Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express

2008

Director: David Gordon Green

Writer: Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, and Judd Apatow

111 Minutes.

This was the first stoner comedy to gross over 100 million at the box office.

And why?

The past Freeks and Geeks relationship between these two stars, Spider-man’s James Franco and Knocked Up’s Seth Rogan, was already a wonderful mixture, but adding countless amount of marijuana tokes, one Danny McBride, and people getting shot at – then you have a hit.

And since most are completely stoned when they see these movies, who is not going to enjoy this film.

For argument sake, we can go down the list of the greatest stoner films around:

#1 Reefer Madness
#2 How High
#3 Half Basked
#4 Harold and Kumar
#5 Up in Smoke

Honorable mention for Dazed and Confused, PCU, Friday, and Fast Times and Ridgemont High.

Then there is Pineapple Express.

In the scene above, Saul (James Franco) is explaining to Dale (Seth Rogan) about Pineapple Express, a rare weed that can only grow in certain places involving Hawaiian-Candiania air flow, which mixes into the dirt, then into your weed.

Saul explains it as this, “This is like if that Blue Oyster shit met that Afghan Kush I had - and they had a baby. And then, meanwhile, that crazy Northern Light stuff I had and the Super Red Espresso Snowflake met and had a baby. And by some miracle, those two babies met and fucked - this would the shit that they birthed.”

This sets the entire movie. Without Dale buying and smoking this marijuana, it wouldn’t have lead to him parking outside a house where he witnesses a murder, throws his joint out the window, hits a cop car, and then gets tracked by killers who know the taste of this amazingly rare weed.

We need Pineapple Express.

But dealing with the stoner audience, this film dives into the importance of conversation. This conversation, about Blue Oyster shit and Snowflakes, is a piece of dialog most stoners have had at one time. Smoking and growing marijuana is a scientific art and the weed’s origin is a birth certificate to how incredible smoking can be.

Weed is important.

And here the stoner audience can relate. They’ve had this conversation. They’ve talked about the vast differences between Kit-Kats and Twix. They’ve dove into Star Wars philosophy or character-drive decisions in Art house films. And they have talked about religion, politics, culture, science, and sex as if they could focus enough pray, vote, work, or bang. In short, when you are stoned, you talk about the importance of the unimportant.

That’s why Pineapple Express succeeds. It takes serious situation and makes them dull, while taking pointless situations and making them epic.

And then there was Danny McBride.

In the end, Pineapple Express is a film you watch at the end of a party, three sheets to the wind, and smoking a joint talking about the girl you wish would’ve stayed.

But she didn’t, so you can enjoy the film.