Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
I’ll say this much about the past weekend on the site... I hate when people get hung up on things like what date something is published, when all that really matters is the content. If you have something to say about a film, something of substance, then what you have to say should be equally effective before or after the release of the film. That’s a difficult thing to do, especially over time, and only the reader can ever judge if something’s worthwhile. I feel that there are many, many, many, many fine and substantial writers about film on the internet who (A) don’t play any studio politics at all because they simply aren’t part of the advance screening/interview/preview/news side of things and (B) don’t remotely give a shit. I think those guys are the happiest guys writing about film online. I truly do. Because what most of the real, important, substantial writing about film online consists of is in-depth conversation and analysis where people follow their personal whims, and the guys who are good, who are consistently worthwhile as a read... those guys are freaks in all the right ways. Obsessed. Brilliant because of the dedication they show to their particular experience with movies.
There is no way for me to deny that what I write today is substantially different than what I wrote when AICN began. I’ve been reading that stuff lately because I’ve been slowly but surely trying to build an archive of my articles that anyone can check out. I think when you look at the body of work that I’ve created for AICN, I can safely make the case that I have done more good than bad with this bully pulpit that I stumbled into. That’s not to say I’m not a loudmouth moron occasionally; aren’t we all?
It’s hard to please everyone, though. For example, I got yelled at by a few of you for putting my DARK KNIGHT and HELLBOY 2 reviews together, but it made perfect thematic sense, and seeing them back-to-back like that, it was impossible to talk about one without the other. If that bothered you, prepare to be bothered again, because there’s no way to discuss PINEAPPLE without August’s other big comedy, TROPIC THUNDER.
The most obvious thing they have in common is cast members. Bill Hader and Danny McBride are both guys who are still building their film resumes, playing solid roles in big films, scoring points with each appearance. Hader’s work in SUPERBAD and KNOCKED UP and FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL has established how grounded and real his onscreen persona is, while McBride’s been out on the edge with the sort of extreme character work that defines him in HOT ROD and DRILLBIT TAYLOR and THE FOOT FIST WAY, which finally got a small release this summer.
This month is McBride’s real coming out party for the general public, though, with a memorable supporting turn in TROPIC THUNDER and an absolutely stellar appearance in PINEAPPLE. And for Hader, who makes the most of his SNL showcase during the regular TV season, his scene in PINEAPPLE opens the film on just the right note, and his work in THUNDER involves the co-star that steals that movie, so people are going to remember him. If that shared sort of supporting star lightning-in-a-bottle thing was all the two movies had in common, it would still be worth noting. They’re united in another way, though, a larger way: I can’t imagine either one of them existing at any other moment in screen comedy. Taken together, they are absolutely a defining moment in terms of what we think is funny right now, and what we think of movie stars. It’s a fascinating meta-moment, and the fact that both films are really, really good is just sort of the added bonus.
TROPIC THUNDER is by far the more self-aware of the two films. When it begins, you’ll think you’re watching pre-show entertainment. There’s a commercial. A trio of trailers. And some of the audience might not catch on at first that they’re actually already watching the film. They didn’t at my screening. It wasn’t until about halfway through the second trailer that they shut up completely and sort of tuned in. That’s how solid the parody is.
And that’s something I want to underscore: Ben Stiller is the single best live-action parody filmmaker working right now. Everybody making all those shitty, miserable, agonizing, insufferable DATE/SCARY/SUPERHERO/DISASTER MOVIE things... you are making disposable, forgettable, regrettable junk. High-school talent show skits that serve as pop culture yearbooks. You are the enemies of entertainment.
“Remember when THE SIXTH SENSE came out? Remember when IRON MAN came out? Remember how gay 300 was? Remember when Britney Spears shaved her head? Remember the “Trapped In The Closet” video?”
Yes. Yes. Yes. YES. YES. FUCKING YES. And so what? That’s not funny.
What Stiller does, and what he did so well on THE BEN STILLER SHOW, is he recreates something and perverts it wildly. He uses the recreation to not only comment on the original, but also to launch his own absurd reality, which he then takes very seriously. Mel Brooks did it best with the one-two punch of BLAZING SADDLES and YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, film parody so perfect and ferocious that no one’s ever really topped them. AIRPLANE! and TOP SECRET! were both remarkable because they were “real” movies. They were specific in the parody, but even if you’d never seen the things they were mocking, you’d still think they were funny because they managed to create an absurd reality that you bought into. Ben Stiller’s show, at its best and its funniest, did the same sort of thing, that same sort of laser-sharp parody that managed to work above and beyond. I’ve always been surprised that he didn’t really make that sort of film as a director. Even ZOOLANDER doesn’t really qualify because it’s not specific parody... it’s just sort of a general riff on the idea of modern fashion. With TROPIC THUNDER, it feels like Stiller’s finally made the movie he’s been revving up to all this time. Starting with those trailers, as accurate in their way as the GRINDHOUSE trailers were, and then launching directly into the fake Vietnam film, TROPIC THUNDER, Stiller sets a tone. He lets you know just how broad he’s willing to go with gore and ludicrous behavior and grotesquerie. He lets you know how extreme the characters are going to be, and only then, he pulls back to show you the movie-within-the-movie gag of the whole thing.
TROPIC THUNDER is a big, big Hollywood movie. And TROPIC THUNDER sort of makes fun of big, big Hollywood movies, but not in any sort of truly savage way. What really takes the lancing here is the ego of The Actor. This is a movie that calls out Hollywood’s most privileged players as wackos and drug addicts and narcissistic jerkoffs. This movie points a shotgun into a barrel of fish, and laughs and laughs as it pulls that easy trigger.
There is something extra-brilliant about the way Tom Cruise turns up, unrecognizable, and steals the movie from the guys who are making fun of... well... him. I’m not saying I think Stiller is directly playing Cruise, because I don’t. But I certainly think Cruise is emblematic of the system that the film lampoons the hardest, and as a result, I think if anyone in this movie could be said to be “brave,” it’s him. And it’s no coincidence that his appearance in the film will most likely save his career. All the couch jumping in the world sort of fades into distant memory when he starts barking expletives and hip-hop dancing with that overstuffed potato body and his giant sausage fingers. Anyone who is able to roast themselves so thoroughly deserves some respect, and the way he plays it with such abandon is just plain hilarious. Bill Hader basically serves as a sounding board for Cruise in his craziest moments, and I would imagine that the closing credits, a crowd-pleaser when I saw the film, were probably decided on only after the shooting of the big McConaughey/Cruise scene in the middle of the film, when Stiller realized just how far Cruise was willing to take things. I’ve heard from friends who love the credits and friends who hate them. It felt like a signature Stiller flourish to me, reminiscent of his own work at the end of DODGEBALL. I think he likes the idea of sort of assaulting the audience on their way towards the door.
The cast of the film all seems to be working their asses off to make the material live and breathe, and there are some real stand-out moments for almost everyone in the cast. But after I read talkbacker Jon Quixote in the responses to Massawyrm’s THUNDER review, I have to agree with what he says: Stiller and McConaughey should have traded roles. McConaughey is an action guy. The studios have tried to sell us that for years now, to varying degrees of success. And I think his version of SIMPLE JACK would have been much much much less controversial, and quite possibly funnier. Tugg Speedman’s so borderline retarded himself that his SIMPLE JACK work has to be exaggerated to the point of grotesquerie, and I think that’s Stiller, a very smart guy, playing a certain kind of “dumb guy” who is just painfully unaware of his own absurdity. It’s damn near Derek Zoolander at times. McConaughey’s stoner drawl sort of dim bulb would have gone down a lot smoother, I think, and besides... Stiller as a pathologically slimy agent? Sold.
Robert Downey Jr. is the prom king this year, and for those of us who have been fans from the early days and through the lean years, it is enormously powerful to see him have this sort of victory lap around the bases, firing on all cylinders in everything he does these days. I think KISS KISS BANG BANG was the moment where I realized just how serious he was about rebuilding his career into something of real weight and merit. ZODIAC. A SCANNER DARKLY. These are good choices. Smart choices. Tasteful, interesting work in each of the films he’s been doing. And then... IRON MAN. Which finally convinces the broadest possible mainstream audience that (A) he’s not fucked up these days and (B) there is a reason everyone in this town keeps giving him a chance, and it’s that chemical charisma of his, that laconic way he has of massaging even the lamest comic line on the page into spun gold. And if he gets his hands on a good script? Fireworks. Every time. As Kirk Lazarus as Osiris, he is a one-man band. If you find you’re not engaging with something going on in a scene and you just want an easy laugh, starting paying attention to Downey. Even when he’s not “doing” anything in a scene, he is acting his ass off, and he’s hilarious. Downey is a smart and serious actor, and there’s a great deal of method to what he does, but I love the way he roasts the sort of crazy extremes of “Method” that I’m sure every actor working in the industry has heard, tales of various stars whose dedication and devotion goes from “above and beyond” to “over the top” more often than not. And when Downey does finally turn from parody to confessional, he does it so well and he has already got you so invested in this guy’s tics and mannerisms that it’s actually almost affecting. Of course, the movie isn’t about sentiment, and they never really go for that, but RDJ’s work is so grounded in a reality, despite the outrageous nature of pulling off something so dangerously close to pure “blackface,” that he stops being a cartoon. Quite a feat in a film this broad.
Brandon T. Jackson and Jack Black and Jay Baruchel are definitely supporting players here compared with Downey and Stiller, who basically represent the two authority figures on the team. When loyalty eventually splits, those are the lines that are chosen. For the most part, Baruchel supports RDJ, Jackson would support him if he wasn’t so irritated by the fake black thing, and Black’s only interested in where he can score some more “vitamins.”
Of the three, I think Baruchel does the best work. He’s the one sane human being in the entire film, pretty much, a decent kid who caught a break and is playing this sizeable role in a giant studio movie. Baruchel’s one of those guys who was good when he first showed up in UNDECLARED, with a natural sense of timing and a unique presence, and then over time, he’s gotten much better, that wicked timing evolving into something more, something more honest but just as precise. He reminds me of Topher Grace in that respect. Jackson plays Alpa Chino, and he was obviously written to serve as the audience’s skepticism and horror regarding Downey’s “black” character. He does what he can with the role, and he scores some good laughs, but it’s sort of thin. The same is oddly true of Black’s role. It’s pretty much “he’s a secret heroin addict who is a big pampered baby.” He’s got his handful of funny scenes as well, but nothing that really stands out. There’s so much funny, and all of it turned up so loud in the movie, that even someone as funny as Black might have trouble making an impression. Nick Nolte’s suitably grizzled, and I think he’s game for anything Stiller asked him to do. I just don’t like the choices they make with his character in the second half. I liked him better as a fucking nutcase taskmaster. Danny McBride’s work is, as noted earlier, rock solid, and I love the little touches, like his fucked-up ear or the resume of movies he’s worked on. Aside from Cruise and Downey, Steve Coogan (who’s having a big fall of his own in the US cinema) probably makes the biggest bang here if you consider the ratio of huge laughs to screen time.
You can’t discuss the film without giving proper credit to the work John Toll does. This is the same guy who shot THE THIN RED LINE, and there’s a proper epic sweep to the Big Movie touches on the film. When you look at the opening scenes of the film, they’re as large-scale as anything in any “real” war movie. That’s the expert parodist’s touch that Stiller brings to the table. When Mel Brooks got Gerald Hirschfield [corrected from John Bailey - "M"] to photograph YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN in beautiful black and white, it wasn’t just because he liked the look of it... he was trying to guarantee that you could set his film next to the original Universal horror films and you wouldn’t be able to immediately tell the difference. Hiring Toll was a wise move, and it pays off in a big way, allowing the most absurd moments in the film to still feel like they belong in that studio action-movie world.
The controversy over the film is unsurprising, and it would be ridiculous to tell someone that they can’t be offended or they shouldn’t be upset. I think for some people, self-righteous outrage is a way of life, their natural condition, and they seem to need to be upset about something all the time. The now-infamous “full retard” speech in the film is clearly meant to highlight just how callous and cold Hollywood’s attitude toward the mentally handicapped really is. Only in this town is a mental handicap seen as a shortcut to Oscar gold. And when we hear stories about Daniel Day Lewis sleeping in a cell in an abandoned prison every night for six weeks leading up to IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, it’s not much of an exaggeration to imagine someone doing what Kirk Lazarus does in terms of permanently darkening his skin. And yes... it’s insane. And yes... it’s racially insensitive. But I don’t think the film is. If anything, it’s like Stiller and his co-screenwriters Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen set up these insanely ripe targets, and they consistently go for the easy surface laugh instead of anything deeper. That’s fine, of course, but in the end, what you’ll remember most about TROPIC THUNDER is the brash gleeful offensiveness of much of the humor and the way they glance across the surface of the satire like a stone on water. It’s a very funny film... I’m just not sure it’s an enduring one. It may be too crude to truly matter.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t call PINEAPPLE EXPRESS crude, but I might describe it as “shaggy.”
I don’t understand how everyone says all the Apatow produced films are exactly the same. I think SUPERBAD and PINEAPPLE are of a piece, and I think they’re very evidently from a sensibility of two friends writing together. They’re “two dude” adventures. That’s not 40YOV, and that’s not KNOCKED UP, and it’s not SARAH MARSHALL, and it’s certainly not WALK HARD. But SUPERBAD and PINEAPPLE both showcase the very particular, very specific sensibilities of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as a creative team. And I really like their voice. I think these guys and their longtime friendship are crystal clear in the Seth/Evan relationship in SUPERBAD, and I think they’re crystal clear again in PINEAPPLE. And, yeah, I love the buddy movie violence and the almost reverential love of pot in the film, but what really makes it work is the central friendship.
I’m fairly sure it’s no big secret that I enjoy the herb. Harry’s outed me repeatedly over the years here on the site, and I’m sure I’ve dropped references to it here or there. I’m a workaholic and a homebody, so I don’t think I’d call myself a “partier,” but it would be fair to say that over the years, I’ve found myself smack dab in the midst of stereotypical stoner culture many times. Even so, I find most pot comedies to be fairly wretched affairs. I love the first Cheech & Chong film, UP IN SMOKE, and I'm quite fond of NICE DREAMS as well, but the rest of their film work is hard to sit through. DAZED & CONFUSED is great, as is FRIDAY, but they're great films that happen to have lots of pot-smoking in them, not great BECAUSE of the pot-smoking. I think there's got to be more to one of these films for them to be worthwhile at all. With PINEAPPLE, that's certainly the case. I found it particularly rich in coincidental meaning that the AICN-sponsored LA screening of PINEAPPLE was held at what used to be the Sherman Oaks Galleria, about four minutes walk from where my first pot dealer in LA used to live. And honestly... he was Saul. A really nice guy who didn’t just want you to swing through and buy weed, but who would instead put on new albums or a movie, who would want you to hang out for the afternoon. Eventually, that guy really was a friend, even after I’d long since stopped buying weed from him, but watching the first act of PINEAPPLE, I was laughing at the absolute accuracy of it. I’ve heard a few people call the pot the “McGuffin” of the film, but I disagree. The entire movie is about the way that urge to buy weed sometimes lands you in the most unlikely circumstances, and there’s something really right about the way simply wanting to smoke a joint somehow leads in a (not particularly) straight line to a machine-gun battle and an exploding barn.
What I enjoyed most about PINEAPPLE is the way it feels like a natural fit in the filmography of David Gordon Green, something I wouldn’t have guessed. When I visited the set, he certainly seemed comfortable with what he was doing, even though it looked like a radical reinvention of himself as a director. Since then, I’ve spoken with Danny McBride a few times, and he insists that the films Green made in college were bizarre comedy shorts, and that this was actually much closer to what he started doing. Now that I’ve seen it, I believe it. Green’s completely at home making this sort of loose, silly character-based comedy, and the way he and cinematographer Tim Orr shoot allows for all sorts of happy accidents along the way. You get the feeling this is all something that just sort of happened, rather than feeling like a rigorously scripted big Hollywood film. There’s a scene where Saul (James Franco) and Dale (Seth Rogen) are in the woods, just walking, and it’s as quiet and lovely as anything in GEORGE WASHINGTON or ALL THE REAL GIRLS.
There’s not a lot of story or subtext to PINEAPPLE. It all comes down to the cast, and I think the casting here sort of underlines the point I was making about Stiller and McConaughey up above. The obvious casting for PINEAPPLE would have been Franco as the straight-laced guy and Rogen as the slacker stoner pot dealer. I’ve heard Franco was the one who pushed for the reversal, and it’s a stroke of genius. Saul is the most approachable, likeable character that Franco’s ever played, and it’s the mix of the childlike way Saul views the world, his awesome malapropisms (“the monkey’s out of the bottle, man!”), and his unwavering friendship once given that make him such a great addition to the Apatow oeuvre. Dale Denton, Rogen’s character, is far less immediately likeable, and that’s part of what I like about the film. Dale’s kind of... well... a creep. He’s a process server, for one thing, and watching the montage of him using his 20-something anonymous shlub identity to issue subpoenas is funny, but hardly endearing. Same with the whole “dating a high school girl” thing. Yes, she looks like Amber Heard, and that makes it somewhat understandable, but she’s still a high school girl. And the way he treats Saul for much of the film is kind of shitty. Saul’s offers of friendship are so open and genuine, and Dale’s rejection of those offers is almost reflexive. The entire film really boils down to whether you tune into the chemistry between Rogen and Franco or not, and as a fan of FREAKS & GEEKS, it feels like this movie is a validation, a promise fulfilled. That show had such an abbreviated life, and it was so frustrating to see a cast do work on that level and go unrecognized at the time. Now, seeing these guys make such a great contribution to a genre (the buddy movie) that I love so much, maybe more people will go back and check out FREAKS & GEEKS.
Danny McBride’s work as the indestructible Red is the sort of thing that really sticks with an audience. He’s not the star of the film, and ultimately, he’s not in much of it, but every single second of screen time yields comic gems. His fight scene with Franco and Rogen is great because it doesn’t feel choreographed, and it doesn’t look like stuntmen. It’s just a bunch of guys who don’t really know how to fight trying to beat the shit out of each other. It’s alternately hilarious and punishing.
Also great are his scenes with Craig Robinson (best known for his role as “the fucking doorman” in KNOCKED UP or on THE OFFICE) and indie god Kevin Corrigan, a team of hitmen working for scumbag drug lord Gary Cole and his partner in crime, the very funny Rosie Perez. As the “bad guys” of the film, they represent one of the most dysfunctional and ridiculous criminal organizations I’ve seen on film. They’re never really a threat because they’re so addled by paranoia and incompetence. And, yeah, the film gets a little wild in terms of violence (another thing it has in common with TROPIC THUNDER), but there’s something human-scale about it all. With the exception of Red, when these characters get hurt, it’s recognizable. It looks like it really hurts, something that’s uncommon in the age of the CGI action film. We’ve lost that, the notion that people get knocked around and fucked up by the end of an action picture, but when you see the guys at the end of the film, sitting around a table in a diner in one of the best last scenes of any film this year, they look like absolute ass. And it’s charming. It’s a great way to send you out the door, and if the rumors do eventually pan out and we see a movie where Seth and Evan from SUPERBAD cross paths with Dale and Saul from PINEAPPLE, it’s going to feel like a reunion with old friends.
And by the way... a special thank you to the guy who brought me the cookies at the PINEAPPLE screening. It was sort of a clusterfuck thanks to traffic and the theater, but the crowd was great. One guy who runs a company called Freshly-Baked.com brought me a bag of a half-dozen cookies called the "Nutty Bavarian Love Biscuit." No pot involved, but who cares? It was a huge chocolate and peanut-butter cookie with a chocolate-covered pretzel backed into the center and a splash of kosher salt on top. Crazy good movie food, and I handed them out to my friends sitting around me. If you find yourself with a wicked case of the munchies, or planning for one in the near-future, you should check that guy's site out. He does mail orders. It's f'ing worth it.
So I guess next up, I should probably review that cartoon coming out tomorrow, eh? I should have that ready right around midnight LA time, just... by... coincidence...
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
