Knocked Up & Ratatouille
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007Bloggers tend to lean towards the obscure, the local, and the arty for their reviews. I think this is wise given that the obscure and the arty are generally a part of the media enclave most needing word of mouth, and what is a blog but a running word of mouth? I know it needs no added WOM but (call me a fan-girl) I wanted to write about the tiny breaths of genius present in summer comedy Knocked Up. I found a fun bit with flat questions from ABC.
Not one for ambiguous humor (or titles) Apatow is being critically championed as the man to revive mainstream comedy, the “Mayor of Comedy”. He is impressive. He never strays from his flock of loyal companion (including wife Leslie Mann, the casts from both his sitcoms Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks, even his kids are in Knocked Up) but what interests me most is something that seems consistent in all his films. Everyone, in the world of Judd Apatow, is nice. There aren’t any outright bastards in his films. Even the bitchy people are endearing. SNL’s Kristin Wiig kicks ass as an insecure, needy, and biting junior exec. and even Steve Carrell, Apatow’s long standing comrade and a famously nice guy, walks away from Katherine Heigl’s super pregnant E! Correspondent saying “I’m not an ass hole.” Granted, Carrell wasn’t nice to her, but still, no one’s actually an ass hole, they’re just insecure, or confused, or dumb or even vaguely gross. The latter abject category is of specific interest in Knocked Up, where gross and sweet are odd bedfellows…just like Ben (Seth Rogel) and Allison (Katherine Heigl). Mainstream comedy usually delves into baud, or slapstick, or plain potty humor, and Knocked Up does that too. I particularly liked a portion where Leslie Mann’s character, Debbie tells Allison that her husband Pete (Paul Rudd in like the role of his life!) has been jerking off into their new towels and even after she washes them they’re never soft again. The film’s absence of slapstick is not really proof of its intelligence but where else has bodily humor ever been endearing? I mean seriously, it’s more cute than gross that those towels will never be soft again. Makes sense gross is okay, what with the film revolving around impending birth. What else is gross and sweet? Not much!
So if I’m going to be a fan-girl, I’m not itching for Ratatouille but a recent comrade in the universe of film journalism, Alex Vo of Rottentomatoes.com, wrote a researched, cute, fun, get-you-excited-about-the-movie, interview with Patton Oswald, a.k.a. Remy the culinary rodent, from Pixar’s Ratatouille.
I loved Alex’s references to stand up comics and to Home Movies, one of the best shows to ever grace the flickering screen of Adult Swim. I learned about Patton Oswald from Erik Blevin’s Kick-Ass Movie Pitches a few years ago and if I had the chances, it’d be the first thing on my list of quesitons. Perhaps it’s too five minutes ago…eh. if you haven’t read it before, I hope you also laugh until you need your inhaler:-)