yeah! fuck sparrow that shit was hilarious

The bit was funny (though when you put it up against just about anything else in the movie, it doesn't compete) but she just annoys me.  I'm not going to say I didn't laugh but it's safe to say that I feel the same way about her that Seth Rogen's character feels about Matthew Fox.

wow, i'm so impressed.  it definitely requires a few more viewings, but this might be one of my favorite comedies.  not necessarily the funniest, but it hits on all cylinders.  what seems unique about knocked up is that most of the funny things come from the characters saying witty (or just ridiculous) things.  the humor is not situational at all, and i can't really think of any other movie like it in that respect. 

i would do a list of my favorite parts, but i can't really think of anything right now.  i loved the beard gag, it was a huge improvement on the "know how i know you're gay" bit.  personal favorite:  martin scorsese on coke (or something like that). 

Quote from: shnorff on June 02, 2007, 02:13:10 AM
the uncool: length (although totally enjoyable from start to finish some scenes just needed to be cut), lack of anything cinematic and (for lack of better words) shots which aren't nice- looking but more lazy and uninteresting.

Quote from: modage on June 03, 2007, 06:40:34 PM
i will fight you.

Those extended scenes are fucking hilarious.

And JG, where do yo want to throw down?

I'm so happy i took RK's advice and didn't watch a trailer or anything for this cause i hate it when a comedy trailer ruins all the best jokes.
with that in mind....
Mild spoils:

Quote from: JG on June 03, 2007, 10:39:17 PM
what seems unique about knocked up is that most of the funny things come from the characters saying witty (or just ridiculous) things.  the humor is not situational at all, and i can't really think of any other movie like it in that respect. 

My favorite joke in the movie is Seth Rogen actually repeating a joke someone told earlier. Some guy at the fantasy draft party says "Don't let the door hit your pussy on the way out" and its even funnier when Seth says "Did you hear that guy say 'Don't let the door hit your pussy on the way out?'. That's was great!" or something...

Quote from: shnorff on June 03, 2007, 10:52:13 PM
And JG, where do yo want to throw down?

meet me behind the small screen. 

Quote from: squints on June 03, 2007, 05:17:35 PM

Quote from: Ravi on June 03, 2007, 03:20:57 PM
And I will fight hacksparrow about Kristin Wiig.  Sure, it was a one-joke character, but it's a joke she's really fucking good at.

I saw this a month or so ago. Remind me again who this character is and where she showed up?

Hey, I didn't say that, Polkablues did.

Yeah, I did.

GREAT MOVIE!

QuoteMy favorite joke in the movie is Seth Rogen actually repeating a joke someone told earlier. Some guy at the fantasy draft party says "Don't let the door hit your pussy on the way out" and its even funnier when Seth says "Did you hear that guy say 'Don't let the door hit your pussy on the way out?'. That's was great!" or something...

That guy was Paul Feig, the creator of Freaks and Geeks. He's also in Heavy Weights for anyone who's keeping count...

I thought he said "vagina".

he said sniz

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/06/04/eckler-sues.html?ref=rss#skip300x250

...She will not win.

definitely the best movie of the year so far. i wasnt bored for one second.

i loved all the office cameos, and seacrest, and all the movie talk... i have to see it again but it was really really good.

i think it was way better than 40 Year old Virgin. I think that one is a very funny concept itself to start and more far fetched (maybe not for some of you guys). But this one is something so normal that can happen to anyone anytime and yet it was incredibly original and funny.

Quote from: shnorff on June 04, 2007, 06:51:54 PM
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/06/04/eckler-sues.html?ref=rss#skip300x250

...She will not win.

fuck no she won't. what an idiot. shes concerned that the stories are so similar.. right down to the jewish father! right, did she bother to research EVERYONE involved with the production? and in terms of both women being reporters.. yea, a link between jews and running the media.. its a rarity, i know.

the reviews on here are spot on; this is one of the best movies of the year, definitely the funniest. as mod and others are saying- way better than 40YOV. the laughs are more organic, honest and just greater overall. i'll end up seeing this again.. with GRINDHOUSE.

i love leslie mann.
i also like The 40 Year Old Virgin more than Knocked Up, maybe because the latter has to do with someone who has sex and friends, both of which are lacking in my (sister's friend's) life.

funny as it was, it felt more like a collection of skits this unofficial troupe whose only common ground is the road to middle agedness (whatever that means).  all the comedy has apatow's stamp on it but it also seems as though he attempted to appeal to every palette imaginable, in the spirit of "there's something in it for everyone!"  it's completely and utterly about the jokes, and i feel like the humor is its own entity and that the warmer, sweeter stuff is filler.  everything's good but there's little harmony among its well-executed elements to speak of.

"I'm only allowed to let in 5% black people. That mean if there 25 people here I get to let in 1 and a quarter black people. So I gotta hope theres a black midget in the crowd"

joke spoiler:


"You look klike a cholo on easter."
:bravo:

I couldn't believe that Scorsese on coke was Bill from Freaks & Geeks.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.laze.net%2Fimages%2Frains%2Fhaverchuck.jpg&hash=221c322ce4e53dfa4fbcdb4156372b991728915e)

And what was the deal with all the Spiderman 3 schilling? It wasn't funny if that was the joke.

James Franco's turn:

http://www.funnyordie.com/v1/view_video.php?viewkey=70b05f172deeb05efef8

Do you think these were filmed during production or close to the release of the movie?

Quote from: shnorff on June 11, 2007, 12:40:37 PM
Do you think these were filmed during production or close to the release of the movie?

there's no way they'd go back to shoot viral stuff.

i like the franco much more than the cera.

me too. cera was too annoying. franco is just straight-up DOUCHE to the max. good stuff.

wow. cera had like one good bit. franco takes it to the next level. cera who? i shoulda known better than to think AD could produce anything great. (again, prove me wrong shawkat sex tape)

kristen: "(it's) everyone's shit"

brilliant.

I can't even imagine Heigl and Cera getting together and sexing it out. She's too much woman for him. His body would resemble New Orleans after the levees broke when she got finished with him. We'd have to call the red cross.

Um, yeah.  In real life she's nailing this dude:

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd179%2Fpolkablues%2F726145_356x237.jpg&hash=3f0c998dd2e598d6769204df84dcd636e2a3553f)

Girls are stupid.

He probably gives her emotional support.

That dude looks like he grabbed the leaf in Mario 3.

This is pretty jokes:

Knocked Up Thoughtfull Abortion Debate

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ea63b6f9a0

Ryan and Adam get fired from Knocked Up:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/00eb395a27

Funniest thing was the Spidey III poster in the background, otherwise....

AWFUL.

Knocked-Up will be available in no less than four DVD versions - R-rated widescreen, Unrated (and Unprotected) widescreen and Full Frame (SRP $29.98 each) and a 2-disc special edition in Unrated (and Unprotected) widescreen (SRP $30.98), as well as an DVD/HD-DVD Combo version of the Unrated edition (SRP $39.98). Extras will include audio commentary with writer/director Judd Apatow, executive producer/star Seth Rogen and actor Bill Hader, deleted scenes, extended and alternate scenes, a gag reel, 4 featurettes (Line-O-Rama, Roller Coaster Doc, Directing the Director and Topless Scene: Wed Design Company), and Loudon Wainwright III's Live at McCabe's: You Can't Fail Me Now music video. The HD version will add Picture in Picture video during the film.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedigitalbits.com%2Farticles%2Fmiscgfx%2Fcovers3%2Fknockedupunrateddvd.jpg&hash=505df6136c4ad1905f9711dabec5a677177b9933)

frontrunner for best animated menus (comedy or musical) at the xixaxies.

If anyone buys this, buy the R-rated theatrical release. Chances are that the Unrated version will be around forever and the theatrical release will fade away. I hate that I bought 40 Year Old Virgin unrated edition only to like the theatrical version much more and now I can't find that edition anywhere. It's stupid.

BUT the theatrical release doesn't come in a 2 disc version.  its an impossible decision.  it's Sophies Choice.

GT, Universal released a R-rated widescreen version of 40YOV (http://www.amazon.com/40-Year-Old-Virgin-Rated-Widescreen/dp/B000E6V07M/ref=sr_1_6/104-6501196-0032718?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1190644933&sr=1-6).

The theatrical versions of both films could have used some pruning, but I'll be buying the 2-disc version anyways.

Quote from: Ravi on September 24, 2007, 09:45:39 AM
GT, Universal released a R-rated widescreen version of 40YOV (http://www.amazon.com/40-Year-Old-Virgin-Rated-Widescreen/dp/B000E6V07M/ref=sr_1_6/104-6501196-0032718?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1190644933&sr=1-6).

Thanks for that. I knew it was once available, but I thought it went OOP. I've looked at stores everywhere and even Ebay. It's a do'h moment to not have checked Amazon.

Oh man, the 2 disc edition is fucking awesome. The bonus features are so watchable and entertaining and hilarious.
Dr. Kuni gone wild is ALMOST funnier than the movie.

but....
I can't stand how certain scenes are altered from the theatrical release...I remember a bit about total recall that was replaced by the shining in this...Harold Ramis's scene, for some reason, is shortened...this stuff pisses me off.

just picked up the unrated extended version. for some reason there's a "knocked up" deck of cards in it(i guess condoms would be inappropriate?). Either way, I picked it up for the extras, and the "finding ben stone" segment is hilarious.  Michael Cera's and James Franco's firing segments are in it, as well as David Krumholtz(funniest one imo), Justin Long, Gerry Bednob, Orlando Bloom and Judd Apatow. 

I do like the theatrical cut better, but for my money i'd rather have all the bonus features.

How is the unrated and theatrical versions differ?

It's not as noticeably different as the 40YOV extended cut.  GT, I think it's safe for you to get this one. 

The movie is already over 2 hours long; the extra five minutes is so spread out (just an extra line or two in some scenes that you don't even notice it.  If this is a director's cut, then Apatow got almost everything he wanted in the theatrical cut.  If it's an extended cut, then good for him for keeping it as close to his own preferred cut as possible.

Katherine Heigl Calls Hit Comedy Knocked Up "Sexist"
Source: US Magazine

Katherine Heigl is knocking her summer hit Knocked Up for being "a little sexist.

"It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as goofy, fun-loving guys," the actress — who just turned 29 — tells January's Vanity Fair.

"Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie," she says, even though the comedy elevated her asking price from $300,000 to $6 million for her next flick.

^what a brilliant little article, perfectly written scoop. it's really quite impressive.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
Katherine Heigl Calls Hit Comedy Knocked Up "Sexist"

ok i hate her. bring on the proof.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
Source: US Magazine
Katherine Heigl is knocking her summer hit Knocked Up for being "a little sexist.

ah, you're a funny guy US Magazine, you've softened the blow with a quasi-pun and amended her statement with a half quote. i hate her less.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
"It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as goofy, fun-loving guys," the actress — who just turned 29 — tells January's Vanity Fair.

wow, 29? she feels so much older, she's too young to be labelling everything as feminist, especially wrongly. sounds like just another dumb actress to me.. unfortunate consequence of acting/modelling from a young age. 

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
"Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie," she says,

i don't think the movie did it, but she certainly is making herself look like a "humorless, uptight shrew" right here.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM
even though the comedy elevated her asking price from $300,000 to $6 million for her next flick.

zing! conclusion: if a 98% amazing experience was not enough to love the movie, surely a 1000% pay raise would make you shut up about it.

down with heigl!

haha,

yeah fuck her!  i knew she was going to be a douche.  she has those same kind-of fucked up teeth like dunst :yabbse-angry:

this sounds like one of those made-up imdb bullshit stories.  but if its true, she sucks.  i just rewatched this last night and it still rules.

Quote from: MacGuffin on December 03, 2007, 04:25:40 PM

"It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as goofy, fun-loving guys,"

"...it's amazing you know? it's like..... real life and shit!"

Katherine Heigl Clarifies Knocked Up Remarks

After knocking the movie Knocked Up, in which she starred, as being "a little bit sexist" in a recent interview, Katherine Heigl has clarified to PEOPLE that it was the "best filming experience of my career."

"It's important to me to take a minute and clarify the quote about Knocked Up in Vanity Fair," Heigl, 29, says in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE. "I was responding to previous reviews about the movie the interviewer brought to my attention. My motive was to encourage other women like myself to not take that element of the movie too seriously and to remember that it's a broad comedy.

"Although I stand behind my opinion, I'm disheartened that it has become the focus of my experience with the movie. The truth is, it was the best filming experience of my career. Every person that was a part of making Knocked Up helped to encourage, support and inspire me. I never intended for anyone to think otherwise."

In her earlier remarks, the Grey's Anatomy star said the film "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It was hard for me to love the movie."

Quote from: Katherine Heigl
"Although I stand behind my opinion,"

to clarify the clarification:

she did mean it, she was just too dumb to realise how it would reflect on her.