Triple: Pregnant

Each Thursday a triple feature rental suggestion. You know you need to return those DVDs anyway.

Juno, a new comedy about a smartass high schooler who gets knocked up on her first go at sex, opened yesterday. The buzz has been fairly loud for months as it was touted in festival season as Fox Searchlight's chief Oscar hopeful. Whether or not it wins statues, it will certainly win fans, hardcore fans and probably in droves as soon as it expands and the holiday moviegoing season really explodes. Even if you don't love it (I didn't fall head over heels) it's easy to enjoy its quick wit and be won over by its surprising warmth --the warmth is a surprise considering how glib the humor seems at first. So naturally we have to talk about pregnancy for this week's DVD suggestions. Unwanted or at least unexpected pregnancies at that.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
If you could legislate movie watching, I'd definitely demand that all peoples see a Preston Sturges or two. This is but one of his great comedies and it stars Betty Hutton as Trudy Kockenblocker, a small town girl who parties at bit too hard with the soldiers. She wakes up married to a mystery soldier who's gone off to war and she's preggers too! Complicating matters: Trudy doesn't remember who she married, and her longtime admirer Norval isn't deterred. It's a mystery to me why people say that old movies are "slow". That's certainly not true of old comedies. This film whizzes through a convoluted plot, with delightful characters, comical misunderstandings, slapstick humor, not-so smooth talkers trying to be smooth, and even a musical sequence. Plus it's very funny.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)
I am regularly surprised talking to friends to discover that a lot of people (a lot of people) haven't seen this brilliant and creepy Roman Polanski film. I haven't seen the movie in a few years so I'm fuzzy on the details but I do remember that the pregnancy is both wanted and planned. But here's the trouble: It isn't Rosemary doing the wanting or the planning. There are unbelievably sinister forces at work and Rosemary is trapped in a nightmare of gestation. Just what exactly is growing inside of her? Mia Farrow gives an absolutely sensational Oscar snubbed performance and John Cassavettes plays her hubby who is spending way too much time with the nosey strange neighbors.

Alien 3 (1992)
I don't know why I'm always recommending this movie to people. Many consider it the downfall of the Alien franchise and it's true that it's much harder to love than either of its predecessors (Ridley Scott's haunting horror film Alien and James Cameron's action classic Aliens. But I love the Alien series for its malleability. The story is vaguely the same but with each new auteur it takes on different shapes and feelings. David Fincher would go on to much greater success with Se7en and Fight Club but his debut feature is a pretty ballsy mix of body horror (Ripley is going to be a mommy --and like Rosemary before her, she probably won't be birthing a bundle of joy) and unpleasant thriller.