The Hollywood Reporter: Risky Biz Blog

Diagnosis du jour

When it comes to dramatizing childbirth, there are any number of complications for a screenwriter to choose from. But at the moment, the preferred complication appears to be an umbilical cord that gets wrapped around the baby’s neck, causing a resulting drop in the baby’s heartbeat. That’s what happens to Katherine Heigl’s mother-to-be in one of the final scenes of the current hit “Knocked Up.” But that movie being a sweetly upbeat comedy, the situation happily resolves itself in just a minute or two. The medical crisis is turning out to be a lot more protracted on “Studio 60: On the Sunset Strip,” Aaron Sorkin’s cancelled series that is currently playing out its final episodes on NBC Thursday nights at 10 p.m. In the most recent episode, expectant single mom and network exec Jordan McDeere, played by Amanda Peet, had to be rushed to the emergency room when she couldn’t feel her baby move. An errant umbilical cord proved part of the problem, and by the episode’s end, she was being wheeled into the operating room. Stay tuned. (Gregg Kilday)

Take that, Ang Lee

What with the potty-mouthed, if sweet-natured" "Knocked Up" the top comedy of the moment, the following deleted clip has surfaced on Youtube in which Jonah Hill complains to Katherine Heigl that Ang Lee did moviegoers a disservice when he cut away from the man-on-man action in "Brokeback Mountain." It may not be something that you want to play too loud in the office -- the language, as is typical of Judd Apatow's approach to comedy, is frankly R-rated -- but it does make the subversive point that after movie after movie in which actresses show their wares, turnabout for the guys might only be fair play. (Gregg Kilday)