Pineapple Express

As its makers say in the commentary, "making of" featurette and just about every promotional opportunity, it was ridiculous that "an emotionally-charged, funny, action weed movie" was given the green light by the studio. It's this kind of disbelief that also helped make its writers' predecessor, Superbad, come to life, but as producer of both films, Judd Apatow says in the commentary that Pineapple Express is "the end of the era where we all make movies that we think won't get made." The fact that star/co-writer/co-executive producer Seth Rogen and his creative partner Evan Goldberg don't know where to draw the line is what makes their films so special, and Pineapple Express takes the cake, elevating the measuring sticks for pot flicks, brom-coms and action comedies to an unreachably high level. When burnout process server Dale (Rogen) happens to witness a murder, he finds himself on the run after carelessly tossing his roach of the rarest weed in the city: "Pineapple Express." Dale drags his dealer Saul (James Franco) into the mess and over the course of two nights the pair find themselves kick-starting a major drug war between two rivals and becoming unlikely gun-toting heroes. Easily the funniest movie of the year, Pineapple Express arrives in a special two-disc edition that shouldn't be overlooked for the sake of saving a few bucks. The commentary is a full house that includes basically everyone involved in making the film: director, writers, producers and the entire main cast. And needless to say, there's no shortage of hilarity and enlightenment, such as Rogen explaining that he pussied out of telling Jeff Goldbum they diss him and Franco revealing that to play stoned he always pretended he was looking into the wind. There are a ton of alternate and extended scenes that are well worth watching again and again, especially the opening scene with Private Miller (Bill Hader), who elaborates on how "Item 9" makes him feel, as well as the forest bonding scene between Dale and Saul that finds them talking about how The Land Before Time is a good pick-up topic, and wondering why there's no "Vag-agra" for girls. The gag reel, for once, isn't a waste of time, especially since you get to hear Ed Begley Jr. say, "I'll gouge your eyes out and skull fuck you" to Rogen. The "making of" finds Apatow trying to sell it as a lesson in not smoking pot, as well as revealing that the inspiration was to make a whole movie using characters like Brad Pitt's Floyd in True Romance, but done as a big Jerry Bruckheimer action flick like Bad Boys, but with everyone stoned. Bringing in Green helped make it character-driven and according to Rogen, way better than what they were originally trying to do. Also, we hear more about how they wrote Saul for Rogen and Dale for Franco but chose to switch since Franco is always stereotyped as a "serious actor." On the second disc there are more deleted and extended scenes, a pile of featurettes, including "Item 9" and "Saul's Apartment," which further extend the film's background and outcome, as well as "Line-O-Rama" and "Direct-O-Rama," which feature different takes and different lines, and clips from their Comic Con panel, which is enlivened when the Human Giant guys step up to the mic to ask audience questions. Plus: "Begley's Best," "Red and Jessica's Guide to Marriage," injury report, raw footage.