Knocked Up delivers heart

In theaters Friday: Hostel Part II, Ocean’s 13, Surf’s Up

New on DVD: Seinfeld – Season 8

Celebrity birthday: Jason Isaacs turns 44 today. I have nothing clever to say to you, other than your blond hair in the Harry Potter movies kind of creeps me out. You look like a killer albino…happy birthday!

Here I am four days later still surprised at Knocked Up’s big heart. Based on the offensive title and the filmmakers’ pedigree, I thought the movie would be a throw-away laugh fest for the guys who bought the deluxe 40-Year-old Virgin “Double Your Pleasure” edition to watch on their PS3. I was wrong.

Make no mistake. This is not a good movie for a first date, unless you want the post-dinner conversation to include the question “So, what would happen if you got pregnant tonight?” Knocked Up is really two films in one. A raunchy comedy about a slacker and his slacker friends, and a clever rom-com tethered to big, real world decisions where the characters grow and mature and find their priorities and a purpose in their life. Knocked Up can’t make up its mind. Maybe it’s been tailor-made for chick flick addicts with dirty mouths and young married guys who are softies underneath. Even though reviews across the board are positive, those are the only demographics that I think will really “get” exactly what this movie is trying to do. I enjoyed a lot of it. Paul Rudd is always an underrated talent, and Seth Rogen proved he can really carry a picture. Plus SNL’s Kristen Wiig stole some huge laughs in two brief scenes as Katherine Heigl’s passive aggressive rival at E!. Director/writer Judd Apatow also calls in favors and gets nice cameos from his stable of pals including Steve Carell and James Franco that add to the fun.

One negative, and this has more to do with the screenplay than Heigl’s performance, was that I never really grasped where her character was coming from and why she made the decisions she did. I think Apatow has an amazing acuity for writing dialogue for guys in their 20s and 30s, but needs to work on his feminine side.

For those who missed the show, here are the Top 5 Things I Learned From The MTV Movie Awards:

1. Sarah Silverman is more interested in shocking audiences than entertaining them (and she isn’t effective at either). Which means she’s more interested in impressing her enclave of hipster comedy friends than her actual audience. Which means she thinks she’s better than you. I just kept thinking: Wow, she’s really awkward on stage, how annoying must she be in real life? I nearly wept for Jimmy Kimmel (her longtime boyfriend). Her worst moment had to be when another one of her quips fell completely flat and in response she just smirks and says “Google it,” as if it was the audience’s fault her joke was stupid. Here’s a hint Sarah, if a joke requires research, it ain’t funny.

2. Paris Hilton is addicted to attention….of any kind. I know, I know, I should have known this all along. But really, when you attend a huge awards show just hours before you’re supposed to report for jail duty, you have a problem. Silverman’s one silver lining was calling out Hilton to her “face.” And it was surprising too, since I didn’t even know Paris was in the audience until the camera panned to her nearly crying and taking the verbal beat-down with a term I can only describe—and coin for the first time—as a far-off kind of “aristoplastic stoicism.” Early front-runner for awkward celebrity moment of the year, no doubt.

3. Dane Cook is a d-bag. Click on his name there to see him rockin’ the all-time d-bag look: the front tuck. Anybody else catch that comment about his $600 shirt, which by the way looks like a denim mechanic’s get-up you could find at Wal-Mart for $11.99, or the jumper Paris Hilton will be strutting for the next three weeks.

4. Cameron Diaz has legs. She must be trying to make Justin Timberlake jealous, because I’m pretty sure that was the shortest dress I’ve ever seen. Actually, I’m not sure that was a dress. It must have been her napkin from Spago.

5. Johnny Depp is cool. Not only did he show up for his award, the guy found a way to make appearing on a teenybopper show effortless and admirable (a two minute standing ovation never hurts, either). Depp could probably make juggling Beanie Babies and Star Trek action figures look pretty radical. So I guess brushing the hair out of his face, waving to the girls from The Hills and saying “thanks” was a walk in the park.

Last weekend I rented thriller Taking Lives and indie drama Thumbsucker. Taking Lives was your standard crime drama. It’s run-of-the-mill serial killer hunt is nothing to really recommend because it offers nothing to set it apart from anything else in the thriller genre. Not even decent performances from Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawk. Plus, Keifer Sutherland is barely in the movie, so don’t rent it thinking you’ll get 90 minutes of his tried and true psychopath routine.

Thumbsucker thumbsucked.
Well the Tim DeLaughter and Elliott Smith soundtrack was good. But those guys have CDs. Yes, even The Filter goes 0-for-2 sometimes.

Finally, here is the first glimpse of the poster for Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan biopic (which features several actors including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett playing the folk singer in different stages of his life).