A Lot Of People Come To Me And They Say, "Hey..."

"...Admiral, I need to know, and I need to know now. What is perfection? Is it the innocent smile of a happy child? Is it the excited gleam in a lover's eye? Is it the sun rising over the fog-shrouded city of Macchu Picchu?" And now I can answer, with 100% confidence, "No. It's Seth Rogen leaping onto Gary Cole like a spider monkey at the 2:09 point in this trailer for Pineapple Express."



You're welcome. I know, I know, that trailer's been around for ages, and the majority of humanity has already seen it, but I just watched it for the thousandth time this year and I had to link to it, just to become yet another cog in the hype machine. It's in my blogging contract that I use up a day a week lazily sticking a movie on the blog. Failure to comply means having to review all four seasons of Desperate Housewives, which ain't happening while I've got a say in the matter. Posting a trailer as beautifully constructed as that makes up for being a studio-fellating shill/whore hybrid.

Rogen and co-screenwriter Evan Goldberg performed a bit of miracle writing with their first collaboration Superbad, a movie that escalated perfectly from an inauspicious beginning to a full-on meltdown of comic payoffs that had been set up with such elegance that the blood, sweat, and tears they had shed to polish the script were all but invisible. So, great writer and likeable actor, but I never realised what a great physical presence Rogen has. Like a flying bear, he sells that moment perfectly. I think I snapped three ribs laughing when I first saw it.


Apatow gets a lot of flack for what is seen to be misogyny, and I'll agree Superbad had some dodgy moments (Canyon is also in two minds about it), but even taking that into account it only narrowly missed my 2007 top ten list. That escalation of comedic intensity, and the confidence with which the movie flirted with audience estrangement, really impressed me. From what has been said about Pineapple Express, it seems like Rogen, Goldberg, and director David Gordon Green have added violence to the mix, which could be a brave step too far, but advance reports are very promising.

Besides, that trailer is so good it not only makes me forget James Franco's phoned-in Spider-Man 3 performance (which I don't entirely blame him for, but still), and it not only circumvents my general (ironic) apathy toward stoner comedies, it even makes me want to track down that M.I.A. song despite my hatred for her first album being so strong that I considered selling my ears just so I wouldn't risk accidentally hearing it again.


Fly, cuddly bear-man, fly!