The big question this weekend is whether Pineapple Express can dethrone The Dark Knight for the top spot.   Unless you’re homeless, in which case the question is still "Can ya spare some change?" like always.  Opening this weekend:

Pineapple Express
You can read my review here.  Not bad, but I’d recommend getting high first.  Unless you’re a kid, in which case, like, stay home and eat your vitamins or whatever.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Seems to be getting mostly positive reviews that are all, "It’s great for teenage girls!"  Which is basically saying "People who love horrible pieces of shit will love this horrible piece of shit!"  I’m just kidding, teenage girls.  Now which one of you bitches wants to catch a movie?  Like to see them pants travel down around your ankles, you know what I’m sayin’?  *high fives the guys, hip thrusts*     

(Limited Release)
Bottle Shock
Isn’t that like, two in the pink, a bottle in the ass?  Seriously though, I’ve never heard of this movie.

Beer for My Horses
Whiskey for my abortion. Can’t Toby Keith and Larry the Cable Guy die in a meth lab explosion or something already?  I’m a country boy myself and grew up working on farms and all that, and most country people I know try not to act out all those embarrassing country stereotypes. At least the Cable Guy had a sense of irony once upon a time, Toby Keith’s a white minstrel show who thinks he’s an artist. Oh hey look, they both spent their formative years in the suburbs.  Color me surprised. 

Elegy
Penelope Cruz’s tits for the win.  Anyone else weirded out by the fact that Ben Kingsley’s been in seven movies this year?  Seven.  It’s barely August.  Does he even sleep?

Hell Ride
Critically eviscerated.  Currently tracking 9% on RT.  Wanna hear a quote from one of the positive reviews?  "Both dull and pretentious."  Seriously, that counted as a positive review.  The problem is that Eric Balfour’s in this.  It’s okay to hate someone because you don’t like their face if they’re not ethnic, right?

*Takes off propeller beanie, puts on critic hat (a foam cowboy hat with "CRITIC" written on it in sharpie)*

Everyone knows Pineapple Express is a stoner movie.  The interesting thing about it is that each scene plays out like reality as experienced by a stoned person.  First you get thrown into an unfamiliar situation that you feel like you weren’t ready to deal with yet.  "Huh? Aw, man."  Next, as the reality starts to set in, the events start to wash over you and you settle into a comfort zone.  Then, once you’ve achieved proper perspective, the absurdity of it all gets to you and everything’s silly and hilarious.  The laughter reaches a crescendo, but as you come down, you get an empty feeling where you can’t remember exactly what was so funny.

Seth Rogen plays Dale Denton, a 25-year-old Process Server dating an 18-year-old high school chick.  He smokes weed and listens to talk radio all day, and though he’s been buying from dealer Saul (James Franco) for two months, Denton sees the relationship as strictly business, and only puts up with lonely Saul’s friendly overtures insofar as he doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. Yet when Denton witnesses a murder, Saul’s the first person he thinks to call.  Their mutual neediness, along with that of Saul’s dealer, played by Danny McBride, becomes the driving force of the movie.

One of Pineapple Express’ strengths is that the plot, whose major players are all stoners or pot dealers at some level of the game, is dominated by characters who are all kinda dense.  It’s a nice change from the kind of "criminal mastermind" movies we’re all used to, and I can’t help but think, more true to life.

As expected, James Franco’s committed, spot-on stoner is the highlight of the movie (though Craig Robinson as the eccentric, ambiguously gay hitman is pretty damned good too).  He and Seth Rogen have an easy chemistry, and Franco gets most of the good lines.  The problem is, the script is a little "talky".  It seems like every scene has five minutes of back and forth between Franco and Rogen.  It has a dry, Seinfeldian humor to it.  It’s sharp, but the pattern gets a little tiresome, with Franco asking three follow-up questions about everything Rogen says.  Seems like some of the fat could’ve been trimmed.  Then again, it’s sort of an accurate representation of the stoner psyche – it uses repetition to lull you into a hypnotized stupor before the humor can really do its work.  There were some good moments that broke from the formula, like Danny McBride’s throwaway one liner about his tiny pistol, "I used to carry this when I was a prostitute," but not enough.

Hiring indie director David Gordon Green was a smart move – the movie has that authentic, one-camera-on-location feel, as opposed to say, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, where everything felt like a three-walled set and the actors played to an audience like theater.  Pineapple Express is much more visually dynamic, which seems like icing in a comedy, but is still important. The action sequences, though, are all a little too campy.  The slapstick is occasionally cute, but never really goes beyond cuteness (does it ever?).  Plus, how many times can we see someone beat someone up and then apologize for it?

Another problem is that all the playfully gay, homoerotic I-love-you-man stuff feels a little forced.  Franco, Rogen, and McBride are all supposed to be starved for human companionship and that’s a big part of the premise, but they overdo the hetero male love affairs.  It’s a nice idea, but it worked better in Superbad where it was unexpected and didn’t feel so much like a comedy crutch.

All in all, it’s a lovable little movie, and it’s funny even though it drags at times.  I’d recommend it, but I’d also recommend getting high first.  Also – they ruined a ton of funny parts by putting them in the preview (see: James Franco kicking out the cop car window, which would’ve been hilarious had I not already seen it) and then left me waiting the entire movie for both the Huey Lewis theme song and that cool little Paper Planes song from the trailer, both which never came.  Wass up wit dat?

Grade: B- 

*puts propeller beanie back on, lights fart*  Ta da! 

This half-month’s Rolling Stone has a fairly informative feature on Pineapple Express. One new tidbit is that director David Gordon Green, who always seemed like an odd choice given that his previous films were all indie dramas, was Danny McBride‘s idea. 

Apatow and Rogen had met the actor Danny McBride on Knocked Up. Eventually, they cast McBride as Red in Pineapple Express. Just as important, they listened when McBride sang the praises of director David Gordon Green, his former college classmate [at North Carolina School of the Arts].  Green has spent his entire career directing critically acclaimed micro-indie films, including All the Real Girls and George Washington. Green signed on and immediately saw Franco’s role as key to the film. "I remember seeing True Romance with Brad Pitt as the stoner, and everyone in the audience cheering whenever he came on the screen," says Green. "I always wanted to know – what’s his life like? That’s what I wanted from James."  

Using Floyd from True Romance as a character template is a pretty sweet idea. But can’t a guy say nice things about another guy without it being described as "Singing his praises?" That makes it sound really super queer.

More stuff from the article after the jump.

Franco hung out with stoners for research.  Sadly, it wasn’t you.

Before shooting, Apatow’s assistant, Andrew Epstein, and Franco spent days with pot smokers in the Los Angeles area, trying to capture the laid-back vibe.  "James doesn’t smoke, but he could just sit there for hours and observe and talk with the guys," says Epstein.  One of the pot guys was eventually hired as a crew member so he could provide on-set guidance [I really hope he had a nametag that said "Pot Guy".]

Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone there, Cheech, James Franco doesn’t smoke weed?  Have you watched this clip?  But that’s the story apparently – Seth Rogen is the real-life stoner, Franco the laid-back intellectual. In fact Rogen was originally set to play the drug dealer in the movie until Apatow had them switch, for shits and giggles.  Some of their real-life interaction: 

"I just don’t want to say it in front of him," says Franco, jerking a finger toward his friend.  He flashes the killer grin that launched a thousand detention fantasies. [Wait, what?  Did the writer just make a prison rape reference?] But the smile quickly fades and he doesn’t cough up the goods.

"Do it, James," says Rogen, his ’07 Jew-fro replaced by a security-guard buzz cut. "I need to know. I promise. I won’t laugh."

Franco proceeds.

"I’m going to Paris to learn French.  I eventually want to get a Ph.D. in literature, and a lot of the programs want you to be able to read in two languages."

Franco glances at his pal with worry.  Rogen gives his best "I’m listening" nod.  Franco continues.

"Then I’m going to be collaborating with an artist named Carter.  It’s on an installation he’s doing at an art gallery."

Silence.  Rogen furrows his brow, looks at Franco and solemnly nods his head.  "That’s cool."  Franco exhales.

But then Rogen’s straight face deserts him.  Out comes his giant bear of a laugh.  "No, it is cool, but it’s also a little gay."

After that, Franco plans to take a break from Hollywood to study writing at Columbia (The same program in which I’m currently enrolled, incidentally.  What?  Stop looking at me like that…).  Rogen’s next project is Funny People with Apatow and Adam Sandler, and working on his script for Green Hornet.  My plan is the nachos, possibly with extra cheese, thanks for asking.  

Seth Rogen is on the cover of this month’s GQ “Comedy Issue” (Hey, you know what’s funny?  Wearing designer shoes and secretly liking men!  Gun fingaz!).  Despite being on the cover of such a lame magazine, Rogen proves to be a man after my own heart by dissing both Michael Bay and Entourage. 

First the funnyguy says that he’s the reason—or at least part of the reason—his pal Jonah Hill turned down a role in director Michael Bay’s Transformers sequel.  "I can see if Steven Spielberg’s calling you, asking you to do something, how that’s hard to turn down," Rogen tells writer Alex Pappademas. "But what I said to Jonah was, ‘You want to make a movie about fightin’ robots? Make your own movie about fightin’ robots. You can do that. That’s on the table now.’ "

It sure is, right next to the bong shaped like a cock.

The 26-year-old Rogen, who stars with James Franco in the upcoming stoner flick Pineapple Express, also takes a shot at Entourage. Sounds like he still may have some hard feelings toward HBO because years ago the suits at the cable network rejected a pilot that he wrote with Jason Segel and a pre-The School of Rock Jack Black.  "I just remember feeling really bitter," Rogen says. We thought the stuff we were writing was funny—and it’s pretty much the exact same stuff that we’re doing now—and it just seemed crazy that no one else liked it. You start to question your own sanity. Like, ‘Our HBO pilot isn’t funny, but Entourage is?’ "

I love that he’s ripping Entourage, and the fact that he’s doing it in GQ is pretty ballsy, considering the ultimate life goal of 70% of GQ’s readership is wear expensive clothes and be friends with a famous person.

After the jump, watch the first TV spot for Pineapple Express (full trailer here, red-band here, theme song here).  Normally I’d be annoyed with the simplistic “look everyone, drugs are cool!” approach (not that drugs aren’t cool…), but I’m actually excited for this movie.  It just seems well put-together, and the dialog back-and-forths seem genuine.  They do the small things well, almost as if they have actual first-hand experience with human interaction.  It’s a nice change from George Lucas, who lives in a cave and eats babies, wearing a diaper made of your money.  My diaper, meanwhile, is made of de-clawed kittens.

[Thanks to Robo for the tip]