To say Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder are visionary would get a laugh out of any serious movie critic...but these films go into some unknown territory or certainly not previously done well territory in the Comedy genre. Yes, I'm talking about Hot Shots Part Duex failing to make an impact merging action and comedy.
Both films take the silly slap stick that has made Jud Apatow and Ben Stiller A- Listers and combine it with hard core action in a way that makes you just say wow...that's weird...pretty good though.
Before we dive into this let's be honest, the Comedy genre is the black sheep of Hollywood. I'm not counting Annie Hall, Doctor Strangelove, or Some like it Hot as the kind of comedy I'm talking about...I'm talking Blazing Saddles, Airplane, Caddyshack.
The kind of films I'm talking about will never be confused for best picture candidates but they will be quoted by the masses for eternity.
(Insert Andy Rooney moment) Have you ever wondered why there's no award for best comedic performance? (okay enough) It's a shame, there should be an award because think about all the Oscar winning actors and actresses who routinely dive into the genre. You can't tell me De Niro wasn't classic in Meet the Parents. I mean the guy makes you cringe.
This kind of comedy is not winning awards but it is winning at the Box Office. See Will Ferrell's entire career for proof.
The guy is funny...I don't deny some classic roles... my favorites: bald music teacher playing keyboard in SNL skit with Anna Gasteyer, Craig the uber Gay/Happy cheerleader, the college professor with HIS LOVER eating meat in a hot tub. Wait all these are SNL skits?
Okay, Jacoby Muggato in Zoolander awesome, Ron Burgandy classic, Hank the tank in Old School good, Ricky Bobby eeeh, Chaz Michaels Michaels getting worse... Some Jackie guy in a ABA basketball movie and.......... I'm out.
The point here is the guy can literally make a pitch to spin off Step Brothers, call it Prison Bed Bunkies and Hollywood will green light it because the guy is instant box office cash. So comedy is important but most of the time it's not done well at all.
I liked both Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. I thought you had two guys really trying to push their creative limits. When you read about all the time and effort it's taken Stiller to make Tropic Thunder you understand why it was the most annoying pre-promoted movie since Bee Movie.
However, Stiller's viral video he did with Downey and Black for the MTV movie awards was classic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez9B4P0CFlY.
Pineapple Express is your usual suspects in the Apatow tree. Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) serves people summons and smokes pot heavily. One night while toking on some high grade he got from stoner burnout dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) he just happens to witness a cop (Rosie Perez) and her lover Drug Lord Ted Jones (Gary Cole) blow someone's brains out.
Rogen and Franco are on the run the rest of the movie from Cole (Lumberg from Office Space)and others. The pot is government made called Pineapple Express. Cole finds the roach and traces it back to Franco. There is literally a whole shoot em up scene at the end complete with a Cole and Rogen Bond type fight scene..it's really interesting comedy fusion. Buddy movie comedy meets crazy shoot em up action.
One of the highlights for me other than Rogen's uncomfortable relationship with his high school girlfriend and her family was the intro. It's a back story into how the government tested the Pineapple or Item 9.
Bill Hader of SNL and someone I worked with briefly at 2nd city in LA is a soldier who is being monitored for behavior patterns on the pot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1BhhoE6pHs.
I thought Tropic Thunder was even better. It was a much stronger movie overall. It fuze's
the action comedy deal but it also makes fun of Hollywood with the help of A-listers like Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise.
It's oddly interesting how the movie starts. It's like you are watching previews before a movie only the previews are of the characters Stiller , Black, and Downey play. There is even a rapper type commercial with Brandon T. Jackson who plays Alpa Chino.
It takes a second to figure out what's going on but then you are taken into the opening scene which is an Apocalypse Now type deal with Tugg Speedman (Stiller) , a washed up big action movie actor, trying to cry on cue in the arms of serious method actor Kirk Lazuras (Downey Jr.)
Speedman can't do it...and he feels a bit over matched by Lazuras who is an Aussie who had facial colorization surgery to play a black Sargent. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy known for making fart movies with big fat people that resemble Eddie Murphy's Clump characters. Black is really window dressing in this movie and gets lost doing nothing funny when you see what Tom Cruise brings to the table.
Cruise plays foul mouth movie exec Less Grossman..a balding, overweight, crazy man who likes to dance to rap music. McConaughey is Speedman's I'll do anything for you agent.
The premise...the movie is being made from a book written by Nick Nolte's character 4 Leaf Tayback...a hard ass war vet who turns out to be a fraud. Tayback believes all the prima dona bickering will stop if the director puts the actors in a simulated jungle war zone. Turns out the fake war zone they set up is real.
Straight up the most interesting thing and funniest thing about this pic is Downey. He had a huge responsibility on his shoulders trying to play a character in black face (ahh see Ted Danson's deal when he was dating Whoopie)....but man he nailed it.
I was sitting with black friends at this movie and quite frankly was a little nervous they would not like this character. There were protests all over the country but Downey had everyone in my theater jumping up and down in their seats with laughter with lines like:
" I know who I am. I'm a dude ..playin a dude....dressed up as another dude.
And there's a great exchange where Stiller's Tuggman says,
"I don't believe you people."
Downey's Black face character responds,
"what do you mean you people"
which fuels Brandon Jackson's Alpa Chino to say,
"what do YOU mean you people?"
You know, like them or don't like them...these movies at least tried something different than Will Ferrell pooping in a box and putting it on screen. Have you heard about his new one... he plays an LPGA golfer and Paul Rudd is his transgender caddie. Kidding...seriously.
---Oh that thing I did with Hader here it is...not funny really...but the voice work I must say is solid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-izeX9t4_ls
Both films take the silly slap stick that has made Jud Apatow and Ben Stiller A- Listers and combine it with hard core action in a way that makes you just say wow...that's weird...pretty good though.
Before we dive into this let's be honest, the Comedy genre is the black sheep of Hollywood. I'm not counting Annie Hall, Doctor Strangelove, or Some like it Hot as the kind of comedy I'm talking about...I'm talking Blazing Saddles, Airplane, Caddyshack.
The kind of films I'm talking about will never be confused for best picture candidates but they will be quoted by the masses for eternity.
(Insert Andy Rooney moment) Have you ever wondered why there's no award for best comedic performance? (okay enough) It's a shame, there should be an award because think about all the Oscar winning actors and actresses who routinely dive into the genre. You can't tell me De Niro wasn't classic in Meet the Parents. I mean the guy makes you cringe.
This kind of comedy is not winning awards but it is winning at the Box Office. See Will Ferrell's entire career for proof.
The guy is funny...I don't deny some classic roles... my favorites: bald music teacher playing keyboard in SNL skit with Anna Gasteyer, Craig the uber Gay/Happy cheerleader, the college professor with HIS LOVER eating meat in a hot tub. Wait all these are SNL skits?
Okay, Jacoby Muggato in Zoolander awesome, Ron Burgandy classic, Hank the tank in Old School good, Ricky Bobby eeeh, Chaz Michaels Michaels getting worse... Some Jackie guy in a ABA basketball movie and.......... I'm out.
The point here is the guy can literally make a pitch to spin off Step Brothers, call it Prison Bed Bunkies and Hollywood will green light it because the guy is instant box office cash. So comedy is important but most of the time it's not done well at all.
I liked both Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. I thought you had two guys really trying to push their creative limits. When you read about all the time and effort it's taken Stiller to make Tropic Thunder you understand why it was the most annoying pre-promoted movie since Bee Movie.
However, Stiller's viral video he did with Downey and Black for the MTV movie awards was classic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez9B4P0CFlY.
Pineapple Express is your usual suspects in the Apatow tree. Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) serves people summons and smokes pot heavily. One night while toking on some high grade he got from stoner burnout dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) he just happens to witness a cop (Rosie Perez) and her lover Drug Lord Ted Jones (Gary Cole) blow someone's brains out.
Rogen and Franco are on the run the rest of the movie from Cole (Lumberg from Office Space)and others. The pot is government made called Pineapple Express. Cole finds the roach and traces it back to Franco. There is literally a whole shoot em up scene at the end complete with a Cole and Rogen Bond type fight scene..it's really interesting comedy fusion. Buddy movie comedy meets crazy shoot em up action.
One of the highlights for me other than Rogen's uncomfortable relationship with his high school girlfriend and her family was the intro. It's a back story into how the government tested the Pineapple or Item 9.
Bill Hader of SNL and someone I worked with briefly at 2nd city in LA is a soldier who is being monitored for behavior patterns on the pot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1BhhoE6pHs.
I thought Tropic Thunder was even better. It was a much stronger movie overall. It fuze's
the action comedy deal but it also makes fun of Hollywood with the help of A-listers like Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise.
It's oddly interesting how the movie starts. It's like you are watching previews before a movie only the previews are of the characters Stiller , Black, and Downey play. There is even a rapper type commercial with Brandon T. Jackson who plays Alpa Chino.
It takes a second to figure out what's going on but then you are taken into the opening scene which is an Apocalypse Now type deal with Tugg Speedman (Stiller) , a washed up big action movie actor, trying to cry on cue in the arms of serious method actor Kirk Lazuras (Downey Jr.)
Speedman can't do it...and he feels a bit over matched by Lazuras who is an Aussie who had facial colorization surgery to play a black Sargent. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy known for making fart movies with big fat people that resemble Eddie Murphy's Clump characters. Black is really window dressing in this movie and gets lost doing nothing funny when you see what Tom Cruise brings to the table.
Cruise plays foul mouth movie exec Less Grossman..a balding, overweight, crazy man who likes to dance to rap music. McConaughey is Speedman's I'll do anything for you agent.
The premise...the movie is being made from a book written by Nick Nolte's character 4 Leaf Tayback...a hard ass war vet who turns out to be a fraud. Tayback believes all the prima dona bickering will stop if the director puts the actors in a simulated jungle war zone. Turns out the fake war zone they set up is real.
Straight up the most interesting thing and funniest thing about this pic is Downey. He had a huge responsibility on his shoulders trying to play a character in black face (ahh see Ted Danson's deal when he was dating Whoopie)....but man he nailed it.
I was sitting with black friends at this movie and quite frankly was a little nervous they would not like this character. There were protests all over the country but Downey had everyone in my theater jumping up and down in their seats with laughter with lines like:
" I know who I am. I'm a dude ..playin a dude....dressed up as another dude.
And there's a great exchange where Stiller's Tuggman says,
"I don't believe you people."
Downey's Black face character responds,
"what do you mean you people"
which fuels Brandon Jackson's Alpa Chino to say,
"what do YOU mean you people?"
You know, like them or don't like them...these movies at least tried something different than Will Ferrell pooping in a box and putting it on screen. Have you heard about his new one... he plays an LPGA golfer and Paul Rudd is his transgender caddie. Kidding...seriously.
---Oh that thing I did with Hader here it is...not funny really...but the voice work I must say is solid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-izeX9t4_ls
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