I think ‘stoner’ comedies are funny.  I’ve watched the Cheech and Chong movies numerous times (although I probably shouldn’t have seen them at the age I did), and I love Harold and Kumar…but would I love Dale and Saul, the stoner buddies of Pineapple Express? The answer is a resounding YES! Dale and Saul are one of the funniest comedy teams I’ve seen in awhile. 

Dale (Seth Rogen, Knocked Up) is pretty much a loser.  He is a process server, meaning he doesn’t do much of anything.  Mostly he just drives around smoking weed and listening to the radio.  Occasionally he dresses up in costumes to fool people into admitting who they are so he can serve them a subpoena.  After work he hangs out with his 18-year-old, high school girlfriend, and buys weed from Saul (James Franco, Spiderman).  Although Dale doesn’t like Saul at first, he has to be nice to him to get the good weed – like the new blend called the pineapple express.  After buying his weed from Saul, he goes to serve one more client, taking his new blend with him.  While waiting outside he accidentally witnesses a murder by a policewoman (Rosie Perez, White Men Can’t Jump) and the local drug lord (Gary Cole, Office Space).  Stoned and scared he throws his joint out of the car and races to Saul’s.  Paranoia ensues as the two think they will be found.  Turns out that hit men who have been sent by the drug lord really are following them.  For me, this is when the movie really begins.   The audience follows Dale and Saul on their stoned adventure, and it is some funny stuff! 

First I want to give recognition to Danny McBride (The Foot Fist Way).  He plays the middleman between the drug lord and Saul, and he is hilarious!  He takes a shot like a champ, and keeps it going.  I definitely look forward to seeing him in more movies!  Now on to the rest…I am not a James Franco fan.  Normally when I watch him act…well try to act…I just want to smack him, but I actually enjoyed him as Saul.  The only other time I’ve liked Franco was also when he played a stoner, in “Freaks and Geeks.” So I guess that’s the role that works best for him. I already knew that Franco and Rogen would have great chemistry, and it was in full force here.  Rogen plays the loveable loser with ease, and here it is no different.  Surprisingly though, he also shows himself to be a bit of an action star.  This movie had a lot more action than I expected. There were fights, guns, and blood abound.  I was surprised at how much blood was in the movie, not that it was an excessive amount – I just wasn’t expecting it.  Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg dabbled in action with their last effort Superbad, but they really dive right into this movie.   

I’ve heard from some other people who have seen this movie that they think it’s more of a ‘guy’s movie.’ I don’t agree though.  I think it just depends on the person, of course, but if you’re a comedy fan I think you’ll enjoy the Pineapple Express.  I’m going to give this one a B+ and you know what…I think I’ll give James Franco another chance. 

Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is back again to defend his family’s honor by unraveling a new trail of clues. This time it’s his great-grandfather who has come under scrutiny, as it emerges that he is listed in John Wilkes Booth’s diary as a conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

It would be pretty easy to be scathing about this movie if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t think it sets its ambitions that high in the first place. If you’ve watched the first installment of National Treasure you’ll know that everyone involved is looking to make a film that tries nothing more than to be entertaining for a couple of hours. There is no need to engage the brain just hit auto-pilot and let the movie do its thing. So, with that in mind the movie does succeed.

The original treasure hunting gang are back and are as one dimensional as ever. Oddly it’s not as disappointing as it should be because they don’t really need to be anything else. If anything it makes the performances of Jon Voight and Helen Mirren (Ben’s parents) all the more entertaining. It’s like watching them have a mufti day at work where they can just run about enjoying themselves.

The plot is incredibly outlandish and impossible to achieve in real life without Gates being shot as a terrorist on several occasions. As long as you’re able to take that in your stride it really doesn’t matter. The only danger is Cage taking Gates too far over the top to be reigned back in. Thankfully I can only remember that happening once and I was quite pleased to see him quickly arrested.

Let’s face it, if you watched the first one, a lot of what happens here is going to be familiar. It is simply another episode of a mindless action adventure that manages not to offend too much. I don’t think fans of the first movie will be disappointed by this one, if anything I think I might have been more entertained this time around.

You can do a lot worse than spending a couple of hours following the treasure clues with Cage and comapany. Just don’t expect to unearth a masterpiece.

Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) runs a New York nightclub frequented by Russian gangsters. His world is centered around enjoying himself with his girlfriend Amanda (Eva Mendes) in a society of drugs and alcohol. It’s not long before we find out that to facilitate this world he’s distanced himself as much as possible from his family of police officers. When his father, Deputy Chief Bert Grusinsky (Robert Duvall) and his brother Captain Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) start cracking down on the drugs being dealt in the nightclub, Bobby is forced to choose sides.

We Own the Night is one of those solid police movies that tries to rely on straight forward story telling rather leaning on a multitude of action scenes. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t really carry the weight of expectation as only Phoenix’s character gets the chance to display any real complexity. Nobody else gets the same opportunity and it’s a shame because it’s a waste of a good cast. Duval and Wahlberg put in decent performances without being stretched and although Mendes fares a little better, she still doesn’t get the kind of gritty role she could have portrayed.

That’s not to say that the script is poorly written, just a little lacking in tension or gripping drama. When the action scenes do come they are handled superbly well. Director (and writer) James Gray chooses to display a degree of realism rather than resorting to some state-of-the-art fireworks to get our hearts pumping. Even the car chase is a little understated and it makes it all the more compelling to watch.

Phoenix delivers the standout performance in a mumbling, nonchalant kind of way but is undermined by the contrived ending. Once his character is given carte blanche to do whatever he likes and starts wondering around with a shotgun all the realism unravels into a messy ending.

All in all a solid police movie that doesn’t quite engage. It suffers from an undulation of too many lows being overwhelmed by the highs. Still, it’s certainly watchable and a harmless way to spend a couple hours on the sofa.

I like dark comedies.  I love laughing at things that I probably shouldn’t be laughing at, but do anyway.  So when I first saw previews for the movie The Savages, I felt that it was a movie right up my alley, and I was right.  This movie is more family drama, but it does have some dark comedy thrown in at just the right moments to help lighten the drama. 

Basically this movie is about Wendy (Laura Linney, The Squid and the Whale) and Jon Savage (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Capote) – a brother and sister who learn that their father needs to be put in a nursing home.  They have not spoken to their father, Lenny

(Philip Bosco, Working Girl), in almost twenty years, and have quite a strained relationship with him.  The siblings come together though and do what needs to be done, and learn many things about each other along the way.  Wendy is an aspiring playwright who makes a living temping, while Jon is an aspiring author who makes his living teaching drama at a college level.  Each has their own problems they are trying to deal with – Wendy is sleeping with a married man, and Jon can’t commit to his Polish girlfriend. 

I really enjoyed watching this family’s story unfold.  There were so many things just under the surface that finally boiled over as the movie went on, and it always helped them make a better decision in their life.  Director Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills) was good at showing just enough, but not telling the audience everything, as to let them figure out the details.  She was also good at showing the humor of the situations the characters found themselves in. 

One of my favorite scenes involved Wendy and her father as they travel to the East Coast.  Wendy decides that her father doesn’t need to wear suspenders as he looks like “Grandpa Walton” and since he’s almost always in his wheelchair, what’s the point, so she takes them off of him.  Soon enough Lenny is on the plane and needs to go to the bathroom, not able to wait for help, Wendy must take him to the bathroom.  As they’re walking down the aisle, Lenny suddenly stops and just stares at Wendy.  Unsure what has happened, Wendy asks her father what is wrong…cut to Lenny’s ankles, which now have his pants around them.  Next cut to a back view of people looking at Lenny wearing an adult diaper. End scene.  Now that’s funny, it probably shouldn’t be as funny as I found it, but it was!  Of course it was a little sad too, but that goes perfectly with the tone of this movie.  

If the director was good, her actors were great.  All three of the main characters were wonderful in making their roles seem very real.  Bosco was definitely the stand out actor as a man with dementia, I was almost shocked in watching a feature and seeing him be himself and not Lenny.  As expected, Linney and Hoffman give wonderful performances.  They acted just as siblings should act, a bit competitive but supportive too, and of course they fought like siblings do too. I haven’t seen much of their work, but every time I do get a chance to watch them in a movie they do not disappoint.  

The Savages would get a B+ for me.  Towards the middle it did get a bit slow, but quickly caught my interest again and kept a strong hold on it until the end of the movie.