Paramount Theatre
Gordon Green Goes Ganja
The trailer's up for Pineapple Express, one-time Austin resident David Gordon Green's collaboration with Superbad's Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Green (who made the gorgeous All the Real Girls and dirty-Gothic Undertow) may not seem like the obvious choice for a comedy about two stoners on the lam, but when I interviewed him about a million years ago (er, 2001) – my first-ever filmmaker interview, in fact – he enthused then about his fondness for Seventies cop and/or car genre pics like Electra Glide in Blue. Pineapple appears to be channeling some of that enthusiasm – even the name (which refers to an extra-special strain of weed) sounds like a throwback; by the time m.i.a.'s "Paper Planes" kicks in on the trailer and James Franco kicks his foot through a windshield while still driving, I was sold. It's a redband trailer, which means only them's over 18 are welcome to enjoy the pervasive language, drug use, sexual references, and violence.