Sex Comedy Roundup

[snurri]

Knocked Up: meandering, plotless, and not all that funny. Except when Paul Rudd is onscreen.

Superbad: sweet, vulgar, and not all that funny. Pretty great nonetheless, though. The film equivalent of Doing It, with fuckup cops thrown in. Michael Cera is slowly becoming a hugely important actor, at least for me.

Both films are worth seeing if only to see Martin Starr aka Bill Haverchuck all grows up in a stoner beard and all. Give that man a starring role!!

Now if we could just get a sex comedy in which the women get to play equal parts.

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

Michael Cera was the only part of Superbad that I really liked. I enjoy studying what these films say about society and hope, someday, to teach a big lecture course about them, but comedies are tough for me. Most of them make me want to retch.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

That would be a hell of a lecture course!

I thought Jonah Hill and Christopher Mintz-Plasse were both good in their roles. I think what didn't work for me, really, was Seth Rogen, which might have been part of my problem with Knocked Up as well. I enjoyed him in Freaks and Geeks, but he wasn't expected to carry as much weight on that show. I liked Bill Hader more than I expected to, and if he'd had someone else to bounce off of the cop stuff might have worked for me a little better.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno. It was good enough for a date movie for me & my spouse.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Knocked Up, you mean? It had its moments. It just didn't have a story.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorry, that's the one I meant. I find comedies difficult also. Especially in the theater. But there were a few things in this that really resonated with me, like the woman's sister worrying about being too old for the club.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I think that points to part of what was frustrating about it--for a film that was about a pregnancy, it ended up being much more about the guy and how it all changed him. We saw Katherine Heigl go through the pregnancy and be miserable and all that, but there was a lot we didn't see: her decision about whether to keep the child or not, how the decision to go ahead changed her perspectives about her work, the thought process or the emotional move towards a guy who really didn't seem like a romantic match. Whereas we get him moving out and getting a job and becoming Dad-man. I mean, obviously it's a comedy (and not a romantic one), so they're not going to spend tons of time on those things, but it felt like no one was even interested in much of that from the woman's side, you know? Juno did all of that so much better.

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

I find that generally comedies about pregnancy are lame. 9 Months, anyone?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I didn't see that one, 'cuz it looked so lame. But I totally think you should see Juno if/when it comes around (or rent the DVD in a few months).

[bondgwendabond.livejournal.com]

We haven't seen Superbad yet, but I pretty much hated Knocked Up and was shocked at how much people like it!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Ditto on that; I had some high hopes, due to the cast, but I was unimpressed at the time and annoyed in retrospect.

Superbad got perhaps a little too much hype, but I quite enjoyed it.

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

That was my main complaint about Knocked Up. I thought the male characters were excellent, but the female characters seemed like nothing more than filler.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Right. Heigl's recent comments in whatever-magazine-that-was were pretty dead on, and I was sorry that she backed off of them.

[ajjones.livejournal.com]

Yes, women are genuinely cast as 'the chick' in these comedies.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yup. Since American Pie it's become de rigeur to make some token effort to give the women a personality, but it's pretty minimal.

[bondgwendabond.livejournal.com]

Re:comments further up, I felt like the guys weren't all that well-served by their portrayals in the movie either. It gave me that icky Sideways feeling and Christopher agreed. And ... I'm not going to start.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

There was a bit of caricature going on, true; but I've known guys not unlike that, so I wasn't that bothered.

[bondgwendabond.livejournal.com]

I've known a lot of them too, and just didn't find them charming and cute-haha-funny AT ALL, which was how they were portrayed here. Not nearly enough arc for my taste on either side. Nor enough funny.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see what you mean. And yeah, I agree.

[v-verticordia.livejournal.com]

I thought Knocked Up was a horror movie, not a comedy! That beautiful, successful woman ruins her entire life by sleeping with that idiot loser and then has to spend the rest of her life with him! I kept waiting for the moment when they fall in love or he redeems himself, but nothing ever happened! It had some funny moments but all in all I don't get Judd Aptow movies. They're too long and too unstructured and have too much idiot bathroom humor. The "pinkeye" bit in KU had nothing to do with anything and was not funny either. I like 40 Year Old Virgin but again: too long! They're movies about a single joke! They often have some cool characters but as far as the critics go: why are they wetting their pants over this dude? Is it because we haven't had any decent comedies out lately? Give me Wes Anderson and the Simpsons, dude. I'm sick of cum/snot comedies.

[terpsichord.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to see Michael Cera's career taking off like it is. I enjoyed him so much in "Arrested Development," he seemed so genuine in every episode...everyone on that show was great, but his contribution seemed fairly effortless. He's fun to watch.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I really liked The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, but it feels like Apatow is now mining the same vein over and over again. Which is a shame, because his show, Freaks and Geeks, had a lot going on in it.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think he hadn't stood out to me on the show at first, because he just seemed like he was playing himself. But really, it's just that he's so understated.

Have you seen Clark and Michael, the net-only show he did with his buddy Clark? It's genius.

[10yroldwhizkid.livejournal.com]

I called him Ceratops when he was my celebrity boyfriend of the month. I don't remember why I broke up with him. He was the best thing that's ever happened to me.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Plus, he's the fastest kid in the world!

(Ceratops is awesome.)