Pineapple Express

Opening Date: 08/06/2008

STUDIO: Columbia Pictures

TRAILER: Trailer

ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
Put this in your pipe and smoke it.

Opening Statement
Following up on the success of Knocked Up and Superbad, the Apatow troupe returns with yet another script that was once on the back burner. Originally written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the Judd Apatow touch of box office gold has placed Pineapple Express on the fast track to the silver screen.

Facts of the Case
Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) has reached the point where one becomes comfortable with life. He has a high school girlfriend, a job as a file server, and is high pretty much all the time. Saul Silver (James Franco) is Dale’s pot dealer and has taken it upon himself to cross the threshold of turning Dale from customer to friend. Along the way the two become entangled in a tale of murder, trafficking, drug cartels, and all out action.

The Evidence
There will be many outcries that Pineapple Express sets a new bar in the stoner comedy genre. But really, how high was that bar anyway? What’s more impressive is how the film provides one of the most memorable comedy duos in years. Dale Denton and Saul Silver have placed themselves in the company of other legendary stoners such as Cheech and Chong and even Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta.

The plot to Pineapple Express is an afterthought. Dale witnesses a murder, during a routine service call and flees the scene in a panic, leaving behind a roach of Pineapple Express. Of course, this marijuana being proclaimed by Saul as “dopest dope you’ll ever smoke,” drug lord Ted Jones (Gary Cole) figures out who it belongs to and sends crooked officer Carol Brazier (Rosie Perez) and henchmen Budlofsky (Kevin Corrigan) and Matheson (Craig Robinson) to retrieve our pothead heroes.

But plot aside, this movie is not about being on the run. It’s about friendship. It’s about loyalty. And like most Apatow ventures, it’s about male camaraderie. Whereas The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad are films about maturing and the divorcement of “being one of the guys,” Pineapple Express takes the opposite view, where male friendship is the centerpiece to a happy life.

Anyone familiar with James Franco’s work on Freaks and Geeks will not be surprised that Saul steals the film, as evidenced by the scene where Saul tells Dale how special and important their friendship is. Normally, the dynamic between a dealer and buyer is strictly business, and once the transaction is complete the relationship ends there. So when Saul decides he wants to become friends with Dale, this becomes an huge emotional investment.

Another scene stealer is Red (Danny McBride). Similar to the male relationships in Superbad, Red sees Dale as a threat to his own friendship with Saul. He also sees Dale as a threat in general, as Budlofksy and Matheson threaten his life multiple times. It’s easy to tell that screenwriters Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen adore this character, by the absurd lengths gone to maintain Red’s on screen presence.

And of course, there is Dale at the center of it all. This role is “by the numbers” Seth Rogen, still at the top of his game. Audiences who have seen him before know what to expect and that’s not a fault. Rogen’s laid back demeanor, humor, and everyday Joe persona has yet to overstay its welcome, and his chemistry with Franco evokes that of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau from The Odd Couple — if the two were on weed 24/7.

As with most stoner movies, Pineapple Express enjoys going off on tangents. In fact, the movie takes a divergent turn into action flick territory in the third act, which is all the more strange when the film returns to buddy comedy mode. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the this act almost functions as a parody of a drug crime film.  

Rebuttal Witnesses
If Pineapple Express lacks anything, it’s empathy towards its characters. Though Dale and Saul are extremely likable, their relationship is absent of the severity that has been displayed in previous Apatow films. The emotional weight between Dale and Saul is never in serious jeopardy and there are no surprises. On the other hand, this is a tale about two potheads.

Closing Statement
Pineapple Express is pure comedy and though it does not transcend its comedic stoner roots, it’s not required to. Rogen and Franco are a terrific duo to watch, whether the audience is blazed or not. And while the film is similar to past Apatow endeavors such as Anchorman and Walk Hard, don’t let these comparisons fool you. This is the best of the bunch and you will not find a funnier film this summer… and probably the rest of the year. 

9/10

Approximately nine months ago, my wife brought up an interesting proposal: “Why Don’t We Go to San Diego for Comic Con?” This was without virtually any prompting on my part; I had no horse in the race, so to speak. I’m not that big of a comic book fan, but we were looking for something to do. So why not go, right? And if you’re going to go, go in style; I booked a room at the newly opened Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, which seemed like a pretty cool status symbol. Aside from an experience at the franchise’s New York restaurant years ago, I did forget that the Hard Rock plays music. All the time. But, compared to other places, it was rock music. The merchandise shop played Black Flag in there, so booyah bitches!

Anyway, the film lineup was pretty good, and I’ll be sharing those here after the jump of the films I managed to sit in on. I’m sure the webs have the footage somewhere, so feel free to search on your own time. On with the opinions!

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Fox was the first to the show, and Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) came out to pimp the remake of the 1951 classic to be released in December. It was discussed, sometimes at great length, with a couple of shots from the film, and an extended trailer. No, we didn’t get to see Gort, but WETA is doing the work on him now, and things are still very close to the vest. Aside from Connelly being VERY much out of place, barely talking, I’d come in fresh to this, and personally am still wondering why it’s being remade to begin with.

Max Payne: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Chris Bridges (a.k.a., the artist formerly known as Ludacris) and John Moore (The Omen) discuss the film which is coming out in October. Wahlberg clearly had fun and played up to the crowd, and everyone talked about how fun it was to do it, meaning how cool it was to fire weapons all day. Moore talked about their own little version of “bullet time” that was employed for the film. Aside from an extended trailer cut to a live version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” this was a bit of a yawner.

Wolverine: Ole Wolverine himself Hugh Jackman came onstage as an unannounced surprise to throngs of delirious hysterics. After shaking the hand of Len Wein, the creator of the comic book icon, Jackman was happy to finally actually be onstage, as he’d apparently missed the X-Men presentations that occurred in previous Cons.  I’m going to rattle off the cast here; Ryan Reynolds (The Nines) as Deadpool, Liev Schreiber (The Sum of All Fears) as Sabretooth, Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights as Gambit, to name a few who appear in the trailer. And it’s loaded with action too, which doesn’t hurt. Definitely the one people will be looking forward to in ‘09, unless the GI Joe teaser comes strong.

As a side note; what was particularly interesting about the Fox presentation was that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people got in early so they could be ready for Summit Pictures’ presentation of Twilight. Everyone around my wife and I was there in their “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” shirts, whatever that means, but unfortunately I was called away for other events. I’m told though that the Twilight footage was essentially an extended version of the second trailer with the climatic ballet room sequence, and everyone ate it up. As they should I suppose. But I thought it was a little funny that the Fox gang seemed to trot out their products to hordes of Twilight fans, without knowing what they were getting into. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Watchmen: Try as I might to stay away from the masses, I snuck in for a second, where Zack Snyder (300) and the cast were discussing the film. Aside from an extended trailer, more shots of the heroes were shown which really illustrated Snyder’s vision and faithfulness to the source material, and since this is being released in March, expect some more mad money on a Snyder production.

The Spirit: Frank Miller (Sin City) might be an influential comic book figure, but he needs to lay off the liquor or something. At times he seemed to ramble, and cast members Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Jaime King (Blow) seemed to notice. Still though, the footage that was shown of the film looks good, done visually much in the same way that Sin City was. While there’s humor, there are also a couple of required action sequences that look impressive as well. A concern I have a little with this film is that it might not seem to possess the spark of similar comic book films that possess a similar visual style, but I hope I’m proved wrong in this because at least from what I saw, The Spirit could potentially be a good film.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Showed up a little late to the game on this one, as I was drinking with some of the cast of ABC Family’s Samurai Girl, which appears to be a Buffy-ish show, except without some of the wit and wisdom. But I will say this about Kevin Smith, he’s got some fans in the biz, for sure, and now in this film, he’s got a couple members of the Judd Apatow stock company in Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Justin Long (Accepted) together in this film that looks pretty funny. Bonus points for Long’s, er, “moment” with Brandon Routh. Yes, that Brandon Routh, from Superman Returns. Aside from listening to Rogen’s kind of funny Ian McKellen joke and Jason Mewes looking very impressive all cleaned up from addiction, Zack and Miri comes out in October hopefully, and should be worth the hubbub, even if they might have to change the title.

Terminator Salvation: You know, Christian Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard(?) aside, McG seems to carry himself as a bit of a pompous arse. Why exactly would we want to see a film about a battle with first-generation terminator robots? Why would Arnold Schwarzenegger even consider appearing in this? Ugh. To be fair, McG (Charlie’s Angels) likes paying homage to the previous three films, even including attendees who dressed like Robert Patrick and Linda Hamilton from T2 on stage with him, along with an Asian kid whose Arnold accent seemed to venture into Walken-esque territory. He showed an extended teaser of sorts, without any CG shots in it, and the results? Meh. I counted nods to The Road Warrior and The Great Escape in there, along with something that looked visually a little like Charlie’s Angels, right now to the hot chick almost taking her top off. I’ve got to say I liked the teaser in front of Dark Knight more than I did this stuff, and unlike some of the buzz so far, am concerned that this “reboot” might nuke the franchise from orbit.

Pineapple Express: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sneak into the preview screenings that apparently were going on in town, and the footage that Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin), Rogen and gang brought seemed a little to be desired. It seemed like they basically brought stuff from the website or something. One of the scenes came from the Superbad DVD. But come on, you know what this film is going to be about, you’re either going to go see it or you’re not. Oh, and Green Hornet is still on the track of getting made, so yay to that.

Well, that’s the short story on the film side. A quick note on things to come, expect a review of Tropic Thunder in the very near future, along with TV Verdict thoughts from the Heroes and Lost panels, including some teasing of Heroes 3^rd season, as the opener was aired in its entirely exclusively for the Comic Con folks. Until next time, get the funk out your minds and into your hearts people!