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Friday and Saturday were host to a theatrical comedy double header. I went to both Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and left both somewhat satisfied. We’ll start in chronological order:

Tropic Thunder

It’s been much too long since we’ve had a decent parody film. Get Smart lacked plenty of laughs and those moronic tards from the ________ Movie franchise* (Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie) lack intelligence, laughs, and anything else worth seeing in a movie. The only thing they are good for is inspiring hope in smarter writers. A borderline schadenfreude “If they can do it, I can definitely do it” type of hope.

Nevertheless I liked Tropic Thunder. I laughed virtually the entire movie. My favorite part(s) were the mock trailers at the beginning, basically establishing what type of actor each dude was in the movie. It clearly outlined what archetypes of acting talent it would be parodying right away. We had the rapper/performer turned actor; the serious Oscar winner; the I-can’t-say-no-to-a-script action star (Think Samuel L Jackson + Jason Statham + Ben Stiller (zing) ); and the I’ll-do-anything-for-a-laugh-including-playing-multiple-roles star. My other favorite part would have to be anything pertaining to the role Tom Cruise played alongside Yes-Man Bill Hader. I think I laughed more at his brilliant portrayal of a producer then at anything else, with Downey, Jr.’s role a very close second.

On the gatsome comedy scale, this is definitely an 8 out of 10.

Pineapple Express

With Seth Rogen pretty much a household name for comedy it was basically like you would expect. However it was nice to see James Franco in something that didn’t suck (besides Spider-Man 1 and 2). He has some of the funniest lines in the movie and his delivery and timing were very good. I wish I could say the same for Rogen, who actually seemed sub-par in this movie. It was like the director handed Franco a script but told Rogen to improvise. Now I’m not saying this couldn’t work but it was like Rogen was too concentrated on improv to worry about the acting part. The dialog was too relaxed on his end but I’m not sure who entirely is to blame.

But do not get me wrong, this movie is funny. While it lacks as many jokes as Tropic Thunder there were points where I was laughing harder at this film then the other. On the other hand Pineapple Express has sneakier and wittier jokes then this weekend’s predecessor. I could tell the general audience wasn’t quite connected to them as I was laughing nearly by myself in a not-quite-barren-enough theater. Maybe my brands of humor are more unique then the average or something, but I found quite a bit more laughter then everyone else.

On the gatsome comedy scale, I’m giving Pineapple a 6.5 out of 10.

Ultimately I laughed longer at Tropic Thunder but harder at Pineapple Express. While both are optimal, sometimes you have to take what you can get and both are worth a viewing. Maybe not in the theater for Pineapple Express though.