Written and directed by Judd Apatow

Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann

132 min.

Knocked Up is Judd Apatow’s follow-up to his wildly successful feature debut The 40-Year-Old Virgin. A winning “beauty and the slob” laugh-getter, this is destined to clock in as the must-see comedy of the summer.

Combining charm, impeccable timing, a drug induced, self-effacing edge and a swatch of clenched curls, Seth Rogen could pass for the bastard offspring of comedian’s comedian Albert Brooks and Howard Stern’s slovenly sidekick, Artie Lange. If the true test of a comedian is the innate ability to make audiences laugh just by looking at them, Rogen is a sight for sore eyes.

He plays Ben Stone, a 20-something stoner, living with a band of merry burnouts who dream of making millions off a nude celebrity Web site. These bozos are so baked, none of them have ever heard of Mr. Skin.

Were it not for alcohol, Ben never would have hooked up with Alison (Katherine Heigl). He’s the self-professed guy that normally gets fucked over instead of fucked. Frog Ben meets Princess Alison while she’s out celebrating a promotion to on-air reporter at E! Entertainment Television. He manages to impress her with his brazen attempt to score a beer at a crowded bar.

They get hammered, partake in empty sex and, as the title suggests, their one night stand leaves Alison with child. Abortion is mentioned, but for the sake of making this feature-length, they decide to keep the kid.

The time comes for the future parents to meet each other’s friends and potential in-laws. Alison’s sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) doesn’t know what to make of Ben. He plays fetch with her young children. She cautions Alison against his flagrant air of underachieving. Not true of brother-in-law Pete (Paul Rudd) who forms an immediate bond.

While pregnancy prevents Alison from catching a buzz, she does her best to fit in with Ben’s posse. A super sleuth for their nudie Web site, Alison takes genuine delight in spotting Nancy Allen’s “opening credit’s bush” in Carrie.

Alison’s TV job allows Apatow plenty of room for media lampooning. Anticipating the success of Spider-Man 3, Apatow includes a web of topical jabs aimed at the lifeless blockbuster. Star cameos also abound. There’s nothing more rewarding than watching American-on-idle Ryan Secrest playing “himself” as an impatient prick who whines that he’s bigger than most of the stars he interviews.

While the laughs are consistent, Knocked Up could have been tightened by 15 minutes. (That’s 15 minutes less than what needed to be snipped from The 40-Year-Old Virgin). A sidebar involving Debbie’s suspicions over Pete’s fidelity yields little. While the pregnancy is confirmed, Alison and Debbie’s frantic late-night search for every brand of home test comes up negative. The thought of reducing Cirque du Soleil to little more than visual accompaniment for an acid trip delights, but Ben and Pete’s Vegas jaunt could also have been snipped.

Apatow’s direction quickly makes known his TV roots, but we’re not in this for the mise en scène. Normally the same sentiment would apply to placing romance in a slob comedy, but that’s exactly what makes Knocked Up above average.

What separates Knocked Up from a simple joke machine is its heart. Pathos in a Farrelly Bros. film generally provides scads of unintentional yuks. Apatow adds just the right amount of tenderness to achieve the impossible: You begin to feel for these characters. Rogen and Heigl are so good that watching them grow apart and come together becomes as nourishing as all the laughter.

The film’s most endearing scene has nothing to do with the problems of unwanted pregnancy. While he’s sure to be forgotten come awards season, as Ben’s father, Harold Ramis scores high points. “When I told you not to do drugs,” dad confesses with a smile, “I was probably getting high.” Their heart-to-heart diner conversation contains the most honest father- and-son drug dialogue ever written.

With a father like Harold Ramis, it’s no wonder Seth Rogen turned out so funny.

Rating:

Directed by Bruce A. Evans

Written by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon

Starring: Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook and Danielle Panabaker

120 min.

The first five minutes slather on the irony. Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner), a respected businessman and generous philanthropist, graciously accepts Portland’s Man of the Year award. Nice guy Earl even stops in mid-speech to blow his adoring wife (Marg Helgenberger) a kiss.

Not a bad cover for an insatiable serial killer, so proficient at his work that he hasn’t left the police as much as one clue to his identity.

Earl’s inner backseat driver emerges on the car ride home. Marshall (William Hurt) plays a cheerleading Hyde to Mr. Brooks’ reluctant Dr. Jekyll. One look at Marshall’s demonic grin in the rearview assures us that Portland’s Thumbprint Killer will soon strike again.

Earl has been stalking a pair of dancers and he vows that their execution will bring down the curtain on his killing ways. Unfortunately, the normally meticulous Brooks fails to notice the lustful couples’ habit of keeping the curtains open.

This doesn’t stop a neighboring shutterbug (Dane Cook, known only as “Mr. Smith”) from bringing a stack of incriminating photos to Brooks’ office. Blackmail is his name, but money is not the game. The would-be assassin wants to accompany Brooks on his next rampage.

The concept of a reluctant serial killer forced to engage an eager apprentice borders on genius. The problem is, Mr. Brooks showcases one psychopath too many.

Earl’s teenage daughter Jane (Danielle Panabaker) drops out of college and returns home both pregnant and a prime suspect in a hatchet killing. The good Christian inside Brooks winces at the thought of his daughter getting an abortion. He’s not completely heartless. Dad will go to great lengths to ensure his little girl an airtight alibi the next time a campus homicide occurs, even if it means disguising as a drifter and doing the job himself.

Hints of incest add an extra layer of discomfort, but even that’s not enough. Jane’s curtain scene is a genuine shocker that would have felt less gratuitous had the father/daughter relationship been more rigorously defined.

As an alternative to insight, we get a dumb-dumb subplot involving Detective Tracy Atwood (Demi Moore), a cop hot on Brooks’ trail. Enter The Hangman, a recently escaped convict out to enact a brutal revenge on the cop that collared him. A boatload of coincidence will eventually bring together The Hangman and The Thumbprint Killer.

Veering further off topic, one of the subplots involves Detective Atwood’s greedy husband who’s anxious to end their marriage, get a chunk of her trust fund and shack up with his divorce attorney. (Atwood is the only cop in the free world whose assets amount to a little over $60 million.) Happenstance happens as the screenwriters clumsily unite Brooks with his tracker’s hubby.

Presenting Brooks’ inner conflict in the form of a character rather than through clumsy voiceover narration works well. What makes Mr. Brooks click is the chemistry between Costner and Hurt, who oozes evil with the best of them. The film’s single most enduring moment arrives when the schizo duo, waiting for Mr. Smith to cross the street, shares an evil cackle at the thought of their student getting hit by a car.

While it isn’t a patch on Henry: Portait of a Serial Killer, credit Mr. Brooks for providing more than just a standard Hollywood body count.

Rating: 1/2

Directed by Mike Akel

Written by Chris Mass and Mike Akel

Starring: Chris Mass, Shannon Haragan, Janelle Schremmer and Troy Schremmer

85 min. digitally projected

In an attempt to begin on a credible note, Chalk opens with a title card that proclaims, “50 percent of teachers quit after the first three years.”

It’s the film’s only honest moment. After five minutes it became painfully apparent that Chalk owed more to Best in Show than Frederick Wiseman’s High School.

Shown from four frustrated educators’ points-of-view, Chalk relies more on improvisation than structured filmmaking. Just because it plays to a crowd of drunks at The Laugh Factory or Mr. Chuckle’s doesn’t mean that it’s worthy of a big screen treatment.

Long after the filmmakers tip their hand they continue attempting a realistic documentary approach. What’s the point? We know it’s supposed to be satire, why not goof on the medium as well? They’d have to write it down first and, besides, this troupe is more interested in performance than cinema.

Not unlike Christopher Guest, Mike Akel wants to simultaneously embrace and harpoon his characters. He can’t. Mr. Akel and directing have yet to be introduced.

Chalk one up for amateur filmmaking. This is the type of comedy that gives mockumentaries a bad name.

Rating: m

Directed by Gore Verbinski

Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio

Starring: Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush

168 min. in CinemaScope

Still more uninspired giddiness: a digitized series of unrelated set pieces strung together with spit that left me at wit’s end.

Comedic watermarks included penis jokes, a band of pirates looking up women’s skirts through a slatted floor and a midget recoiling through the air after firing a big gun.

I endured 75 of the film’s obscenely bloated 168-minute running time before finding the exit.

Rating: m