Pop Culture 101: Today's Class - KNOCKED UP

I finally got to see Judd Apatow's hit comedy KNOCKED UP (newly released on DVD) which I really regretted missing last summer in the theaters. I thought it was very funny though it was more of a James L. Brooks style drama than I expected - the 2 hour 13 min. running time should have tipped me off. What really got to me about this anti rom-com about slacker stoner Ben (Seth Rogen) unintentionally impregnating way-out-of-his-league Allsion (Katherine Heigl), is the incredible amount of pop culture referencing going down. The abundance of name dropping, bad impersonations, and snarky wise-cracks would put Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarentino to shame! It's almost like without these media touch points these people would have nothing to talk about at all. Since I would have nothing to talk about without them let's take a look at the cinematic schooling KNOCKED UP provides us in pop culture profundity:

WARNING : Many Potential Spoilers

A large percentage of the riffing comes from Ben's room-mates (Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jay Barachel, and SUPERBAD's Jonah Hill - who all use their real names in the movie). They all have a what they call "the dirty man competition" - a bet that air-headed Martin can't grow his hair and beard without cutting or shaving for a year. If he lasts that long they have to pay his rent for a year - If he caves and shaves he'll have to pay all of their rents for a year. So they hurl insults relentlessly at him - calling him SERPICO, Charles Manson, Chewbacca by way of Jay's horrible impression, and Jonah asking him if he had a hard time changing his name from Cat Stevens to Yusef Islam. Martin: "yeah, it was awkward."

The gang has a website in the works - Ben's pitch: "only at fleshofthestars.com * will customers be able to find exactly into what movie their favorite stars are exposed". It seems to be a premise created soley to riff on Jamie Lee Curtis' infamous full-frontal in TRADING PLACES, Julianne Moore's pantless appearance in SHORT CUTS , we actually see them watch the Denise Richards/Neve Campbell lesbian love scene in WILD THINGS on TV, and Meg Ryan's nude scenes in IN THE CUT. To their later dismay Pete (Paul Rudd) tells Ben there is already a celebrity nudity website called Mr. Skin. Ben rationales - "Good things come in pairs you know? VOLCANO, DANTE'S PEAK. DEEP IMPACT, ARMAGEDDON, right? WYATT EARP, TOMBSTONE." To which Jay adds - "Panda Express, Yashinoya Beef Bowl."

* Yep, it's a real site now.

Random Reference Riffing :

Shortly before Ben and Heigl meet, the guys discuss Speilberg's MUNICH - all agreeing on its awesomeousity. Ben : "Dude, every movie with Jews we're the ones getting killed. MUNICH flips it on its ear. We're capping motherfuckers!" They all drink to Ben's proclamation - "if any of us get laid tonight it's because of Eric Bana in MUNICH!"

Paul Rudd's character Pete is a A & R guy for some never named record label. Photos of him with Elvis Costello and framed album covers (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers "Damn The Torpedos" can be seen a few times) decorate the walls of his suburban home. Pete does a number of impressions throughout the film including Robert Deniro (not bad) and in the deleted scenes - Austin Powers (awful). He and Rogen disagree on music - Ben: "If I ever listen to Steely Dan, I want you to slice my head off with an Al Jarreau LP!" The most defining straight-forward statement that Pete makes of course is encased in pop culture - "marriage is like that show, Everybody Loves Raymond but it's not funny."

Pete and wife Debbie (Leslie Mann - Judd Apatow's real-life wife) have kids (played by Apatow's daughters Maude and Iris) who argue over whether to listen to the soundtrack to "Rent" or the band Green Day from the back seat of Allison's car on the way to school. Not far from the tree obviously.

Of course you've got to have a "boy loses girl" 3rd act conflict development with both couples spliting temporarily. Ben and Pete take a trip to Las Vegas in which they plan to take mushrooms (acquired by Pete from a roadie for The Black Crowes no less) and go see Cirque de Soleil quoting SWINGERS all along the way - "you're so money!"

On a hotel room TV a scared Ben, tripping out of his mind on those Crowes roadie 'shrooms, watches CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (we see shots of Steve Martin running around surrounded by his kids' wacky shenanagins) and remarks "He's got 12 kids...that's a lot of responsibility to be joking about. That's not funny."

When Ben starts getting his life together and moves out of what was essentially a clubhouse into a respectable apartment he replaces his framed Bob Marley smoking a big ass spleef poster (obviously pictured on the right) for a ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND poster which he hangs in the soon to be nursery.

Dr. Kuni (Ken Jeong) who delivers the baby angrily tells Ben in the hallway - "if you want a special experience go to a Jimmy Buffett concert!" In the bonus features there is a line-o-rama feature that has dozens of alternate lines for many scenes. There's an amusing run with trying out variations on the Jimmy Buffett line - some examples: "go to Disneyland", "go to freaking Busch Gardens", "go to Korea", and "go to my apartment, it's phenomenal."

Another run on the line-o-rama has Jonah Hill saying "Mr. Skin is like the Beatles and we're like the Monkees" and "Mr. Skin is like Alec Baldwin and we're like Billy Baldwin."

The opening credits sequence shower scene from CARRIE is viewed by Ben and Allison for further fleshofthestars.com research.

Loudon Wainwright III plays Dr. Howard and also contributes the songs "Daughter", "Grey In L.A.", and "Lullaby" to the soundtrack.

One of the deleted scenes has Jonah spouting out a hilarious rant about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN which he says "was made by, like, fuckin' homophobes in my mind!" He drags MASTER AND COMMANDER and Bruce Willis's full frontal in COLOR OF NIGHT down into his profanity filled diatribe.

Harold Ramis makes a nice (albeit too brief) showing as Ben's father. He attempts to console his son in an extended scene with an Indiana Jones analogy - "So, he could be like little Indy and you could be Sean Connery."
Ben: "Or, I could be the guy that got melted when he looked in the Ark."

Uncredited cameos by obvious Apatow and Co. friends Steve Carrell, James Franco (plugging SPIDERMAN 3 which was released at the same time as KNOCKED UP and is mentioned several times), and Andy Dick are brief blips on the reference radar - helped by Heigl's character being a reporter for E! Entertainment Television. That definitely hooked up the attitude-infused Ryan Seacrest appearance. Also swift bit parts from SNL's Kirsten Wiig and Bill Hader should be noted too.

Whew! That's a lot of TRAINSPOTTING for one movie. I didn't even mention the mentions of Robin Williams, Taxicab Confessions, Martin Scorsese, Cartman from South Park, Doc Brown from BACK TO THE FUTURE, Ben's Mr. Bill T-shirt, Pete's Tom Waits "Rain Dogs" T-shirt, Vince Vaughn, Matthew Fox from Lost, Fellicity Huffman from TRANSAMERICA, as well as Ben and gang's posters of Pink Floyd, Hunter S. Thompson, and Fraggle Rock. Okay, now I 've mentioned them.

There will be a test on all this so I hope you took good notes.

More later...