The Screengrab : pineapple express

In Other Blogs: Knowing Me, Knowing You

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

At Scanners, Jim Emerson weighs in on Roger Ebert’s Knowing bafflement. “It's one thing to be the voice in the crowd pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes. It's very different to feel like you're the only one who's cheering an Emp you feel is magnificently attired…But critical opinion isn't an electoral contest where winners and losers are determined by some (largely illusory) consensus. Not many years ago, the general public would not have had any idea of what many critics outside their own town had said about a film -- nor would they have known how each and every movie performed at the box office weekend after weekend.”

David Frank of Rope of Silicon puts his trust in Ebert. “In trendy sushi bars across the country a quiet buzz hums among kids wearing black-rimmed glasses and Alamo Drafthouse T-shirts. They wonder if Mr. E ate some magical Freaky Friday fortune cookie with Ben Lyons — not than any of these curious folk would admit to seeing any version of Freaky Friday. Has the man given up? Is he losing it?...I haven’t seen Knowing. Which means I can’t say whether I agree with Ebert or not. Regardless of whether I think Knowing is junk or treasure, I do know the man has not lost it. He has not gone Earl Dittman on us. He really does believe Knowing is a great science-fiction film despite whatever you, your mom and your favorite hipper-than-thou Internet curmudgeon thinks. And that’s why I love Roger Ebert. He’s his own man.”

Beyond the Multiplex looks at “a completely miscellaneous grab bag of indie openings,” including the intriguing Severed Ways. “Impressive and also absolutely ludicrous, this is the movie you need to recommend to that suburban metalhead cousin in desperate need of having his mind blown. Purportedly based on an episode from the Vinland Sagas, in which two 11th-century Norsemen are left on their own to fend for themselves in unknown North America, writer-director-actor Tony Stone's Severed Ways is something like a DIY combination of black-metal video, Italian horror film, The Blair Witch Project and some really slow, nature-obsessed art movie like Old Joy.”

At The House Next Door, Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard converse about two “unfortunately overlooked and/or unfairly maligned” films, David Gordon Green’s Undertow and Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris. Says Harris: “I wanted to talk about Undertow largely because it's been forgotten: you're right that almost no one brings it up these days in talking about Green, who's mostly known for his first two films and now the Judd Apatow collaboration Pineapple Express. Ebert's rave aside, I believe Undertow got decidedly mixed reviews upon release, including its fair share of very negative ones, but on the whole I wouldn't say it's maligned so much as simply overlooked. That's unfortunate, because in my opinion it is Green's best film thus far, the film that comes closest to fulfilling the tremendous promise he's displayed in all his features. It's not a perfect film by any means, not a masterpiece, but in its own strange way it is ‘great,’ a baroque fable about the loss of childhood innocence and the totemic power of family.”

Let’s wrap it up with this week’s installment of List-o-Mania courtesy of Spoutblog: 10 Films That Saved Their Franchises. Like, uh…Attack of the Clones? “It made the least amount of money of the three Star Wars prequels, but Attack of the Clones was the trilogy’s saving grace, because after the ‘George Lucas ruined my childhood!’ disappointments of The Phantom Menace, this second (or fifth?) installment of the franchise got the old fans excited again by alluding to (and leading in the direction of) more characters and events of the original movies, while overall featuring a better plot and more satisfying action.” I’m fainting with damned praise.

Reviews By Request: The Foot Fist Way (2006, Jody Hill)

Paul Clark — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

For the next three weeks, I’ll be reviewing three movies you requested in last week’s column. Polling for future Reviews By Request columns will begin again on January 30.

Over the past few decades, there has emerged in American popular culture something that can be called the “comedy of awkwardness.” In this style of comedy, which draws heavily from British humor, the comedy comes not merely from a character’s strange behavior, but also the discomfort their behavior causes. Often, in comedies of this sort, it’s the surrounding characters’ dumbfounded reactions that generate the most laughs. Comedy of awkwardness has become an integral part of some of the most popular and acclaimed sitcoms in this country like The Office and 30 Rock, and it’s begun making inroads into movies as well.

However, to successfully pull off the comedy of awkwardness, one must walk a thin line. To begin with, the character who generates the discomfort has to think he’s acting perfectly normally. If there’s any sense that this person is aware of how crazy he looks, the comedy is lost. In addition, the audience has to get a sense that the people who surround the crazy character acknowledge, if only to themselves, how strange his actions are. Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way gets only the first rule right, while ignoring the second altogether. So in spite of a fine and wholly committed performance by Danny McBride in the lead role, the film never takes off as comedy, coming off not so much funny as simply odd.

The Foot Fist Way focuses on the character of Fred Simmons (McBride), a boorish one-time tae kwon do champion-turned-small town instructor. Fred presides over his dojo with the authority of a drill sergeant, barking out orders and insisting that his students address him as “sir.” Meanwhile, Fred’s life begins to fall apart when he discovers that his wife cheated on him with the manager at her new job. Soon, Fred falls apart and becomes consumed with rage and grief, surely the last emotions one wants to see from a man who makes his living instructing people- children, even- how to fight. Fred discovers that his wife’s boss’ name is Mr. Fisher, and when he assumes that a student, also named Fisher, is the boss’ son, Fred decides to take out his rage on the boy, with predictable results.

But let’s look at that particular scene. A grown man beating the hell from a young boy is not inherently funny, but there are comic possibilities for such a scene if done right. Unfortunately, The Foot Fist Way doesn’t deliver. Hill shows McBride fighting the boy in long shot, but never takes the time to show us how the other characters in the scene feel about this. Just one well-timed reaction shot from a disbelieving onlooker could have salvaged some laughs, but that reaction shot never comes. The whole film is like that- plenty of promise, but very little end result. There are a few scenes that work, such as Fred’s misguided attempts to seduce a pretty female student or a weepy monologue in which he schools a young student in life’s harsh realities, but many more that don’t. By the time the story has become a mano a mano between Fred and karate movie superstar Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (played by the film’s co-writer, Ben Best), the movie’s comedic potential has long since been squandered.

It’s a shame, since McBride’s performance is really very good, in large part because he’s completely convincing in the role. I’ve never taken a martial arts class, but I can imagine that many of the instructors are more or less like Fred, attracted less to its traditions than to the power teaching gives them. Tae kwon do is rooted in self-discipline, but my guess is that most students sign up for martial arts so they can learn to fight, and when one is teaching people who are clearly weaker and less skilled, there can be a temptation to prove one’s superiority by cutting others down to size. In many ways, Fred is the flip side of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character in David Mamet’s Redbelt, who is more of an old-school purist. Fred, on the other hand, enjoys being in control and doesn’t know any better way to go about it than by intimidating others, and McBride effortlessly projects the arrogance of a man who harbors no doubts whatsoever that he can kick your ass, while also showing occasional deference to those who are more powerful than he is. It makes perfect sense that when Fred’s wife tries to patch up their marriage, Fred insists on telling her, “I’m the stronger man, and you’re the weaker woman.” Although considering what a ringer she's already put him through, is he trying to convince her of this, or himself?

If nothing else, The Foot Fist Way should be remembered as that movie that introduced Hollywood to the brilliance of Danny McBride. McBride had previously appeared as the scene-stealing Bust-Ass in David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls, but with this film, he quickly made fans of Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow, and has since been cast in such high-profile films as Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and the upcoming big-screen version of Land of the Lost. But while McBride’s comic skills are undeniable, there are also moments in The Foot Fist Way that hint at darker undercurrents, leading me to think that he might become a fine character actor if given the chance. The Foot Fist Way isn’t much of a movie, but it announces McBride as a talent to watch.

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon)

Heath Ledger was penciled in here even before The Dark Knight was released. Philip Seymour Hoffman's work as the Penguin…er, the potentially pedophilic priest in Doubt should secure him a nod. Michael Sheen is probably the lead in Frost/Nixon, but his publicist will push him for this category. Josh Brolin drinks your Milk. That leaves one spot for the other comeback kid, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder.

WINNER
Ledger, who will not attend the ceremony.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Leonardo Di Caprio, Revolutionary Road
Ralph Fiennes, The Reader

Being that Heath Ledger gave an excellent performance and then went and died, there is no way he won't be nominated for The Dark Knight. For the same reason it isn't unlikely he'll win. Otherwise Josh Brolin stands a fighting chance. Especially given that his performance as Harvey Milk's killer in Milk is the type of role this category was made for. Well, that and taking care of actors that for whatever reason didn't end up in best leading actor. Which would explain why we find Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire in here. Let's face it; he just isn't famous enough (yet) to get nominated for Best Actor. Ralph Fiennes seems like a perennial nominee; if he didn't get a golden man for Schindler's List there is no way he will this year, but consider the nomination a consolation prize. Leonardo DiCaprio will be in here too, but we all know he's just filler.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

We all agree that this is Ledger’s to lose, right? Likewise, Brolin and Oscar perennial Hoffman are looking pretty locked at this point. With The Soloist moved to spring, Tropic Thunder is the best chance for the Academy to honor the clean-and-sober Downey, while filling the annual comic scene-stealer slot for this category. The race for the final nomination is pretty wide open. Nominating Dev Patel here would be the voters’ best shot at giving crowd-pleaser Slumdog an acting nomination, but while a Patel nomination would likely signal a Best Picture win for the film, the actor’s only major nomination to date has come from the SAG, who are generally more inclined to recognize youth performances. Besides, will the voters really go for his relatively colorless performance, which is really a lead? Other possibilities include Happy-Go-Lucky’s driving instructor from hell Eddie Marsan (who’s been cleaning up the critics’ awards), or such reliable character actors as Bill Irwin (Rachel Getting Married) and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road). But I’m predicting a second supporting nomination for Milk in James Franco, whose relationship with Sean Penn’s Harvey is the emotional center of the film.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

So, yes, of course Heath Ledger will be nominated and win, resulting in a two-hanky “on-behalf-of” acceptance speech from...hmm...Michelle Williams? Christopher Nolan? Well, that’s a guessing game for another time. And the nomination for Ledger’s whiteface performance will book-end with Robert Downey, Jr.’s blackface role in Tropic Thunder (overshadowed in the comeback kid department by Mickey Rourke’s meatface role in The Wrestler, natch). Philip Seymour Hoffman and Josh Brolin seem like safe, SAG approved bets for their solid performances in Doubt and Milk respectively, and while I liked Tom Cruise’s what-the-hell performance in Tropic Thunder a lot more than some of my Screengrab colleagues (and think it would be a hoot if the Academy followed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s lead and nominated him), I think the fifth nod will officially go to James Franco for Milk (but really for Pineapple Express).

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (The Soloist)
Ralph Fiennes (The Reader)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Liev Schreiber (Defiance)

Schreiber, a terrific actor who’s long been ignored by most of Hollywood, will get the nomination Defiance earns. Fiennes will be a perfunctory pick, but Brolin’s nod as Dan White will be well-deserved. Downey gets the nomination for The Soloist because he’s had an amazing year, but they won’t nominate him for a comedy (Tropic Thunder) or an action blockbuster (Iron Man). In the end, though, who’s kidding who? Especially since The Dark Knight won’t be getting anything else, Ledger is – forgive me – a mortal lock for his unforgettable turn as the Joker. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Though Brolin deserves his nomination, it’ll come at the expense of James Franco and Emile Hirsch in the same movie.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
JOSH BROLIN, ROBERT DOWNEY, JR., JAMES FRANCO/RALPH FIENNES (TIE), PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, HEATH LEDGER

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
HEATH LEDGER

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

DVD Digest for January 6, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week brings a cavalcade of crap from the lean seasons of 2008. But if you’re willing to wade through it, there are treasures to be found.

DVD of the Week: The best news in a relatively slow week is the much-anticipated arrival of two very different films by the great British director Michael Powell. For years, fans of Powell and his longtime collaborator Emeric Pressburger have yearned for a DVD of one of their greatest films, 1946’s Stairway to Heaven, also known as A Matter of Life and Death. Finally, the film has arrived in a new pressing from Sony, complete with an introduction by longtime Powell fan and friend Martin Scorsese and an interview with film scholar Ian Christie. But wait, there’s more! Paired in the set with Stairway is Powell’s late-period film Age of Consent. I have yet to see the film, which by most accounts is fairly minor Powell. Yet how can one possibly resist a movie that stars James Mason and a luscious young (and often-nude) Helen Mirren, set against some lovely Australian settings? Not me, that’s for sure.

This week’s most notable recent releases on DVD are a pair of 2008’s highest-profile pot-themed movies- David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express (Sony, also Blu-Ray) and Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Also this week is the fiction debut of documentarian Jessica Yu, Ping Pong Playa (Image, also Blu-Ray), plus a quintet of shame: Nicolas Cage in Bangkok Dangerous (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Vin Diesel in Babylon A.D. (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Pacino and DeNiro cashing their paychecks in Righteous Kill (Anchor Bay, also Blu-Ray); Disaster Movie (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray), the latest in the seemingly deathless cycle of cut-rate parodies from the Friedberg/Seltzer team; and the right-wing spoof/jeremiad An American Carol (Universal). Whew.

This week’s big TV on DVD is Battlestar Galactica Season 4.0 (Universal). And in Blu-Ray only news, this week sees the release of Peter Jackson’s King Kong (Universal), the pigskin drama Friday Night Lights (Universal), and Season 1 of Showtime’s Dexter (Paramount).

The Year in Trailer Review: Paul Clark's Favorite Trailers of 2008, Part 2

Paul Clark — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Like last year’s trailer for Cloverfield or even the teaser for The Matrix, the first spot for Eagle Eye was a brilliant bit of teasing, tantalizing audiences by saying just enough about the plot to reel them in without spoiling any of the movie’s secrets. The Eagle Eye teaser does little more than establish the characters and set up the film’s premise, but that’s enough. Reviews for the film convinced me to stay away, but really, how could it possibly live up to this?

How do you boil down a four and a half hour movie about Che Guevara into a 2-minute trailer? If you’re Steven Soderbergh, you start by appealing to the Che mythos through some interview footage, intercut with scenes of him triumphing in battle and making his philosophies on revolution clear at the United Nations. Then, without warning, you switch gears into Che’s fateful final years, in which his success began to dry up, and even change aspect ratios accordingly. The Che teaser is nothing flashy, but it gets the job done extremely well, boiling down the film’s trajectory while leaving interesting moviegoers wanting more.

Roland Emmerich has become Hollywood’s reigning master of disaster largely by inventing increasingly bizarre ways to besiege the people of Earth. With his latest he imagines that the titular date, the year in which the Mayan calendar has foretold the world to end, as the time of many and varied apocalyptic disasters. But for anyone who thinks Emmerich doesn’t realize how absurd his stories are, I give you this trailer, in which he visualizes a Tibetan monastery being washed away by a massive tidal wave. For that final touch, he sets it to Wendy Carlos’ music from The Shining, just to show you he knows what he’s doing. 2012 could very well suck, but you know I’ll be there opening weekend.

Finally, I probably watched the red-band trailer for Pineapple Express more times than any other trailer this year. What can I say? It’s a blast, even if it does spoil many of the best laughs in the movie.

2008 in Review: Paul Clark's Favorite Movie Moments

Paul Clark — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Starting tomorrow, the writers of Screengrab will be unveiling their lists of the top 10 films of 2008. But before that begins, I’d like to post a different sort of list of highlights from the past year. For those of you who’ve only started reading recently, I used to write a bi-weekly column called “The Movie Moment,” in which I’d explore in depth some of my favorite scenes from movies both old and new. This past spring, I had to put the column on indefinite hiatus for various reasons, but I wanted to bring it back for this week only so I could celebrate some of my favorite Movie Moments of 2008. However, I had such a devil of time trying to narrow down my list that I’ve decided to simply list all of the moments that made me laugh out loud, cry like a baby, bite my nails uncontrollably, or which otherwise rocked my world this past year. This list is by no means meant to be taken as comprehensive, but merely were the moments which readily sprang to mind while I was writing the piece. So without further ado, I give you…

2008: The Year in Movie Moments:

(in no particular order)

The little boy’s confession notes- In Bruges

“No-no-no. I kill the bus driver.” - The Dark Knight

The security guard makes his rounds - Man on Wire

Sidney’s musical vows - Rachel Getting Married

The kiss that launched a thousand lens flares - Silent Light (only one of several transcendent moments in the film- the swimming-hole scene or the epic rainstorm might just as easily have qualified)

Mike’s late-night visit (or really, anytime Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” is played) - The Strangers

Peekaboo nudity - The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

Harry unveils the machine - Burn After Reading (honestly, who could possibly enjoy THAT?)

Madame Gaudens’ confession - A Girl Cut in Two

Incident at the race track - My Winnipeg

Most hilarious random line of the year: “When it comes to women, you’re Michael Jordan. I’m… Bill Laimbeer.” - Baghead

The new army suits up for battle - Role Models

Alex takes a shower - Paranoid Park

Brandi forgets her cell phone - Stuck

Black Kold Medina puts on a show - Trouble the Water

Runaway penguin - Encounters at the End of the World

Jung-rae Kim diagrams his neuroses - Woman on the Beach

Alex’s sex surprise, both inevitable and strangely erotic - XXY

The director’s big exit - Tropic Thunder

Most unlikely tearjerking moment of the year: Fred Knittle sings “Fix You”, Young@Heart

Three-way fist fight: Seth Rogen vs. James Franco vs. Danny McBride - Pineapple Express

The Richard McGuire segment - Fear(s) of the Dark

Ninjas! - In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (yes, really)

And finally, my five favorite openings and finales of the year:

Perfect openings: “Put on Your Sunday Clothes”, WALL*E; Sunrise, Silent Light; The piano, The Silence Before Bach; The Jean-Claude Van Damme Stunt Spectacular, JCVD; The Legend of Po, Kung Fu Panda

Great final scenes (no spoilers): Synecdoche, New York, The Duchess of Langeais, Shine a Light, The Visitor, Burn After Reading

I would invite all of you to share some of your favorites in the comments section. After all, I’m surely missing at least a couple of really good ones.

All The Real Girls Is One of the Most Influential Movies of the Decade

Vadim Rizov — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Over the weekend I watched All The Real Girls for the first time since it came out for a couple of reasons. One, it's been a weird year for David Gordon Green fans, watching his two weakest films (Snow Angels — with its nervy naturalism eventually undercut by an all-too-schematic doom-and-gloom plot and heavy-handed symbols straight from the worst middlebrow novels — and the pointless '80s simulacrum of Pineapple Express) come out in quick succession. Was I overrating Green based on false memories, or is he just going through a weird transitional phase? Two, I was wondering if All The Real Girls is secretly one of the most influential films of the decade.

The answers are no and yes. Sort of.

Five years down the line, All The Real Girls retains its position as one of the most visually distinctive American independent films produced. Working with immensely talented DP Tim Orr, Green sets pretty much every scene to "stun." Unfortunately, that hasn't really rubbed off on followers; as in George Washington, Green wanted to bring a new way of looking at poor regional areas to the screen, making them as gorgeous as any movie set in ostensibly pretty settings. Instead, we got the self-consciously ugly Ballast. Oh well.

All The Real Girls' true influence extends in two directions, mostly pernicious. There's the issue of score: as in George Washington, Green loves droning, post-rock guitars suffusing everything in an atmospheric haze, punctuated by the occasional indie-rock ballad (Will Oldham for the opening!). I don't recall this happening in independent films before Green, but it seems to be everywhere now (e.g. Bubble, Half Nelson). This isn't really that big a problem, though sometimes it makes movies blur together. Presumably this and the post-Juno wave of twee pop soundtracks will get into a battle to the death.

The other influence is a broader, thematic one. All The Real Girls is nothing if not embarrassingly unmediated in presenting all the soppy and jejune things young couples can say to each other when no one is listening. Sometimes this leads to emotional honesty; unfortunately, occasionally it leads to stupidly "quirky" lines like Zooey Deschanel's infamous "I had a dream that you grew a garden on a trampoline and I was so happy I invented peanut butter." This realm of affectation and self-conscious quirk in the name of emotional truth (as opposed to what it actually is: stupid, youthful self-indulgence of everything you think being interesting to other people) is, of course, directly how we got to Garden State and all its off-spring. In many respects, Zach Braff's emo template seems more than ever like an unacknowledged steal of All The Real Girls' aesthetic and proclivity for mawkishness without any of the things that made it interesting. On the bright side, as Matt Dentler once said, it also seems like a direct path to mumblecore. Unless that makes you angry too.

Morning Deal Report: Freaks and Straights

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Fresh off the Pineapple Express, David Gordon Green is preparing to lead the Freaks of the Heartland. The horror flick will be based on a Dark Horse graphic novel by Steve Niles. The “six-part 2004 series about the horrible secret of a rural Middle American town involves Trevor Owen's attempts to protect his ‘monster’ of a 6-year-old younger brother and Gristlewood Valley's other ‘freaks’ from their parents' worst instincts,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

If you couldn’t get enough of John From Cincinnati, there’s more surf-noir on the way. Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban have optioned Tijuana Straits, a novel by Kem Nunn, who collaborated with David Milch on the aforementioned HBO obscurity. Variety reports: “The novel's about a reclusive ex-surfer drawn into helping a Mexican woman who's being hunted by a killer hired by cartels to silence her before she exposes corruption in Tijuana.”

Rob Reiner, who apparently missed the Blair Witch sequel a few years ago, will direct Book of Shadows for Castle Rock. “The story follows a young man who must embark on the perilous journey of first love and face many trials of maturity while on the dangerous quest to close a mythical tome called Book of Shadows in order to restore balance to the world,” sez THR.

Related:
Face/Off: Judd Apatow and "Pineapple Express"
OST: This Is Spinal Tap

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 24-30, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

My fellow Americans, I am here to humbly accept your nomination of Recapper of the Week in Screengrab! I think we all know it is time for a change. No longer can we sit by, complacent, while the screenwriter of Showgirls turns to Jesus. No longer can we allow Robert Downey Jr. to badmouth The Dark Knight. No longer can we stand by while good men like Phil Nugent and Andrew Osborne face-off over Judd Apatow and Pineapple Express!

No, my friends, this is a time for unity. A time for us to gather together and marvel at the World’s Greatest Animated Shorts – Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five! We must respect the Screengrab Fall Preview Picks of Andrew Osborne and Leonard Pierce, as different as they may be, as equal planks in our broad platform.

Some will tell you Guy Ritchie is caught up in the zeitgeist of slaggery. Some will insist that Fascination and Meet the Spartans are actually watchable movies. Some will wonder when Robert Zemeckis went bad, or why Terrence Howard would record an album, or under what circumstances David Lynch met Devo.

We don’t have all the answers! But we do know that That Guy is Bob Hoskins! We do know that Sukiyaki Western Django is some fucked-up shit! We do know that An American Carol is coming out whether we like it or not! And if we all stick together we can survive anything, even RocknRolla or a sequel to The Strangers !

God bless the Screengrab, and let’s make it a Wet Hot American Summer!

Face/Off: Judd Apatow and "Pineapple Express"

Phil Nugent — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

["Face/Off" is an irregularly scheduled recurring segment in which two Screengrab regulars have an exchange of views on some recent fixture of the movie scene. In the exclusive behind-the-scenes photo below, taken at a typical Screengrab "pitch" session, Andrew Osborne [l.] and Phil Nugent [r.] persuade their delighted editor to allow them to revive this much-loved feature.]

PHIL NUGENT: Andrew, I might as well come right out with it. I grew up as one of the most socially maladjusted members of our society: the comedy geek. So I feel a certain kinship with Judd Apatow. In some ways that do not include material success and worldly achievement, we're even kind of alike. We share the same birthday and have both had dirty thoughts about Leslie Mann. He actually got to marry her, so he may have gotten to act on some of his by now. And as a fan, I go back quite a ways with him. And I'm not talking about no Freaks and Geeks, neither! I'm talking The Ben Stiller Show, baby! It was on that series and the longer-lived The Larry Sanders Show, both of which appeared at a time when I was about to be greeted at my door by a mob wielding flaming torches who had dropped by to suggest that my presence might no longer be welcome at grad school and so was sorely in need of a few chuckles, that Apatow developed his chops as a producer and screenwriter and started making the lasting connections that continue to appear in his work. And last year, when Knocked Up made him an official Hollywood player and Superbad made him a name brand, I was happy for him. After all, for a long time, this was a guy who was best known for creating TV shows (also including Undeclared) that inspired devoted cult followings but couldn't stay on the air for more than a year, or (as with the case of Sick in the Head and the other Apatow pilots that became staples of the "Brilliant but Cancelled" phenomenon) couldn't get on the air at all. Although the Internet has given us a great many wonderful things, I still think that the single best use of it that anyone has ever made came when it was used to publicly disseminate the notorious e-mail exchange between Apatow and Mark Brazill, the small crawling thing best known as creator of That '70s Show, and who thought that, by including a mash-up parody of The Monkees with a stereotypical '90s grunge band on an episode of The Ben Stiller Show, Apatow had ripped off his hackish notion of doing a similar show as a "real" sitcom. It's still a hilarious exchange between a clueless dolt with too much money and a genuine and humane wit (who, okay, probably also already had too much money). But I remember when part of the context of the whole thing was a world in which the dolt was seen as more successful. Not anymore.

Apatow has out his name on a lot of stuff since then, and some of it has been, well, a lot less successful than his best stuff. Pineapple Express was preceded into theaters by Step Brothers, which mostly serves as an announcement that it's time for John C. Reilly to, (A.) put some clothes on, (B.) get back to straight acting roles for a while, and (C.) put some clothes on! Last fall, Reilly was unable to hold together Walk Hard, which tried its damndest to sustain the parodic-skit nature of The Ben Stiller Show for the length of a feature film. One of the most discouraging things about Pineapple Express is that it reminded me of that e-mail exchange, but this time, it's Apatow playing the Mark Brazill role. The idea--and it's what we used to call real "high concept" back before someone decided that it would be the honorable thing to bury that phrase with Don Simpson--is a conventional action comedy with conventional L.A. locations and conventional gunplay and chases and explosive fireballs and shit, but with these stoned doofuses at the center. The movie works best when it suggests pure parody: when Seth Rogan and James Franco stay up late babbling about the plan they're going to implement the next morning, and wind up oversleeping by ten hours, and when they then walk off to begin the busy work of saving their asses, only to get distracted by playing leapfrog and trying to get a caterpillar high. (This lyrical interlude may be the only part of the movie that's as fully charming as the movie's trailer, which made phenomenal use of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", and which was edited in a way that suggested more visual freshness than you get from the film itself. I am of course familiar with the standard criticisms that have been made of Apatow and the work he's been sponsoring as a producer: that he's running a boys' club, that it's politically tone dead and too insular by half, that John C. Reilly really fucking needs to put some clothes on!! But this is the first thing of his that I've seen that strikes me as struggling to meet the conventional halfway, to just take some of his and his performers' quirkier interests and skills--which here basically just comes down to stoner antics--and trying to shoehorn them into a tired action-comedy formula that neither he nor the hired-gun director, David Gordon Green, could care less about even executing with any degree of skill. Yet you, my man, have gone on record as liking this thing! In the name of Cheech and Chong--have you heard they're threatening a comeback movie, which may be something else I'll decide to blame on Judd when I catch my breath--why, sir, why!?

ANDREW OSBORNE: Since you started your critique with praise, I’ll start my defense of the Apatowniverse with my own critiques. For one thing, I thought Superbad was funny but wildly overpraised, and actually (more than Pineapple Express) a prime example of the strained, one-joke dangers of a too-limited thematic range. Jonah Hill’s Seth, Michael Cera’s Evan and, of course, Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s McLovin were all funny and charming, but sophomoric boys club humor without a corrective balance of mature XY and XX perspective eventually just feels like hanging out with sophomore boys (which got old pretty quick even when I was fifteen). A related criticism and possible symptom of Apatow’s more facile bent is his tendency to work with the same dudes over and over again while leaving his female actors (with the notable, understandable exception of Ms. Mann) out of the loop. Busy Phillips was just as funny and awesome as James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel on Freaks and Geeks, but she’s doing TV guest spots ever since while her former male co-stars are headlining one Apatow project after another. Ditto Sarah Hagan, Linda Cardellini (who’s got a steady gig on ER, but still...) not to mention poor Carla Gallo from Undeclared, who at least got cameos in later Apatow projects, although one of them (“Toe-Sucking Girl” in The 40-Year-Old Virgin) I don’t remember and the other (“Period Blood Girl” in Superbad) actually made me feel embarrassed for her. (And, really, would it have killed them to find a place for Knocked Up’s hilarious Charlyne Yi in Pineapple Express?)

I mean, there may be any number of perfectly good reasons why Apatow’s boys keep showing up in movie after movie while the girls fall by the wayside, but it does raise certain troubling questions (except maybe in the case of Katherine Heigl, who got a nice career boost with Knocked Up, only to later denounce the whole notion of a hot chick hooking up with an ugly guy as sexist before reaffirming her feminist street cred by starring opposite dreamy James Marsden in 27 Dresses as a strong, independent woman whose life revolves around fantasies of Prince Charming whisking her off to a perfect wedding).

Yet here’s why I defend the Apatowniverse in general: for one thing, it’s rare for anyone to be associated with even a single outstanding TV show or movie, let alone two of the greatest TV shows in the history of the medium (Larry Sanders, Freaks & Geeks) and a slew of smart, funny, eminently quotable and wildly popular comedies like The 40 Year Old Virgin that aren’t just funny but also have a distinctive personality and philosophy (as opposed to high-concept, anything-for-a-laugh joke factories like the Scary Movie franchise).

Even relative misfires like Walk Hard are fairly innocuous, with occasional classic moments (like Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd and Jason Schwartzman riffing as the Beatles, a scene I could have watched for hours). But it’s the egalitarian humanity of the Apatow brand I find most appealing (and most troubling when it’s missing): in his best work, there are no real villains or laughingstocks: everyone’s an asshole, everyone is foolish, everyone gets a moment of glory. The laughter is with, not at. Mintz-Plasse may be a pencil-neck geek, but he is McLovin, dammit. Mann may come across as shrewish in Knocked Up, but she’s also righteously, hilarious indignant and vulnerable by turns.

There’s much less empathetic character development in Pineapple Express, of course: Craig Robinson’s walk-on performance as a bouncer in Knocked Up was considerably more nuanced than his larger role as a drug dealer in Express, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez (both generally excellent) are essentially wasted as cardboard cartoon characters and the less said about the film’s regressive sub-Long Duk Dong Asian stereotypes the better.

But Apatow’s other strengths are on full display (and by Apatow, of course, I mean his influence on collaborators like director David Gordon Green and writer/star Rogen). Most importantly, the movie had me laughing the whole time, with nary a squirm of boredom or impatience. The action scenes may have been artless when compared to real action movies...but, first of all, Express is a parody and, to be honest, with all the CGI excesses of most 21st century action movies, it’s nice to reconnect with the simple old school pleasures of, say, a simple, straightforward car chase (especially one with distinctive but suspenseful just-this-side of realistic elements like James Franco’s panicky attempt to navigate a speeding vehicle with one foot stuck through a windshield he inadvisably attempted to kick out).

Another Apatow trademark is a certain respect for his audience: unlike any number of movies that cynically recycle tired clichés, situations and phrases (“You the man, dog!”) as if we’re too dumb or lazy to notice, Pineapple Express makes a concerted effort to be as entertaining as possible, surprising us and/or tweaking expectations whenever it can. Rogen’s character doesn’t just survive a near-miss gunshot: there’s also the ickily amusing aftermath. Conversations veer off in loopy, unpredictable directions. And did I also mention it’s just plain funny?

Sure, That ‘70s Show had funny moments despite its flaws, too, and Judd Apatow may be something of an asshole (like many if not all rich, successful people)...and indeed, I’m even willing to believe the humor and humanity of his projects may drop and his asshole quotient may rise the longer he swims with the sharks of Hollwood...but I think it’s still way too early to equate him with a genuine douch-nozzle like Mark Brazill (or at least Brazill’s evil e-mail alter ego)...so let the Apatow backlash backlash begin!

PHIL NUGENT: Your point about the way that Apatow has failed to demonstrate the same stubborn devotion to such female talent as Linda Cardellini and Carla Gallo that he's shown, say, Seth Rogen and James Franco, is well taken, so much so that I regret that I, in my role as the guy trying to start some shit here, didn't mention it myself. When it comes to some comedy writers, I don't feel like complaining about a boy's-club atmosphere because I sort of dread the results if they were to try to write about women, just because they felt they should. (I might think more highly of them as artists and as human beings if natural curiosity compelled them to experiment in that direction, but politically mandated inclusiveness is no friend of comedy.) In Apatow's case, though, there's plenty of evidence that there's a much broader side of himself that he hasn't been exploring. It happens to be the same side that didn't pay the bills for many years. There are many ways to fail in show business; with Freaks and Geeks, Apatow failed the My So-Called Life way, with Internet petitions and reruns on basic cable and reviewers decrying the stupidity of an industry that would just throw away this gem. That's got to be one of the nicer ways to go down, but at the end of the day, you're still someone who couldn't provide job security for all the people who'd turned down other offers to work with you. (Of course, many of the people who are now rich celebrities thanks to their association with Apatow will be quick to tell you that before they met him they couldn't get arrested, but still.)

Looking at the flurry of activity that Apatow has initiated in the last couple of years--including getting projects green-lighted that were based on scripts that had been waiting in the back drawer for some time--I get the impression that he's been trying to create work for his "family", paying them back for sticking with him through the rough times. (Superbad was written so long ago that Seth Rogan had orginally conceived the Jonah Hill role for himself.) In the process, he may be spreading himself, and not just himself, a little thin. You mention Craig Robinson, who in his scene with Leslie Mann outside the club in Knocked Up was able to create a surprisingly full character in one cussword-filled monologue. I expect that he was much happier when he got the script for Pineapple Express and saw that he had a lot more screen time in it, but it comes to so much less. Apatow still has moments of startling inspiration in deciding how best to use these performers; he reportedly made the call that Franco should play the role in Pineapple Express that Rogen had, again, written with himself in mind, and the result is easily the best work that Franco has done in movies, probably the best he's been since, yeah, Freaks and Geeks. And the movie makes terrific use of my man Danny McBride, who in less than three months--the period of time bracketed by the release of The Foot Fist Way and Tropic Thunder--has emerged as the new bad-hair king of Hollywood. (I have a hunch that if Ben Stiller had invited Apatow to the read-through of the Tropic Thunder screenplay, McBride would have walked out of the room with Jack Black's part.) But in his recent productions, there only seems to be two kinds of casting--the outrageously inspired and the by-the-book routine. The cast of Pineapple Express consists of a few people who are squarely in the zone and several talented performers who look as if they're in denial about this being the final draft of the script.

Almost everybody I know loved Knocked Up while confessing to having had "a problem" with it. My own biggest problem with it was a little different from the usual ones I've heard expressed, such as that it gave short shrift to abortion as an option, or that it was implausible that a woman who looked like Katherine Heigl could ever get drunk enough to fuck Seth Rogen. My problem was that, while I had no objection to Rogen's character growing up enough to take on his share of responsibility for raising the child, I didn't think they should have gotten married. I couldn't imagine that union turning out in any way that wouldn't be hellish. Not because Rogen wasn't conventionally attractive enough for Heigl, but because Heigl, unlike everyone else in Rogen's circle, and indeed unlike just about everyone else in the whole movie, her own sister and brother-in-law included, didn't seem to have a funny bone in her body. It says a lot about the cult of standardized beauty that a lot of people felt comfortable saying out loud that Rogen wasn't good-looking enough for her but that I heard very few people ask what the hell he was going to do to keep from dying of boredom after they'd been trapped together for awhile. The fact is, movie audiences have traditionally accepted romantic partners in comedies who looked physically mismatched, such as Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, if both of them were funny; that's the real soul partnership. Heigl herself must have belatedly realized this, since her offscreen complaining about the movie has largely come down to the fact that she didn't get any laughs in it, but based on how eagerly Apatow has jumped to the task to serve funny women when he had them to work with, I have to believe that he sized her up as nice, pretty packaging and choose not to tax her. (You want to see what it looks like when a gorgeous-looking performer who's also gifted and funny is wasted by filmmakers who just want to exploit those physical assets, look at James Franco in thr Spider-man movies.) Since Apatow isn't one of those jackasses (like Al Franken) who's on record as believing that women just aren't funny--he probably gets a reminder of just how funny they can be every time he pisses off his wife--the casting of the dull but handsomely assembled TV soap star as the "normal" one in Knocked Up must be his commercial side talking; it's the part of him that probably thinks that the mass audience won't accept a romantic comedy in which the woman can hold up her end in the quirky wise-cracking department. In Pineapple Express, the commercial side of him is the part that thinks that more people will turn out to watch two comedians doing a stoner routine if somebody is firing machine guns at them, and I think that this time, the commercial side clearly outbalances the quirky, personal side. Which is an ominous development, in my view. Because if Apatow doesn't get back in touch with the side of him that once cared less about audience share and more about making the best use possible of his talents, he's never going to get around to making the movie I really want to see from him: a romantic comedy in which the woman is every bit as funny, maybe as indifferent to conventional definitions of success, and maybe even as much a challenge to conventional standards of attractiveness as the man.

ANDREW OSBORNE: First of all, let me offer you a hearty cyber-handshake for providing the definitive closing argument in the case of Heigl vs. Rogen. It’s so absolutely dead-on, I’m sorry I didn’t think of it myself, but I intend to correct that mistake by taking credit for the idea in every single future argument I have with anyone, for the rest of my life, who bitches about the Rogen/Heigel pairing in Knocked Up. I myself refused to wed 'til I found myself a comical lass who could banter with the best of ‘em...and, frankly, I can’t imagine any better qualification for spousal consideration than a solid sense of humor (which Heigl's Alison Scott definitely lacked, though Rogen’s character, Ben Stone, at least wound up with some pretty cool in-laws)!

And, since you brought it up, I feel the April 2008 Vanity Fair article, “Who Says Women Aren't Funny?” more or less gave the definitive closing argument in the whole tiresome case of “Women Vs. Humor.” As Nora Ephron says in the piece, ““There is no question that there are a million more funny women than there used to be...but everything has more women. There are more women in a whole bunch of places, and this is one of them.” Sounds good to me, though I also agree with the sociological wisdom of a later quote from humorist and Harvard Lampoon alum Patricia Marx: ““Maybe pretty women weren't funny before because they had no reason to be funny. There was no point to it—people already liked you.”

So, there are funny women out there, and I’d like to see Apatow do a better job of utilizing them, because his best stuff isn’t the bad boy buzz of exploding cars and gunplay (however entertaining some of those moments may have been in Pineapple Express, though I thought the entire “crazy cops” subplot in Superbad was tedious)...no, Apatow’s gift is capturing modern day relationships with spot-on, up-to-the-minute clarity: Franco and Rogen hanging out in Express, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera hanging out in Superbad, Busy Phillips and Linda Cardellini hanging out in Freaks & Geeks, etc., etc.

And, while I agree I’d like to see Apatow do MORE comedies where the male and female relationships are evenly matched in terms of comedy chops, I wouldn’t say he’s NEVER delivered those particular goods. Steve Carell was a scream in The 40 Year Old Virgin, but Catherine Keener was certainly no slouch in the funny/unconventional department (and, in the supporting cast, Jane Lynch went toe-to-toe with Rogen, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco without breaking a sweat). And Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Apatow produced for his boy Jason Segal, featured pretty funny turns from Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis (the dirtiest name in show biz).

Were Keener, Bell and Kunis as funny as their respective romantic comedy co-stars? Well, no, not quite: by way of comparison, my ultimate celebrity crush, Alyson Hannigan, was far more outrageous and funny playing off Jason Biggs in American Pie (a movie that would fit quite snugly into the Apatow-verse, come to think of it). And, yes, in the first American Pie, Hannigan wasn’t exactly a romantic lead, but rather a funny supporting player, like Lynch in Virgin, Leslie Mann and Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up and Amber Heard in Express.

So, okay, point taken: let’s get Apatow, Tina Fey and Paul Rudd together for a remake of Barefoot In The Park, stat!

But in the meantime, I’m not even close to giving up on Judd Apatow (yet), because, while some of his projects may fare better than others, he’s never really burned me as a viewer, meaning he’s built up quite a lot of credit in the ol' Bank of Osborne.

And I can’t really fault the man for trying a bunch of different genres (romantic comedy, action, parody, etc.) and using his newfound (and, given the nature of Hollywood , no doubt ephemeral) power to launch a bunch of projects (some good, some not as good, same as with any producer) that would never otherwise get made. Nor can I fault the man for possessing commercial self-preservation instincts...though it’s not like he’s Michael Bay, for God's sake, or even the aforementioned Nora Ephron, who gives good quote, yet also hacks up soulless Hollywood hairballs like Bewitched and Hanging Up with depressing regularity. (And, if you think about it, “stoner action comedy” isn’t exactly a sure thing/sell-out commercial genre anyway...even with all the blanks and explosions, Pineapple Express was still a personal movie, in that it directly reflected the distinct sensibility of Apatow and his collaborators.)

So, in conclusion, yes, I think Judd Apatow certainly has the capacity to go to the Dark Side – but aside from an executive producer credit on the odious Will Ferrell “comedy” Kicking and Screaming, I don't really see any evidence that he’ll be picking out a secret Sith name anytime soon. His upcoming projects (including a biblical comedy, a Sherlock Holmes comedy and a semi-dramatic film about stand-up comedians) seem to indicate a healthy willingness on his part to experiment. But, most importantly, Apatow's name on a movie poster usually means I’ll be entertained, either a little or a lot...and there are VERY few names in Hollywood that inspire that kind of brand loyalty these days.

As for Pineapple Express, which got this whole discussion rolling in the first place, my definitive closing argument is simple: "it brought the funny" (as the comedy geeks would say)...

...and for a fellow comedy geek like Apatow, that's pretty much the point.

--Contributors: Phil Nugent; Andrew Osborne

Related Stories: Screengrab Review: "Pineapple Express"

Face/Off: "Fargo"

Face/Off: "Children of Men"

Thursday Morning Poll for August 21, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I had the chance to attend a talk given by David Gordon Green earlier this year, and like practically everyone else who’s seen him speak, I was charmed by his boyish, easygoing manner. Like Richard Linkater, Green sends out a very laid-back vibe that makes you want to listen to him, especially when he ventures from the ostensible topic of conversation. But none of this would matter if Green wasn’t also one hell of a filmmaker, which thankfully he is. When we polled Screengrab readers about their favorite Green film, his beguiling 2003 relationship story All the Real Girls narrowly edged out his feature debut George Washington, 43% to 36%. All of his other features- the Southern chase saga Undertow, 2007’s Snow Angels, and Green’s recent mainstream debut Pineapple Express- tied at 7%. Seems that Screengrab readers, by and large, prefer Green’s earlier works, although all bets are off after he makes his alleged next project, a quasi-remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria.

Green might seem an unlikely filmmaker to direct a broad Hollywood comedy, but the same couldn’t be said of the subject of this week’s poll. With Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder recently becoming the first film in over a month to top the box office with a title that doesn’t rhyme with “The Clark Blight,” we figured the time was right to do a poll on movies Stiller has directed to date. We’ve included not only Stiller’s big-screen features but also his pilot for the never-picked-up series Heat Vision and Jack, which has become a kind of cult favorite. So, which film de Ben Stiller is your favorite?

Favorite Ben Stiller directorial effort? | BuzzDash

As always, the comments section is open. See you next week!

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 9-15, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

You’ve had the dream. You find yourself in a classroom you’ve never seen before, sitting at a desk in your underwear. The professor is passing out the final exam. Your heart freezes, your fingers go numb as you suddenly realize – you forgot to read the Screengrab this week! Don’t let this happen to you. Catch up on all the highlights now, including:

The Top 20 Movies About Movies, Parts One, Deux, Three, Four and Five. These will definitely be on the test.

A moment of silence please for Bernie Mac, Bernie Brillstein, Isaac Hayes, and Elvis Presley and his crappy movies.

You know you’ll be asked about new movies, like Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, The Clone Wars and A Girl Cut in Two. But you should also be prepared for more obscure questions about Mad Dog Time, The Driver, The Last Sign and Summer Rental.

Remaking Rocky Horror: Bad idea or terrible idea?

Is Angelina Jolie playing Catwoman a more enticing proposition than Angelina Jolie playing Tom Cruise?

Woody Allen: Is he a better filmmaker or bronze figurine?

When is a documentary not a documentary?

Study hard or you may find yourself working for Troma.

Morning Deal Report: Dark Knight Fends Off Pineapple Express

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

The Dark Knight’s latest challenger fell short as the Bat-epic remained atop the box office charts with a weekend haul of $26 million, bringing its grand total to $441.5 million. That pushes it past Shrek 2 into third place on the all-time domestic box office list – and who knew Shrek 2 had been third on that list until now? Knight should pass Star Wars and move into second place next week, which should trigger another digitally enhanced re-issue from Lucasfilm, perhaps with the enthralling Biggs storyline restored. Those lovable stoners from Pineapple Express took second place with $22.4 million, for a total of $40.4 million since its Wednesday opening. That’s a lot of dime bags. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 took in $10.8 million, which is good since those pants are getting awful stanky.

It’s official: Brad Pitt is an Inglorious Bastard. Pitt closed his deal for the Quentin Tarantino WWII picture, while Nastassja Kinski may become QT’s latest reclamation project in one of the film’s few female roles. According to Variety, “Much of the pic's dialogue is in French or German, and subtitles will be used, though Pitt will speak English in his role as a Tennessee hillbilly who assembles a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers to take on the Nazis.” Ah, finally an opportunity for Pitt to revive his Kalifornia accent.

And here’s one for the “Whatever happened to Don Johnson?” crowd. (Come on, you know you’re out there.) Per the Hollywood Reporter, “Johnson is making a return to studio movies with a turn in Disney's When in Rome. He also will pop up in the indie comedy A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.” The use of the term “pop up” in that context is something I wish I hadn’t read before breakfast.

Related:
Screengrab Review: Pineapple Express
Barack Obama and Brad Pitt: Separated at Birth?

Screengrab Review: Pineapple Express

Andrew Osborne — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:25:00 GMT

On my way to the Somerville Theater last night, my lovely Polish bride noticed my eyes were mysteriously bloodshot...the result, I’m guessing, of recent sleepless nights courtesy of freaky New England weather patterns and our passive-aggressive cat Zuzu's stubborn desire for round-the-clock feeding, and not (I’m hoping) an icky dose of Knocked Up-style pinkeye.

More to the point, however, my ocular vessels were NOT dilated as the result of any quasi-legal pre-screening cheeba inhalation. In fact, I’ve been more or less estranged from the kind bud for many years now (though, as with any number of past relationships gone south, I still have fond memories).

So, no, unlike the Cheech & Chong oeuvre, you don’t have to be stoned off your ass to appreciate the manic lunacy of Pineapple Express. Though I’m sure a little ganja couldn’t hurt, it’s hard to imagine squeezing even more enjoyment from a movie so fanatically determined to entertain its (admittedly self-selecting) demographic.

Given Hollywood’s penchant for lazy, paint-by-numbers filmmaking, this gleeful desire to have as much fun as possible with every frame of film has become the hallmark of the Apatow brand in recent years, even when comedy's reigning “It” Guy leaves the directing to someone else (in this case, David Gordon Green).

Admittedly, the arrested development "Frat Pack" sensibility of the Apatow imprimatur isn’t (and isn’t intended) for all audiences, and the latest Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg-scripted bromance about two potheads on the run from a vengeful drug dealer occasionally strains too hard, but for the most part, the screaming, gun-toting, nut-kicking neo-Stooge action stays just light enough on its feet to be funny (and surprisingly exciting) rather than shrill and exhausting throughout most of Pineapple's muscular running time, thanks in large part to the engaging smart-dumb (or is that dumb-smart?) chemistry of co-stars James Franco (as a big-hearted, low wattage pot dealer) and Rogen, reprising his trademark cynical bear routine as a shady process server who accidentally witnesses a drugland murder, then spends the rest of the story in a hemp-fueled panic, doing just about everything in his power to make the situation even worse for himself.

The film essentially flies or fails based on the viewer’s desire to chill with its addled protagonists (and, to a lesser extent, Danny McBride, the newest pledge in the Apatow frat house, who seems likeable enough given what the sports radio crowd would refer to as an inconclusive sample size). And even Freaks & Geeks-loving Francophiles and Rogen enthusiasts may balk at the Tarantino-esque levels of slapstick violence on display, though for what it’s worth, my wife (a Stooge-hater from way back who usually balks at such things) seemed to enjoy every gunshot, smash-up and kitty litter face plant...so much so, in fact, we may actually go back and see the movie again just to catch all the stuff we laughed over the first time.

(And maybe the second time around we’ll even try it baked.)

Related Stories: Your 4:20 Stoner Symposium, Screengrab Predicts the Top 5 Hits of Summer 2008

Screengrab Predicts: The Top 5 Hits of Summer 2008

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Studio executives, like TV weathermen, can be wrong half the time and still make a pretty fine living. One major difference, of course, is “The Suits” in Hollywood spend zillions on publicity and advertising campaigns to attempt to make their forecasts come true...and even then, they’re only right about half the time when it comes to cinematic hits and misses.

We here at the Screengrab will take that action. With the 2008 Blockbuster Season bearing down on us LIKE A RADIOACTIVE SPACE BUS THAT TRANSFORMS INTO A GIANT ROBOT LOADED WITH EXPLOSIVES, we hereby offer our predictions for the summer’s Top 5 Hits and Misses, in hopes of scoring ourselves sweet development deals based on our uncanny pop culture pulse-fingering prognostication abilities.

For the purposes of this experiment, “HIT” and “MISS” will refer not to the critical reception or cinematic quality of the films in question (because, really, who cares about that stuff?). Instead, we’ll calculate the accuracy of our predictions based on each film’s domestic box office gross in relation to its marketing/production budget and the hype/expectation surrounding it.

Want to play along at home? Let us know your Top 5 picks for upcoming Summer Hits, and compare them to our collective and individual predictions. Whoever scores the most correct answers WINS A BRAND NEW IMAGINARY CAR!

And now, our picks for the Top 5 HITS of Summer 2008:

5. KUNG FU PANDA

This one's pretty easy to explain: (1) Kung fu. (2) Pandas. It's got something for everyone! (LP)

Plurality Opinion: Dreamworks' annual summer animated movie doesn't have the built-in audience of the Shrek franchise, but it should still do good family business for the three weeks before Wall*E hits screens. (PC)

Memorandum Opinion: I haven’t seen that Panda on any big plastic soda cups yet, but maybe I haven’t been hanging out in the right fast food restaurants or convenience stores. This movie just squeaked onto our list as a result of numerous split votes elsewhere...but who knows? Maybe panda is the new penguin! (AO)

4. IRON MAN

Another gamble here, but one worth betting on due to it being the first high-profile summer release. Iron Man isn't an icon like Batman or Spider-Man, but Paramount has done a bang-up job promoting the film, and the re-emergence of Robert Downey Jr. as a high-profile leading man is the kind of story that can do wonders for a movie's public awareness. (PC)

3. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Come on, like it could possibly be anything else. Indiana Jones is one of the iconic characters in cinema. Who's not looking forward to this? Add to that the fact that the film's got next to no competition for the month or so after it's released and this is the one to beat. Here's hoping it's actually good. (PC)

Memorandum Opinion: I'm going to call this as a slight box office disappointment that nevertheless cracks the top five. Indy's heyday was a long time ago, and even Lucas and Spielberg seem to be trying to downplay expectations. (SV)

Dissenting Opinion: First of all, that title is just way too long. Titles more than 20 letters long are for artsy foreign movies. Second, is there really that big an audience for this outside of hardcore geek circles? The key demographic for summer action flicks wasn't even born when the LAST Indiana Jones movie came out. (LP)

2. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

Advance word is that the second in the Narnia series outdoes the first in terms of pacing, script, and special effects, but my guess is that it'll succeed because conservatives bitched so much about the previous movie not getting enough attention that America will guiltily drag themselves to see it just to shut them up. (LP)

Dissenting Opinion: The last installment in the Narnia franchise was a blockbuster, but that was released in December. In a more competitive summer season, it should have a solid opening weekend before getting trounced by Indiana Jones. (PC)

1. THE DARK KNIGHT

There's pretty much no way this thing will bomb. Even if it had a bad director, a crummy script, an unpopular main character, and a poorly-designed set, geeks would flock to it in droves. But it doesn't have any of those things, AND one of its stars died mysteriously during filming! That's money in the bank, people. (LP)

Let's see: blockbuster sequel, over a solid year's worth of hype, extensive viral marketing campaign, hugely popular hero and villain, and to top it off, a much-buzzed final complete performance by Heath Ledger. Even non-Batfans are going to want to get a load of his Joker, which should push The Dark Knight to the top of the heap. (SV)

Batman is back in the public's good graces after the awesomeness of Batman Begins, and this one's got the most popular of Bat-villains, The Joker. And sad to say, but the hype around the late Mr. Ledger's performance will only help the movie's chances at the box office. (PC)

HONORABLE MENTION:

HANCOCK:

Will Smith. July 4. Action, comedy, superheroes, you name it. It's got practically everything one could ask for from a midsummer release. (PC)

WALL*E

Here's where things get a little less certain. Sure, WALL-E is a Disney/Pixar release, with all the family cachet that implies. However, it may not be as cuddly as some of the family favorites Pixar has made in the past. Still, this is the highest-profile family-friendly release of the summer, so this is the one to beat. Besides, if Pixar can strike box-office gold with rats in a kitchen... (PC)

TROPIC THUNDER

Historically, August is the time when comedy re-emerges as box-office gold. After months of blockbuster bloat, audiences will want to laugh again, and this movie- starring Ben Stiller and newly-hot Robert Downey Jr.- looks to have the most potential for success. (PC)

AMERICAN TEEN

An instant America’s sweetheart cuddly “rebel” poster girl and a trailer that’s so John Hughes accessible that megaplex audiences may not realize it’s a documentary until it’s too late to get their money back may turn this Sundance fave into an indie hit (at the very least) and maybe even a real live mainstream smash. (AO)

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

If the rabid anticipation of this flick by the teenage dudes at my last family gathering bears any relation to the feelings of teenage dudes across the nation, this could be a sleeper hit. Plus: Apatow. (AO)

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

With a combination of everyone's favorite annoying jackass, Ashton Kutcher, and a title drawn from an ad campaign predicated on date rape, fatal drug overdoses, and dead hookers, how can it miss? (LP)

***

The above list reflects the combined, weighted picks of four of our resident Screengrab know-it-alls. Below, our original ballots:

Leonard Pierce

1. The Dark Knight

2. Kung Fu Panda

3. Speed Racer

4. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

5. What Happens In Vegas

Scott Von Doviak

1. The Dark Knight

2. Iron Man

3. Hancock

4. Prince Caspian

5. Indiana Jones

Paul Clark

1. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2. Hancock

3. The Dark Knight

4. Wall*E

5. Iron Man

Andrew Osborne

1. Indiana Jones

2. The Dark Knight

3. Prince Caspian

4. The Pineapple Express

5. American Teen

-- Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Paul Clark, Scott Von Doviak, Leonard Pierce

Your 4:20 Stoner Movie Symposium

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:20:00 GMT

In honor of Sunday’s national stoner holiday (4/20, dontcha know – see also the time of this post), Entertainment Weekly presents a roundtable discussion of the weedsploitation genre, with such luminaries as Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express), John Cho (the Harold and Kumar movies) and Tommy Chong (You know! CHONG!) pontificating on pot cinema. For those of you who have already sparked up and thus don’t have the attention span to get through the whole thing, we present a few selected highlights.

Everyone has their favorite stoner movie, of course. Rogen is a Friday proponent and Chong goes old school with Easy Rider, but we’ve got to side with Super High Me star Doug Benson on this matter. “I'd say for the sheer quality and vibe of it, Dazed and Confused. Whether you watch it stoned or not, it really delivers. I saw it in the theater and it appealed on a Freaks and Geeks kind of level, where it was really funny and realistic, but also reminded you of the s---tier aspects of being a kid. The only thing that takes away from the stoniness of it is the hazing element, but it does sort of represent the way that stoners are treated in general.”

Rogen knows what doesn’t work in stoner cinema, and that’s the obligatory anti-drug message Hollywood studios often insist upon. “That was something we did not want [for Pineapple Express]. Half Baked, I liked that movie, but the ending drove me crazy! The whole movie is for potheads, clearly, then at the end he stops smoking weed — so what the f--- am I doing? A lot of these weed movies shoot their core audience in the foot when they do that. We wanted to acknowledge that it's not a great idea to be stoned 24 hours a day, especially when there's guys trying to kill you, but we didn't want the ‘We should stop smoking weed’ moment.”

And then there’s...uh...hey, man, what was I writing about?

Trailer Review: Tropic Thunder

Paul Clark — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:29:00 GMT

Remember when I said, "I'll resist making further pre-judgments about the film until a substantial trailer is released, but for now I want to say that Tropic Thunder has become one of my most-anticipated big-budget releases of 2008"? That day, my friends, has arrived.

See, here I was afraid that Tropic Thunder's trailer was going to be a letdown, but if anything I'm even more excited now than I was before. Sure, the trailer plays a bit broad in parts, but they do just enough explaining the whole black-Downey storyline to make it abundantly clear what's going on without going overboard. Plus Downey is a hoot, and we even get a glimpse of Nick Nolte doing what he does best. Between this and Pineapple Express, I fear my side will hurt throughout August from all the laughing I'll be doing.

Trailer Review: Pineapple Express

John Constantine — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:52:00 GMT

2008: The year of the stoner comedy. Gregg Araki’s (Doom Generation) Smiley Face finally got wide distribution with a “DVD Premiere” at the beginning of January, Harold and Kumar 2 hits in the spring, and here’s Pineapple Express due in August. Of the lot, Express looks the most promising and, frankly, the most bizarre. Seth Rogen jumping from the second floor of a warehouse onto an armed goon? James Franco playing a cowardly pot dealer and hiding in a dumpster (he’s the Green Goblin, maaaaaaan.)? I don’t know what the hell is going on here but it certainly looks funny. This is another script from the Superbad team of Rogen and Evan Goldberg so it’ll be interesting to see how their collaborative skills have grown beyond their high school output. Note also the awesome usage of M.I.A.’s “Paper Airplanes” for the soundtrack.

Trailer Review: Snow Angels

Paul Clark — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

With this summer's Judd Apatow-produced comedy Pineapple Express, David Gordon Green appears to be turning his back on the modestly-budgeted dramas that made his reputation. However, fans of his old style can rejoice in the fact that he's still got one more indie waiting to be released: Snow Angels, which premiered at Sundance last year. In his coverage of the festival, Nerve's Mike D'Angelo called this "Green’s most conventional work to date", and one gets the same impression from the trailer, which plays up the dysfunctional relationship between ex-marrieds Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale while only giving a few glimpses of the quirky All the Real Girls-style courtship between teens Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby. Still, I'm eager to see this, partly to check out Rockwell- who in my eyes gave the performance of 2007 in Joshua- but also to give Green a proper send-off before he makes the journey into Apatow-land.