Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow's Entourage, and David Gordon Green go for Another Sleeper Hit

Any doubts that Seth Rogen has a future as a leading man are going to be erased by The Pineapple Express.

Sure, he’s going to be a very particular kind of leading man, but a leading man nonetheless. Let me get even more specific: Seth Rogen is the stoner Albert Brooks. I’ll get back to that in a bit.

On paper, The Pineapple Express is a strange bird indeed. At first glance, it’s one of the eight million movies that are being released by the Judd Apatow Mafia (can’t he just start his own studio at this point?). It’s written by Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg, Judd Apatow’s protégés. And it stars Rogen, who just came off of his first leading man success in Apatow’s Knocked Up , which Rogen, by all reports, did a lot of the writing on (although he did not get a credit for it). Apatow gets a story and producing credit on Pineapple. And it co-stars James Franco, who’s known for his role in the Spiderman movies, but is a secret member of the Apatow Mafia (he was in Apatow’s beloved but ill-fated TV show Freaks and Geeks way back in 1999, and of course made a cameo in Knocked Up).
 

A movie where Sean William Scott, the perennial “dude” and John C. Reilly, the over-the-top comic actor du jour play rivals?  Would this be Stifler meets Cox in a boardroom? I had my doubts going into the theater, but I’m happy to say those doubts have been laid to rest.  Scott skirts away from type and Reilly returns to dignified vulnerability to turn in the surprisingly satisfying film The Promotion.