Evan Sims

Pineapple Express

I’m a huge fan of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen’s films. Anchorman? Classic. Superbad? Awesome. Step Brothers? Pretty damn great. The duo have proven themselves to be true grandmasters in the mysterious and forbidden art of making me pee my pants. I get as giddy as a little school girl when a new film is released, and rarely am I disappointed when I exit the theater. Pineapple Express was no exception, and indeed it may be my favorite film from the guys so far.

So, what’s the premise? Dale Denton (played by Rogen) is a mild mannered process server with an affinity for weed, and an apparent self esteem problem. Bored by his job and stressed about his girlfriend (a high school student, no less), Denton turns to his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco) for some relief. Denton clearly isn’t a fan of the guy, but Saul thinks the world of him so he gives him a “exclusive sneak peek” at a new crop his supplier calls Pineapple Express. One thing leads to the next, and in a twist of divine irony, Denton is unwittingly sent to serve papers to Saul’s source (Ted Jones, played by Gary Cole), where he is the unfortunate witness to a murder. In a panic, Denton drops his joint of the rare Pineapple Express, leading Jones and his cohorts straight back to Saul and Denton.

Most of the film revolves around Dale and Saul fleeing from certain death, getting stoned out of their heads and trying to get out of the murderous predicament their in. Throw in a Chinese drug cartel, an impending drug war, a cop on the villain’s payroll and an abandoned military experimentation facility and you’ve got yourself Pineapple Express.

It’s decidedly an action-comedy flick with a strong “buddy movie” undertone, and at it’s core deals with Dale’s self esteem and the relationship between Dale and Saul… and it does it wonderfully. To be honest, I’m not a fan of stoner films. Most films either try to politicize the issue too much, or just make the topic so tedious that it ends up being painful to watch. Leave it to these guys to make one that I not only didn’t loathe, but actually loved.

Rogen, as always, is hilarious in his part. The man is a great comedy actor, without question. I think what makes Rogen great is that even he’s so normal and so familiar, it’s like watching a friend you know on screen. He’s also somehow managed to make his characters throughout his films unique enough that you don’t feel like you’re watching the same guy over and over again.

When I saw the first Express trailer, I was surprised to see Franco cast for the second-chair role. He just never came off as a comedy actor type to me. It wasn’t until I caught some of his stuff over on Funny or Die that I realized how great he was for the part. Franco really elevated the role of Saul from a fairly uninspired stoner archetype to a character you care about, and even as a secondary character feels just as important as Rogen’s Dale. The duo did an awesome job, and I’m not sure Pineapple Express would have been half as enjoyable with anyone else cast in those parts.

I give it a 4.5/5 — — Great acting, hilarious story, top notch comedy. What more do you want?

Step Brothers

My family and I went to see Step Brothers this afternoon. I knew it was going to probably be a bad idea to see an R-rated Farrell movie with my parents, but I threw caution to the wind and went anyway. Woo, not a good choice. Very raunchy, but also hilarious.

I don’t think it requires much of a step up if you’ve seen the trailer, but here it goes anyway. Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen meet, and instantly fall for each other. Gettin’ it on, they both tell the other things about themselves. They discover they both have 40 year old children still living at home. Oh, the hilarious irony! Flash forward, the two marry, and Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly meet. They instantly hate each others guts, and proceed to do everything in their power to piss the other one off. In the end, the two become best friends when Reilly punches Ferrell’s younger brother (played by Adam Scott) in the face for being a dick. Shenanigans ensue.

Directed by Judd Apatow (Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard, …) and Farrell, Step Brothers feels like a really, really long clip from Farrell’s funnyordie.com project, and I can’t say I have any complaints in that regard. The one-liners the guys pull off, along with some truly hilarious scenes (Farrell burying Reilly alive, the two getting beat up by a gang of ill mannered elementary school kids, etc.) make for a really enjoyable film. I think my only complaint was the vulgarity; that isn’t to say it wasn’t funny, but when virtually every line of the film contains fuck, dick, vagina or fart, it starts to get dry. Honestly I found the banter between Farrell and Reilly more entertaining when they didn’t turn every line into an excuse to get an R rating.

So, how was it overall? Not a family movie by any means (not that the R rating shouldn’t be enough to tell you that), but if you dig Farrell’s crazy, off the wall humor, you’ll love it. If you aren’t sure, watch some of the top clips from funnyordie.com first and see how they strike you.

I give it a 3/5 —

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Stopped by the theater this afternoon and caught the second X-Files film, “I Want to Believe.” I was really excited for this one. I was a big X-Files fan back in the day, so the thought of a second stab at a big screen X-Files adaption was thrilling. The first movie, as you may remember, received universally bad reviews; it kind of summarized everything that went wrong with the show in the last 2 or 3 seasons.

I Want to Believe takes a step back from the “epicness” of the previous film, and instead presents us with a more down to earth (literally), enjoyable story very much along the lines of a traditional X-Files episode. This film centers around three factors: an organ-snatching Russian and his husband (yes, they’re gay), a pedophile physic priest (say that 3 times fast) and, most shockingly of all, the relationship between Mulder and Scully.

First, let’s discus the story. It was very creepy, but not in a supernatural sense, which was a nice change. It boils down to this: an FBI agent is abducted, and a priest claiming to have psychic visions of the event approaches the Bureau, telling them that he can help them track her down. The lead in charge of the investigation isn’t particularly comfortable with the idea of psychics, so they ask Mulder to come in and consult for them. By this time Mulder and Scully have long been out of the FBI game; Scully is a Doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows hospital, and Mulder has been hiding out at their home, dodging the FBI. Yeah, they live together. Even shows them in bed together. Weird, given the incredibly ambiguous relationship the two had throughout the TV series. A nice change, though.

Mulder gets right back into the swing of the things and becomes obsessed with the case, while Scully finds herself unwilling to get completely involved. In fact, a good deal of the film deals with the lovers quarrel that arises from Mulder’s devotion to the case. It’s nice to see the writers giving the relationship some real depth here.

The acting was pretty great, with one exception. Callum Rennie (you might recognize him as Number Two on Battlestar Galactica) does a fantastic and pretty frightening job of his role, and Gillian Anderson has really come a long way from the actress we were introduced to in the early days of the X-Files. Billy Connolly, who has long been one of my favorite performers, does a unnervingly good job of making you feel bad for the child molesting, eye-bleeding psychic priest. David Duchovny was… well, David Duchovny. I’ve never found his acting to be anything to write home about, but he’s the Fox Mulder we’ve all grown to love. My only complaint was with Amanda Peet. Her dialog felt dry, as it always does. Not sure how she keeps landing jobs, but I guess some people can get by on looks alone.

So, how did I feel about the film overall? I liked it, more or less. The story was interesting, and they didn’t try to go over the top like they did before. They stayed true to the traditional X-Files formula and it worked well. I do feel the whole thing was drawn out a bit too long, and they could easily have shaved a good 20-30 minutes off for my taste, but beyond that I didn’t have any major complaints.

I give it a 3.5/5 —

Gotham Knight

After catching The Dark Knight earlier today and loving it, I decided to pick up Gotham Knight and give it a try too. One can never get enough Batman, right? Gotham Knight is a direct-to-DVD anthology of six short, animated stories that take place in between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, with each film being written by different writers and produced by different animation studios. What makes Gotham Knight so interesting is that each studio, and indeed writer, was given free reign to explore entirely different aspects of Bruce Wayne, Batman and indeed Gotham City itself. Each story is very different from the previous in terms of subject and visual style, but perhaps more interestingly each story reveals something different about Batman himself.

The first film, Have I Got a Story For You, was produced by Japanese Studio 6°C. Largely unknown in the states, Studio 6°C’s only recognizable work to us would be the 2008 Transformers animated television series, though I have not had an opportunity to experience it yet. “Have I Got a Story For You” tells a tale of a ongoing struggle between Batman and an unknown villain in reverse (Memento-style) from the perspective of four kids. Each witnesses a different aspect of the battle, and in turn has a completely different interpretation of Batman to tell their friends. One sees him as a monster able to shift in and out of the shadows, another saw him as a huge bat rather than a man, and yet another saw him as a robot (which was very cool, I might add.) The final kid experiences the last version of batman, the traditional capped crusader we all know, and helps him finish the struggle with the bandit.

I thought the animation style was pretty interesting, though it didn’t do much for me personally. Very gritty, and rough, and the character designs were shaped in a distractingly odd form. Still, it’s a fun story, and a neat adventure into the minds of Gotham’s citizens and how differently each see’s Batman.

Continue Reading ‘Gotham Knight’ …

The Dark Knight

Finally had a chance to watch Dark Knight this evening after having to endure days of chatter on Twitter about it. “Oh man, it was so awesome!” I’d hear. “Best movie EVER!” one person declared. I died inside with each tweet, little by little.

So today I decided to get my butt over to the theater and check it out myself, and I must agree with the Twittersphere; this movie rocked. The action scenes were top notch, there was some wicked new gadgets introduced (city-wide sonar for bat vision? so cool.) and the acting, as predicted, was just fantastic, if not a bit creepy given Ledger’s untimely death.

I think my only minor gripe with the film was it’s lack of Bruce Wayne screen time. Christian Bale has long been one of my favorite actors, so I was expecting to see more lines from him than there were. Bale ends up spending most of the film in the costume, which is great, but you really fail to experience his acting ability when he gets so few lines behind the mask. I thought Wayne was far more interesting in the first film in that regard.

Ledger, as I think everyone expected, proved himself to be an outstanding Joker. He really nailed the role, and delivered a fantastic, creepy experience. It’s a true pity we won’t have an opportunity to see him reprise the role.

Two-Face was pretty interesting, though I found Eckhart’s villainous side at the end to be the low point of the film. To me, it came off feeling a bit rushed. Two-Face was always a fascinating character to me in the Batman universe, and given the long back story he and Batman had in the traditional lineage I was surprised to see the rebooted movie’s different look at the once-friend-now-adversaries. Personally? I would have liked to have seen them introduce Two-Face in this film, perhaps show his criminal side’s origins at the finale, and then allow for part of the next film to close things up. As it is I wasn’t very satisfied with Two-Face or his brief involvement in the story.

In any event, my complaints are very minor, and I can find little fault with any aspect of the film. Definitely a worthy sequel to Batman Begins, and in many ways I think it even raised the bar a notch.

I give it a 4.5/5 —
Almost perfect, but I think they could have spent a little more time developing Two Face and Wayne’s relationship.

So, what did you think?