KNOCKED UP

Finally got around to seeing this. They sent me the script with a DVD months ago as a member of the Writers Guild, but I resisted watching it because I thought it was gonna be just too many fart jokes for me.

Even as a kid I thought that kind of humor a little too immature for my taste. I don’t know where I got that from. I cursed a blue streak. My older brothers told several stories about my first words being curse words, or of me swearing up a storm at two and three already.

But if a kid in kindergarten or first or second grade did any of those bathroom jokes, or a third-grader (or worse, someone's father or uncle) said “Pull my finger” I’d wanna smack them and say “Grow up.”

And as an adult, hanging around with professional comedians in L. A. and watching them do their stand up acts, it seemed even a lot of them considered those kinds of jokes to be cheap shots. Not that they wouldn’t fall back on them if their act was dying.

So, I usually don’t respond as enthusiastically to these immature-men-who-can’t-grow-up flicks as many of my friends do. But this one. I should have seen it before I made my Valentine’s movie list a few days ago. It would have been the "K."

Not only did I laugh ‘til I cried (especially at the supporting actors, like the E! executive lady who mumbled the funniest lines in the movie every time the Katherine Heigl had a scene with her and their boss, who was also hilarious), I was happy at the ending. (And I'm sorry I don't know those supporting actors names, but the cast list is not very descriptive so it's hard to tell who's who except for the stars, with is Judd Apatow's fault.)

There were some scenes and jokes I found either a little lame or forced or cheap shots, but they were easier to take in the context of so many much funnier bits and the overall sympathy the movie generated, despite its unlikely scenario. Having been through way too many unlikely scenarios in my own life—some of which turned out pretty positively, some not—I could go with the story, and was glad I did.