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Following a screening at the SXSW Film Festival, Variety is head-over-heels, ass-over-teakettle, fill-me-up-with-your-bastard-slacker-lovechild in lust with Knocked Up, Judd Apatow's probing exploration of what happens when individuals from different beauty castes violate societal norms by mistakenly procreating:

"Knocked Up" is uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.

Indeed, even more than the filmmaker's smash-hit sleeper "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," his new pic is bound to generate repeat business among ticketbuyers who'll want to savor certain scenes and situations again and again, if only to memorize punchlines worth sharing with buddies. Currently set for a June 1 release, this hugely commercial comedy likely will remain in megaplexes throughout the summer and, possibly, into the fall.

Dare we allow ourselves to harbor a crazy hope that Knocked Up might one day replenish some of the laughter-enabling neurons so cruelly destroyed by the recent, latex-heavy work of pandering mirth-killers like Brian Robbins? After barely surviving the soul-darkening ordeal of handsy studios unapologetically molesting our inner, comedy-loving child with images of a leather-swaddled John Travolta being struck in the chest with a pigeon while atop a Harley, we're just not sure if we're ready to trust again.