Word: rogen
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pineapple Express Directed by David Gordon Green; rated R; out now The Judd Apatow mob muscles into action comedy with this louche, lunatic tale of a process server (Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the script) and his marijuana dealer (James Franco) going klutzily on the run from druglords. It's the Two Stooges with guns, a car chase and some very dope dope jokes...
...hear more from Rogen and to subscribe to the 10 Questions podcast on iTunes, go to time.com/10questions
Whereas most male stars in the Saturday Night Live era (a line that stretches from Bill Murray to Seth Rogen) sport a louche, slackerish affability, Stiller often plays the less-than-pleasant comic foil: the tightly wound unhero who either gets on everyone's nerves (Dodgeball, The Royal Tenenbaums) or is the hapless pawn of domestic fate (Meet the Fockers, The Heartbreak Kid). As actor, writer or director, he knows something most Hollywood people don't: certain characters needn't be lap-dog lovable--if they're funny enough, the movies they're in can still be hits...
...Rogen is Dale Denton, who works as a process server and plays at being the wise older beau to high-school senior Angie (Amber Heard). But his vocation is dope-smoking, which makes his dealer, Saul (James Franco), if not Dale's best friend then surely his most trusted business acquaintance. It's after a visit to Saul for some amazing weed known as Pineapple Express that Dale parks outside the home of his next subpoena victim, Ted Jones (Gary Cole). BLAM! go some guns, SPLAT! goes the body of an Asian man against the second-floor window, and CRUNCH...
...have the need and instinct to fight, drive and run, but none of the skills. One sequence, the movie's lamest, is either a demonstration of this theory or an undercutting commentary on it. As they stagger through the woods searching for a cell phone Saul has tossed away, Rogen and Franco take a stab at a slapstick routine but possess neither the precision nor the physical resilience to make it funny. (Nor the luck: Franco needed three stitches after he bumped into a tree.) The actors flounder like two Stooges in desperate need of a third...