Pineapple Express - The Surefire Formula
By sirtmagus How
easy it is to make this generation of moviegoers laugh. Judd Apatow and
his crew of faux nerds figured it out and you can do it too! Remember
Fruit Roll-ups? Not tired of unicorns yet? If you like old snack foods
like Fruit Roll-ups and pot smoking and toilet jokes, and endless
sarcastic dialogue about friendship, homoeroticism, useless
mean-spirited cursing, copious bodily harm, nonsequitors up the ass, a
pinch of racism and a lot of cock punching, then grab grandad’s
typewriter and write the next
Pineapple Express. You don’t
need a coherent story or likable characters, you don’t even need funny
actors or good jokes. Just get all your friends, preferably the guys
you’ve been working with for a while so you get no dissenting opinions,
go to the woods and let the camera roll. Ha, let the
good times roll!
How does it feel to be filming? It’s getting late and everyone’s
tired, right? That’s okay, just start repeating your jokes! Point out
the obvious! Yell random things, look around the area and spout out
what you see: “Tree! Tree! Rock! Tree! Squirrel!” See? The jokes write
themselves. If you need to build character and move the, ahem, “story”
along throw your script away! It’s more of a guideline anyway.
Improvise everything! Make shit up on the spot! Who’s going to know
whether it was in the script or not? Isn’t the dialogue supposed to
feel and sound real anyway? Then improvising, even if it’s
transparent to everybody watching and ends up mildly annoying, is the
way to go. If the improvising causes scenes to drag on with no sign of
a punchline, that’s good. Don’t worry about cohesive editing or quick
pacing, you can fix all that in post with choppy editing, and
slow-motion montages, perhaps featuring people doing “the Robot” or
simply walking around. Add in a lame soundtrack to help maintain the
illusion of narrative progress. You want to pad your comedy film out
with as much of this shit as possible so you can reach the hallowed
feature length two hour mark. Why comedies would ever go
beyond the 90 minute mark is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in
a quick buck. Or rather, a slow buck! Who knows why? You’re not making Dr. Strangelove here. You’re making the next Pineapple Express!
Now, here’s how you can improve on the Superbad/Knocked Up/Pineapple Express formula. Give James Franco
better stuff to do! He is probably the only reason to make another one.
His comic capabilities were discovered by those who gave up on Freaks & Geeks after three or four episodes in the marvel-ous (see what I did there? [see what I did there?] {I pointed out the joke!}) Spider-Man 3.
Whenever he’s off-screen he is wanted back! Don’t put that buff bod to
waste! Oh, do play up the homosexuality! I know this blog has been
reading like A Film Fan’s Guide to Gay Movies lately but c’mon, at
least this movie doesn’t try to hide its feelings under black masks and
yellow capes. There are at least two times Seth Rogen and James Franco
look like they’re going to full-on kiss, but guess what. SPOILER ALERT:
They don’t. Hopefully, someday, the gay rom-com will come about that
will revolutionize the industry by not inducing bile flow across the
world and by not sniping at other underrepresented minorities to help
make the gayness more palatable.
Pro-tip: Asian people are not jokes in themselves. I know. I know. “Look at A Christmas Story,” you say! “Look at Breakfast at Tiffany’s!”
I say back: look again (Mickey Rooney isn’t even Asian!) Our friends
from the far east have come a long, long way since then. Look at Harold and Kumar, I say! Harold’s a main fucking character and he’s Chinese
for chrissake. How often do you see that? I mean, outside of kung fu
movies? So to see them back as villains, getting their nails done,
dressed as motherfucking ninjas for crying out loud, it’s kind of
embarrassing. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were actually funny, and
they’re the backbone of the murder plot apparently. Oh yeah, there’s a
murder story somewhere. Not that it matters!
Hey, speaking of plots that are just excuses for random scenes to happen, Pineapple Express is very Harold and Kumar-esque.
… Holy shit, who knew “Harold and Kumar-esque” would be something to
say about something else? Well, there ya go, but it plays out almost
the exact same way as the recent sequel, Escape From Guantanamo Bay.
Murderous forces chase our two main characters, they get in wacky
situations, the two guys fight and argue (much like the male and female
leads do before the end of romantic flicks), then they get together at
the end. I imagine both movies had the same pitch:
Judd Apatow: “Write a movie about what it’s like to be high.”
Seth Rogen: “Duuuuuude.”
Or maybe not. Judd probably wasn’t even there in person. Does anyone
know what producers do these days? It feels like he e-mailed the
approval.
Anyway. If one movie has the edge it’s
Pineapple Express.
H&K’s racial progressiveness is keen and all, but
Pineapple has
the honorable distinction of no poop jokes (that I can remember, I was
so baked man, ha ha!), less poking fun at the handicapped and
minorities, and no half-baked attempts at political humor. Who even
bothers putting that stuff into movies anymore anyway? I mean, besides
hacks. Last I checked - which was last night - the fucking
Daily Showis still on. Political humor writers of the world, take heed: your jobs
are taken! Put on Comedy Central and see for yourself - twice - every
goddamn night!
Also, the character-who-is-funny-because-he-won’t-die has been done
to death. Do I even need to point out examples? There’s a reason the
third guy on Pineapple’s poster doesn’t have his name next to
Rogen’s and Franco’s - the guy sucks! The best scene in the movie is
when our two heroes beat the fuck out of him in his own home, while destroying his own home.
Not because it’s humorous, but for the sheer satisfaction of watching
this guy guy and his home get obliterated for having to put up with his
sleepy-eyed bullshit. But he keeps coming back. Why? Who let this guy
in Apatow’s fun club? Why didn’t he die?!! For that matter, what the
HELL is ROSIE PEREZ in this movie for?
Oh, whoa. Somewhere along the way I started reviewing. Ahem, back to
business: improving the formula! Enhance the stupid girlfriend subplot.
Trust me, even though it literally goes nowhere - indeed, you will
forget it all together! - you need it to provide at least one female
body in the movie and it will pad out your run time. It will bring your
movie a screeching halt each time she opens her mouth but you could at
least get some use out of a perfectly good Ed Begley, Jr. as her
father. Don’t have him stick around for too long though, you want
viewers aching for more Ed. Begley goodness! Even if his dialogue is
just the word “fuck” over and over. You could amp the comedic
possibilities to unforeseen heights by just tattooing the word “fuck”
to his forehead. Then he need not speak at all!
Well, that’s it! You’re well on your way to penning the next
mundane, surefire comedy hit. For further research I urge you to forgo
paying for Pineapple Express. Steal it online, sneak in, whatever, just don’t pay your money for it. That could be weed money, brah!
Yeah!
Editor’s Note: Article doubles as A Guide to an Inferior Hot Fuzz