Between the new Vanity Fair spread starring his comedy troupe (which includes his wife) and official word that he’s producing Ghostbusters 3, Judd Apatow is the talk of the Internet today. Eric D. Snider, in a new post at Cinematical that is apparently unrelated to either bits of news, even discusses Apatow’s potential status as this generation’s John Hughes. Considering some bloggers refer to the stars of the Vanity Fair feature as the “Frat Pack,” despite that term’s origins being with another set of actors (though Apatow’s pals do overlap and have been deemed “Junior Varsity” members), there may be weight to Snider’s claim.
Whatever Apatow’s group is called (Vanity Fair simply yet prematurely labels them “Comedy’s New Legends”), their leader is certainly ruling over a large part of Hollywood these days, enough that he’s sure to appropriate more than just the Frat Pack name before he’s done with his reign as King of Comedy. Now that he’s borrowed the talent of Adam Sandler (for this summer’s Funny People) and is about to take charge of even older SNL alum (for the next Ghostbusters flick), what could stop him from hiring Anthony Michael Hall or Shirley Maclaine in order to align himself with even the “Brat Pack” and “Rat Pack,” respectively?
We’ll just have to wait to see how much Apatow will ultimately conquer. So, for the time being, let’s take a look at what the blogosphere is saying about him and his crew today:
When the Golden Globe nominations were announced last week, there was one glaring omission from the Best Supporting Actor category: a nod for Milk. Actually, there were four glaring omissions, because Milk still does not have a definite forerunner among its quartet of campaigned-for supporting actors, which includes Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Diego Luna. Did the Hollywood Foreign Press Association truly snub the film, as has been suggested, or could the organization simply not decide which actor to nominate? Perhaps the two favorites, Brolin and Franco, cancelled each other out. If so, the Academy needs to ensure that such a thing doesn’t happen with its Oscar nominations. And the best way to do this is to get behind Diego Luna for Best Supporting Actor.
Gus Van Sant’s best-known films (which are not the same as his best films) have historically involved a certain grappling with What Hollywood Does. Hollywood saves a poor-but-smart kid from his environment (and himself) with the help of a bearded, platitude-spouting Robin Williams. Hollywood saves a poor-but-smart kid from his environment (and himself) with the help of a bearded, laughable slang-spoutingSean Connery. Hollywood flatters its flavors of the month by shoe-horning them into paint-by-numbers remakes of aged cinematic game changers. Etc. Anyone cognizant of Van Sant’s turn-of-the-century Hollywood period shouldn’t be surprised by his willing ability to play it straight.
To say that Van Sant continues to “play it straight” with Milk isn’t meant as a pun regarding sexuality, exactly, but said pun wouldn’t be entirely off the mark. If his Hollywood trilogy was what Van Sant needed to get from his early meditations on the emotional lives of low-lifes to his much-vaunted Death Trilogy, then that most recent career phase may be what Van Sant needed to work through in order to merge the first two modes of his career. Milk takes the defining moments of a subculture once perceived by the mainstream as deviant, and runs it through the mill of What Hollywood Does, thereby sanitizing its hero for mainstream martyrhood. Van Sant’s laundering of an outsider hero through the very inside mechanism of the Hollywood biopic has been variously described as heroic and distasteful. As of press time, I think it’s somewhere in between.
I’m skeptical about James Franco portraying Allen Ginsberg in the courtroom-set biopic Howl (can anyone but David Cross be cast after I’m Not There?), but now that Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Alan Alda and David Straithairn are also aboard, it could at least be a decent ensemble piece.
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, U2 and now … Blue Man Group? The painted trio is the latest group to be given a 3-D concert film. I wonder if David Cross just blue himself in the hopes of getting a part in it.
New Line has acquired an upcoming novel from Richard Doetsch about a man accused of killing his wife and his trip back in time — in one-hour increments — to save her. Titled The Thirteenth Hour, Variety says it’s being described as The Bourne Identity meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, but obviously it’s more like The Fugitive meets Memento (meets — hopefully — David Cross).
New Line is also making a romantic comedy that’s an obvious cross between Slap Shot and The Devil Wears Prada. And, not obviously, it’s based on a true story.
Trailer remakes seem to be all the rage now — the Dark Knightwith kids clip I posted last month is getting a lot of mileage lately — and this week Indy Mogul premiered its parody of the full Pineapple Expresstrailer, for a fake movie titled “Banana Express.” Here’s the quick synopsis: a gorilla (Seth Rogen) and his banana dealer (James Franco) go on the run after the former witnesses a zookeeper murdering a fellow gorilla.
It may not be the funniest thing you see this week, but you have to give them credit for attempting to “ape” the Pineapple Express trailer shot for shot (Indy Mogul links to the original trailer and welcomes you to compare the two videos) and for including their own parody of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” titled “Banana Peels & Bombs”, which can be downloaded from Indymogul.com. Think you could do better? In 36 hours? I’m anxious to see other trailer remakes and parodies, so bring ‘em on.
Rogen and Franco are hilarious in Pineapple Express, but the pothead to really watch out for is Danny McBride. Often relegated to brilliant and all-too-brief supporting roles, McBride stars in The Foot Fist Way, which is finally getting a gradual release thanks to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. McBride’s magic lies in his ability to be a complete asshole 100% of the time on screen, while still charming the viewer. How does he do that?
ALSO, a call to Karina brings us back to the mid-twentieth century with some great television. What is it that makes AMC’s Mad Men so addictive? Need an excuse to not leave the house for the rest of the summer? Try TCM’s Summer Under the Stars.
Pineapple Express‘ Wednesday night opening broke two records: with its gross of $12.5 million, it had the best August Wednesday opening day ever. It has also now grossed more than every other film directed by David Gordon Green combined. His previous high grosser was All the Real Girls, which made about half a million dollars back in 2003. That’s right: in a single day, he beat his personal high score by a factor of 25. Of course, Pineapple also opened in 125 times as many theaters as Real Girls played in its widest release.
There’s really no way to calculate how much of that $12.5 million is due to the efforts of Green, and how much can be credited to the Judd Apatow brand name, to the combination of leads Seth Rogen and James Franco, or to the immortal Huey Lewis. So…cheers all around!
Typically we see red-band trailers arrive online after the green-band trailers show up in theaters. But so far we’ve seen two R-rated promos for Pineapple Expressyet still no sign of any cleaner, theatrically distributed version. And after watching this second trailer (actually the first promo was more just a clip than an actual trailer), I’m doubting whether the film could even have a broader, theatrically appropriate ad. Is the MPAA alright with marketing stoner movies to general audiences?
I decided to seek out the original trailer for the comparable Up in Smoke, and it turns out the thing was only approved for “restricted audiences.” Of course that was long ago, when theaters could run such ads (and America was less uptight).However, more recently, both Harold and Kumar Go to White Castleand its upcoming sequel Escape from Guantanamo feature references to marijuana in their “approved for all audiences” trailers, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for Pineapple Express to do the same. Sure, Pineapple Express seems to be even more about getting high, in nearly every scene of the movie in fact, but surely the people at Sony can manage to focus primarily on that lame, derivative, accidental-witness-of-a-murder plot, while also concentrating on the fact that this is a Judd Apatow production, starring newly minted comedy star Seth Rogen and Spider-Man vet James Franco and directed by critically acclaimed filmmaker David Gordon Green.
I guess they do have a long time to figure that out. The movie doesn’t come out until August 8.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Pineapple Express‘ Wednesday night opening broke two records: with its gross of $12.5 million, it had the 
