Posts Tagged ‘Katherine Heigl’
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I don’t know what was going on with me that I couldn’t figure out something more creative with the background. But, uh… HEY! Charlie has a new haircut! Look at that! WOW!
Knocked Up is in theaters this weekend, appearing in theaters at what I think is a very opportune time. It’s been almost a month since Spider-Man 3 landed in theaters and kicked off the blockbuster season. So far, we’ve survived it and it’s “threequel” brethren Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Knocked Up comes at a time when I think people are prepared to take a step away from fantasy for a while and get a little closer to real people and situations again.
Of course, Seth Rogen landing in bed with Katherine Heigl isn’t exactly realistic, but this is why we love Hollywood. They tweak reality just enough to keep us interested. I’m sure that the movie will play this disparity in physical attractiveness to it’s advantage. I expect nothing less from Judd Apatow and crew.
It pleases me to no end the Seth Rogen is stepping up into the unlikely leading man category. If you’ve watched Undeclared, you know that they guy has an affiable charm that’s fun to watch. Even when he’s being a jerk, it works. So it’ll be interesting to see how he manages when he has to filter sarcasm through his heart.
At this point I’m not going to go into my Apatow-love speech. Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, The 40 Year-Old Virgin. Either you get it by now or you don’t. I really appreciate that Apatow is using the same stable of actors and creating his own little universe. The smartest thing any director can do is bring Paul Rudd into his movies. So, needless to say, I have high hopes for Knocked Up.
Interesting factoid: Did you guys know that Knocked Up was originally written to be a sequel to The 40 Year-Old Virgin that featured the Smart Tech crew? I’m glad they came to their senses and invented a new set of characters for the actors to inhabit. The Smart Tech guys were brilliantly effective within the context of T40YOV, but that kind of misogynistic buffonery probably wouldn’t work on it’s own. You need the wholesomeness of Steve Carell’s character to balance that out.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.
I wanted to tip you guys off to a new t-shirt design I’m taking pre-orders for right now: Movie Law #948.
Fans of the comic will recognize the concept of this shirt from this comic, wherein Tom discusses actor Sean Bean’s proclivity toward expiring in what seems like the majority of his movies.
Readers with good long-term memories might recall that I submitted initial designs of the shirt for feedback, but was talked out of producing the shirt when the spector of copyright infringement was brought up.
After the controversy with Threadless over the Spoiler shirts last week, a switch flipped in my head. If these guys can get away with using Darth Vader’s head in what turned out to be the most fastest-selling shirt, then li’l old me can get away with an artistic interpretation of Sean Bean’s mug. If I get a cease and desist letter, then that will be the end of it. In the meantime, screw it. People have been asking for it, the work was half way done… let’s run ‘er up the flagpole and see if she flies.
My problem with t-shirt design is that it takes very little to derail me on an idea I have because it’s such a large investment for me. I could have 50 people respond and tell me “I want that shirt!” but if one person responds and says “copyright infringement!” or “I couldn’t tell that was Sean Bean,” I quit. That’s lame. I have a bunch of great ideas. I just need to push them through.
Well, I’ve decided instead of producing Theater Hopper: Year Three this summer, I’m taking the nest egg I’ve stored up and spending it on t-shirt production that will hopefully generate interest in the store and spur book sales when people take advantage of the bundling options.
So pre-order this shirt now through June 13. Moving forward, I’ll be producing more shirts. Hopefully you like some or all of them. We can use the support.
Oh, and for the people that are curious, Movie Law #948 has a list of all the movies in which Sean Bean dies on screen (so far). If you want to see what they are, visit the page in our store and pre-order now!
Got any comments, thoughts, ideas or feedback? Leave them below!
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Jun04
After surviving weeks of bloated franchise sequels, movie audiences are being treated to one of the freshest, funniest movies of the summer. Picking up where its spiritual predecessor The 40 Year-Old Virgin left of, Knocked Up is another successful romp through sexual raunchiness and touching human truth.
This time instead of focusing on the novelty of a lead character living his entire adult life without sexual intercourse, writer/director Judd Apatow and his regular company of actors turn their attention on the somewhat common interpersonal mishap – the one night stand that goes horribly… right?
An unplanned pregnancy brings Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen together as one of cinema’s most unlikely “Beauty and the Beast”-type of couples. Once the pair agrees to keeping the baby and start dating to see if their compatible, the movie begins to swerve into previously mined territory. There probably isn’t a joke in the movie about pregnancy, childbirth, buying clothes or picking an obstetrician that hasn’t been covered by a hundred different sitcoms before it.
But the pregnancy isn’t the core of the movie. In fact, it feels almost incidental as the movie focuses more on Rogen’s character coming to grips with his impending responsibility and what it might mean for his freedom. The reluctance of fathers-to-be has also been mined for comedy before. But what Knocked Up smartly does is pair up Heigl and Rogen’s characters with Heigl’s sister and brother-in-law played with smartly by the indispensable Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd. Through them, Apatow delivers some of his best lines and biting commentary about gender relations.
Settled into the rut of their own hapless marriage, Mann and Rudd’s characters have two children of their own and provide a raw look into the future for Heigl and Rudd. Both of them seem unhappy and are just going through the motions. Mann suspects Rudd of cheating on her when it turns out he’s sneaking out of the house for fantasy baseball meetings. Rudd compares marriage to an unfunny episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. “Except it doesn’t last for 22 minutes,” he warns. “It’s for life.”
The aforementioned fantasy baseball scene cuts particularly close when Rudd’s wife discovers his deception. His need for independence and male comradely versus Mann’s deep hurt that her husband would rather see Spider-Man 3 without her is cringe-inducing. But this is where Knocked Up most effectively deviates from the norm.
It’s easy for a film to make fun of a guy with cold feet. But very few incisively tackle the balancing act most men feel they need to maintain between their responsibilities and their basic need for autonomy. Or how (in some cases) that tightrope walk leaves them feeling trapped. In this way, Knocked Up is unlike most romantic comedies. It’s told primarily from the perspective of men and their insecurities.
This probably seems like heady stuff for a film that most would consider piffle. Fortunately, Knocked Up doesn’t knock you over the head with its message and effectively blends the reality of the situation with crude and outrageous side conversations. Rogen’s slacker roommates, for example, are probably the filthiest characters committed to celluloid both in terms of dialogue and general hygiene.
Kudos to Apatow who has a keen ear for this kind of conversation. 10 years ago, it was Kevin Smith who was earning accolades for bringing characters to screen who seemed to talk like everyday people talked – warts and all. Apatow does the same thing, but narrows his focus to the ball-busting, pop culture reference laden smack talk of the twenty-something set. To his credit, all the while you are being repulsed by these burnouts, you kind of want to spend a Saturday afternoon with them. They seem like a lot of fun.
The ultimate success of Knocked Up is the way it elevates universal topics up a level by ditching the notion that the audience doesn’t need the complexities of Rogen’s confusion or Heigl’s uncertainty spoon-fed to them. While the elements of the story are commonplace, their delivery is not. What’s left is a refreshingly honest portrayal of impending adulthood cushioned with a great deal of heart.
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I caught this story about Katherine Heigl complaining about her role in Knocked Up in the latest issue of Vanity Fair earlier in the week and it’s really been bugging me.
Entertainment Weekly would have you believe that Heigl should be commended for speaking her mind and ignoring “publicist-scripted hooey” in her interview with the magazine. But there is a difference between being honest and being disrespectful.
Not being a woman, I can’t speak with any authority as to Heigl’s claim that Knocked Up is sexist. But as a man, I think there is enough to take umbrage in the depiction of my gender as slothful, stoned, ambitionless tubs of lard. In fact, I would be willing to wager that Knocked Up is more sexist in it’s stereotypes against men than it is against women. It would be one thing if the movie had Heigl’s character walking around barefoot and cooking Seth Rogen’s character dinner in every third scene. But that’s not the case. I think they treat her character with great respect. She’s a responsible professional. She has strong family bonds. And she has dimension of character! She’s responsible, but has a one night stand. She drives her niece’s to school but she gets hormonal like a normal pregnant woman would. If you want sexist, look at the punchline of today’s comic. Now THAT’S sexist!
Things get more disgusting when you start to follow the money. Apparently after the success of Knocked Up and her Emmy win for Grey’s Anatomy, her asking price for the upcoming 27 Dresses with James Marsden went up from $300,000 to $6 million.
The simple fact of the matter is if you didn’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, you didn’t know who Katherine Heigl was. Knocked Up put her on the map. Maybe she didn’t like her character or the movie. Fine. But be a little bit magnanimous about where it got you. Because now you look ungrateful.
I think Heigl’s comments against Knocked Up are going to go down in history as one of the most sublime Hollywood foot-in-mouth moments. Considering how well writer/director Judd Apatow treats his stable of actors, there’s no telling where that relationship could have taken her. What’s the incentive to work with her ever again after this?
Apparently Apatow took the high road when questioned about Heigl’s comments at the recent GQ Men of the Year party in Hollywood this week:
“I don’t think the movie’s sexist, I think there are characters in the movie who are sexist,” clarified writer/director Judd Apatow, who hasn’t spoken with Heigl about her comments. “Apparently Vanity Fair needs to sell some magazines. They’ve got to turn up the controversy. I’m sure when they get you talking for hours and hours, a couple lines taken out of context seem more interesting than they really are.”
That’s a fairly diplomatic response. But Rogen’s response to the same line of questioning is a little more revealing:
“We won A Women’s Image Network Award; I picked it up myself,” he reminded, adding, “I don’t really talk to Katie.”
Does that mean she’s off his Christmas list? “Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, like she was on it before.”
Rogen has a pretty sarcastic sense of humor, but that still comes off kind of harsh. You get the sense from his comments that they’ve already left her behind.
I look at this mess and the whole time I’m reminded of the reportedly contentious relationship between Kevin Smith and Linda Fiorentino on the set of Dogma. Listen to the Dogma DVD commentary track to get the scoop straight from Smith. Or read this news item from 2000 at TVGuide.com. My point is, has anyone heard from Linda Fiorentino since Dogma?
Her page over at IMDB.com lists four credits since Dogma, all in 2000 and then nothing. Maybe it’s a coincidence. But for someone who starred in Men In Black and Dogma at the end of the 90’s, she seemed poised to make it big in the next few years. Then… nothing.
Apatow probably pulls more clout than Smith did during his Dogma days. But all Smith had to do was be vocal about how difficult Fiorentino was on-set before she stopped turning up in movies. Apatow doesn’t have to say word-one. Heigl is doing it for him. Still, if she’s burning bridges with someone comparable to Smith, could Katherine Heigl be the next Linda Fiorentino? Time will tell, I suppose.
I guess, for me, what’s most disappointing about Heigl’s comments is that it subtracts from a movie I really enjoyed this year. I liked Knocked Up… a lot. I bought the Special Unrated Edition on DVD so I could get MORE Knocked Up content. Now if I watch that movie, I’m going to be looking at Heigl, thinking about her comments and stewing about how ungrateful she is.
Think of it another way. Have you ever been to a concert where maybe the band is just starting to break through? They’ve got some big hit single and they’re tired of playing it? They kind of mope through the song because they feel obligated to, but you can tell their heart’s not into it? They make you feel like an idiot for liking their song! That’s what I feel like after reading Heigl’s comments.
Granted, there is a lot of stuff going on in Knocked Up that I like that has nothing to do with Heigl’s character. I’m sure I can enjoy those parts. But her involvement is pretty much central to the motivations of the character. So I’ll always be aware of her on the periphery, sulking, bitching about sexism (yet comfortable selling out her principles for a hit movie) and it’s just going to taint the entire experience.
Incidentally, if you wanted to look at her Maxim photo shoot where you can see more of her “principles” on display, you can find it here.
That concludes my rant. Have a great weekend, everyone!
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Because I lead a rich and satisfying life, I was casually looking at the people who are currently following my Twitter account and was surprised to see a picture of Katherine Heigl floating in the list of avatars.
Thinking it was a Heigl super-fan who was now stalking me using Twitter, I investigated further to discover that it was actually an account created for Abby Richter – the fictional character Heigl plays in The Ugly Truth.
Reading some of the tweets, I could see that “Abby” was having a contentious back-and-forth with one Chad Meister. That’s right – the character in played by Gerard Butler in the same movie.
Now I totally understand using social media to help promote stuff and realize that most likely it’s some intern at Sony Pictures having a conversation with himself. But what I don’t understand are the real-life people who are following this inanity.
Certainly it would be one thing if “Abby” were throwing messages into the digital ether and responding to questions or comments posed by fans of the movie (whoever they might be). But when these two fictional characters are carrying on a conversation with each other, excluding everyone else, you kind of wonder what the point of it is…
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Earlier this week I was exposed to the trailer for the forthcoming romantic comedy Friends With Kids. I haven’t posted it until now because I’ve kind of confused by it.
On the one hand, the movie is stuffed to the gills with actors I love including Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm and Chris O’Dowd. But the trailer positively reeks of plot contrivances and romantic comedy tropes that usually only attract the likes of Katherine Heigl.
In other words, it looks dumb and I think I kind of hate it?
Watch for yourself.
Truthfully, I don’t even think you need to see the movie now. The trailer pretty much gave it all away.
Also, what the hell happened to Jennifer Westfeldt? She was an adorable chipmunk in Kissing Jessica Stein. Now she looks like she’s been wrapped in plastic.
What’s your reaction to the Friends With Kids trailer? Leave your comments below!
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