All Aboard the Pineapple Express (and other happenings this weekend)

Good day,

Like many other people in my age bracket, I went and saw the latest Judd Apatow production this past weekend - Pineapple Express.

I laughed. A lot. And I'm not even someone who supports pot-smoking (I think it's gross and not a good way to spend your time or money - but that's just my opinion). But, I am a fan of Apatow's films, especially those featuring (and/or written by) the very funny Seth Rogen.

Pineapple Express was not a "good" film in the way that Knocked Up and Superbad were good films. Those films had strong plotlines and characters you could really care about. Pineapple Express was labeled a "weed/action movie", and that's really all it is. It's a weed movie with action sequences (guns, car chases, fight scenes, explosions, etc...). But Pineapple Express doesn't teach you life lessons like Apatow's other films of years past (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Instead, Pineapple Express gives you plenty of material to laugh at without you, the audience, having to strain your brain cells.

Even though it's not a "good" film, Pineapple Express is a fun watch. It was so refreshing to see James Franco in a comedy. To be honest, I find him aesthetically pleasing, so I've seen a bunch of his films over the past few years... and to continue being honest, most of them suck. A lot. (Spider Man 3, Annapolis, etc...) He's been doing the Spider Man movies or dramas for awhile now, it was nice to see him re-embracing comedy. (Remember "Freaks and Geeks" from 2001? You should. And if you don't, then go find it on DVD and watch the whole season and you'll see what I mean. Comedy.)

Franco and Rogen made as great on-screen team - probably b/c their friends off-screen as well. Everything that came out of Franco's mouth was hilarious. So, props to Rogen (and his screenwriting partner, Evan Goldberg) for writing good material and props to Franco for bringing it to life. Loved that Jaws shirt and those striped pajama pants... they went so well with the laid back/stoned off his ass attitude. In a way, I was reminded of The Dude. Good times.

Beside Pineapple Express, I watched a LOT of the Olympics. My sister and I have been recording everything on NBC and then going through it (God Bless the DVR... fastforwarding and rewinding television is GLORIOUS). We're big fans of Swimming, Diving and Gymnastics, so that's mostly what we've been paying attention to. We actually went to highschool with one of the men's swimmers. He didn't medal, but he made it to the Finals for the 100m Breaststroke, so that was cool.

The highlight so far has been swimming - last night when the Men's team won the 400m Freestyle Relay... HOLY COW that was INTENSE!

The USA was in 2nd place until literally the last 20 feet of the race, and then the USA guy punched it into overdrive and won by, like 8 hundreths of a second. It was awesome. We were cheering so loud! Luckily we don't have neighbors, or else we'd have woken everyone up with our shouting and hollering for Team USA. Yay America :)

This afternoon, because my sister is at work and I would feel wrong for watching the Olympics w/o her, I decided to check out "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog". For those of you not familiar with this little piece of wonderful, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" is an on-line series of 3 videos created by Joss Whedon (the guy who made Buffy, Angel, Firefly, etc...)

I had heard about Dr. Horrible and read about it in my EW, but had to check it out for myself. And I'm so glad that I did! Dr. Horrible stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillian and Felecia Day and it's a musical about an evil scientist named Dr. Horrible (NPH) who has a crush on a girl from the landromat (Day) who ends up dating his nemesis, Captain Hammer (Fillian). The songs are actually really catchy and the cast is great - Neil Patrick Harris is awesome. I haven't gotten the chance to see him live on Broadway yet, so seeing him in this little on-line video series was awesome. I know people are hoping there will be more installments - I'm hoping right there with them!

I'm a relative newcomer to Joss Whedon's work. The only Buffy anything I've ever seen was the 1992 film (which Whedon wrote, though I wasn't aware of who he was when I saw it... I was in elementary school!). I haven't seen Firefly or Serenity (though I think I'd like them). I recently started watching Angel (I got hooked on David Boreanaz from Bones, so this was the next logical series to watch, I thought... too bad I didn't know any of the Angel backstory from Buffy - whoops!), and I'm almost done with the whole series. So, I'm trying to get on the Whedon bandwagon :)

Well - I must be off. There is a lot of job hunting to do, as well as Olympics to watch.

Have a good one!