Ric and I caught Knocked Up at the dollar theater last week in an attempt to get some laughs. We definitely laughed a lot.

The movie is about a slacker guy who has a one-night stand with a non-slacker girl, and when she finds out she's pregnant, they decide to try dating and parenting together. The guy, played by Seth Rogan, has a group of friends who contribute to his slackerism and the girl, played by Katherine Heigl, has a sister who contributes to her criticalness of her new boyfriend.

There's not much to analyze here. I liked all of the actors (even the little stints by Ryan Seacrest) and thought there were lots of funny jokes. The movie got a little bit bogged down by the sister figure, who was insane. I'm sure there are girls out there like that, but most of my friends are so laid-back that it was hard to watch her because she was so unreasonable. But I liked the somewhat sarcastic look at parenting that she and her husband provided for the movie.

Knocked Up also has heart, which is why it works. If it weren't for that certain genuineness that Seth Rogan has, it wouldn't have been as good. I wouldn't say that the couple necessarily had an amazing chemistry together, but seeing them try with each other and seeing the changes Rogan's character makes in his life makes it work.

I had a great time at this one, and we had a surprisingly good audience at the dollar theater, considering it was a weekend night. My favorite joke was actually when Ben reveals the sex of the baby to Allison during a fight, because it's so evil to ruin that secret for a mom if she doesn't know. Good stuff.

Ric and I went to see Sunshine last week because I almost never miss a Danny Boyle movie and it looked interesting, plus we'd heard some pretty good reviews. Danny Boyle is such an interesting director; he goes in completely different directions for each of his films. In this case, however, I felt a bit like he was hanging on to 28 Days Later.

The movie begins with a simple enough setup: several astronauts are on a second mission to reignite the sun. Their ship is impressive, their genetic makeup is interesting, and the first major crisis had me on the edge of my seat. The slow-moving camera, effective music, and beautiful shots combined for what I thought was the start of a great space movie.

Without going into too much detail, the plot takes a turn for the worse and changes the entire tone of the movie when the focus changes from "save the sun" to "we're all going to die, and not because of our mission!" Many movie cliches follow, and the once original idea becomes just another movie. This includes camera and editing work, which becomes almost as erratic as 28 Weeks Later in the final scenes, and is more frustrating than effective.

In the end, the great first half seemed to balance out the bad second half, and I left the theater feeling lukewarm overall. It had the potential to be a much better film, but when the story and filmmaking resorted to the familiar, it became too generic and frustrating. I was disappointed.

The New American Splendor Anthology by Harvey Pekar