Pineapple Extension: "You guys were in a car chase?!"

One of my favorite lines that's not in the extended or theatrical version but refrences the extended's talk about murdering, is a Danny McBride improv about how murder is "something you can just dip your toe into." If anyone wasn't convinced of Danny McBride's genius after "I used to use this little gun when I was a prostitute," that riff should placate their doubt.

Also, Empire Online has an alternate ending for the film that's apperantly an easter egg on the dvd (though I haven't found it.) Seems like it was created just for the dvd and not something that was ever considered for a real ending (though since they began shooting without an ending, it's possible.) You can see it at the link below.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/01/14/pineapple-express-alternative-ending/

Could it have all been a Pineapple-induced dream? Sure, if there were signs that a different narrative actually took place; anything that would contradict what we witnessed in the previous hundred minutes would do. Despite my misgivings about "Fight Club," that film has contextual clues that break through the presumptive narrative logic.

This interpretation does nothing to further the enjoyment of the picture, in my mind, and, in point of fact, I think it damages the true humor of the film's ending, which is that these protagonists willfully acknowledge how inane and unlikely their adventure was. If the preceding adventure is false, then there's no frisson between the heroes' good cheer and their very real, near-fatal scars.

Jim, I love ya to death, and I love your articles, and I love that you love "Pineapple Express," but I can't get behind this reading of the film.

And the best line is: "Well that's your loss cause I'm a great friend."

Jim-

I have to admit that it did not occur to me that Pineapple Express was a "head trip movie." If it were, the final conversation in the coffee shop would have been a little less funny. The implausibility of the events that transpired the day and night before, combined with their frank recounting of them, is what makes this scene so delightful. They are, in effect, recounting the major events of the film for themselves in true pothead style; anybody who has had a "next morning" conversation with their drug addled buddies would know what I'm talking about. I would imagine this would be especially valid if murder, ninjas, police corruption, and a car chase were involved.

The "movie in the head" is one of the reasons I DON'T like Pineapple Express. Like many people feel about Doubt, I think this is one of those built-in insurance policies. "Oh, it didn't quite make sense? It was a bit uneven? What do you expect from stoners?" And so on. Funny movie, but I hate that its flaws are brushed aside with this excuse.

I was just about to post about the awesomeness of the line "That's something you can dip your toes into," but Nick's beaten me to the punch.

What an excellent, excellent film!

JE: Then: "We kinda dipped our toes into murder, it's done, let's move on." Franco tosses in a classic, matter-of-fact statement of agreement: "You murdered, man." As if he were striving for consensus: "Yeah, you farted, man."

I think "Go, go, go!" might give "Let's get outta here!" a fight for the title of most used line in American cinema.

I agree with your interpretation of the film's ending, but I'm not grooving to its "brilliance" in the way you did. I found it a decent but uneven comedy that didn't really provide, say, the non-stop laughter of "Tropic Thunder", or the more resonant comedy (which is what I think you felt) of classics like "The Big Lebowski". Franco was excellent, though, on that I do agree.

The whole film reminded me of the adage about a drunk, although I'll change it to dope: "It's more fun, and funny, to be high, than to watch someone who's high".

I love how apatow has the bonding bromance love between the guy characters in his movies. To me this scene was just as funny (or even funnier) than the sleeping bag conversation in superbad. I thought it was hilarious because I really wasn't sure if Danny McBride was gonna bleed to death or not. The movie would've still made it funny if he died anyway, that's how good it was. I want Huey Lewis to write more awesome songs like that, too.

i don't really buy the whole "in their heads" thing. if it was, then how are they all shot and bloody and injured? i dunno, to me, that sounds like one of those theories that's forced onto a film that never really warrented or asked for it.
cheers
KZ

JE: The movie's not over yet. I love that they never cut back to a shot of them, say, waking up on the couch with cold roaches in their hands and the TV playing. It's suggested -- not made explicit -- and I think it's funnier and smarter for that.

"Okay, so I did murder someone, not a big deal..."

Jim, this is wonderful. Thanks for sharing. This is definitely in my top ten of the year.

I love Rogen's line at the end of that clip about becoming friends in the process and learning stuff about each other, essentially spelling out the basic plot points of every post Lethal Weapon buddy movie (not to mention Farley/Spade-esque mismatch buddy comedies!). Brilliant stuff.

Wasn't that clip in the theater version? I remember seeing it.

JE: Part of it is -- the talk about the fight and the car chase. It's all the stuff that explicitly acknowledges the movie's body count that has been added into the Extended Version.

Nobody cares.

Come on, Jim - You just criticized people in your "Dark Knight" threads about reading things into the film that aren't ACTUALLY in the film...and then you proceed to base your entire interpretation of "Pineapple Express" around an idea that, as far as I can tell, is not supported by anything in the film. (And no, "They're smoking pot, that's the textual support!" is not a valid argument.)

There is never any suggestion that the reality we're seeing isn't real - we're never shown any possibilty of an alternative. Like what James V. said in his earlier comment.

You even go so far as to say, in your response to Riley's post: "...it's suggested - not made explicit - and I think it's funnier and smarter for that." So your absolute interpretation of the film - which is so absolute that you assume none of us could possibly interpret it any other way - is based on a vague suggestion that many of us aren't convinced is even there, and certainly isn't made clear, or any semblance of clear. And yet that non-clarity or non-substance is used as a defense of your position...whereas with TDK, you got on people about doing the same thing in your "close reading" lecture.

Don't get me wrong - I haven't even gotten in on the TDK debate and don't care to, and I thought "Pineapple Express" was great. But I definitely don't see it as a fantasy or head-trip movie. First of all, it's not like there's a rule that we have to be dealing with the "real world" here, so there's no reason to make excuses for the events that happen on screen.

Personally, I loved how these two guys get unwittingly thrown into an action-movie scenario, and have no idea how to be action-movie stars. I loved the subtle satire of action conventions - for instance, how guns were always conveniently available right when someone needed them; or how there was no logic whatsoever behind gathering everyone everyone at the barn, except as a pure convenience for a big action climax, a la countless '80s and '90s action movies. (My favorite part was Gary Cole running out of ammo and calmly, without reaction, just picking up another gun that he happens to find at his feet.)

But I find no reason to assume that what we're seeing isn't actually happening - in fact, some of the humor seems to be in the fact that it actually IS happening.

I think the final scene serves the exact opposite purpose as the one you presented. As someone else already mentioned, there's no reason to believe that Red's wounds aren't real (or anyone else's, for that matter). The scene serves as an ironic commentary - once again, underscoring that these guys can't believe all of this actually happened. It may be true that they're essentially part of an action movie they'd like to see, but I see no hint that they're just imagining it all - and I certainly don't understand how that is somehow the only interpretation you can imagine any of us having.

JE: I never, EVER imagine that there's only one interpretation "any of us" are having. I'm giving my reading of the film, based on what's right there on the screen -- and you offer an excellent description of it yourself: "I loved how these two guys get unwittingly thrown into an action-movie scenario, and have no idea how to be action-movie stars." So true. It's part of what makes Saul's garbled line so perfect: "At the time I was like, whoa, but I was kind of funny..."

Watch the old black-and-white movie at the beginning ("Item 9"). Notice the '70s-'80s style opening credits. The "Footprints" poster on Saul's wall (foreshadowing his "rescue" from the burning barn.) The running commentary the characters have on the movie itself. The way Red keeps getting shot but never goes down. The way they return to the set of "Item 9" and behave as if they're in an action movie (one of my favorite images being Seth Rogen's stunt-leap onto Gary Cole). It all leads up to a discussion of the movie we've just seen in terms of a movie ("the fight," "the car chase") and the "lessons" the characters have "learned." As I keep saying, I don't understand why people insist that there's a distinction between what's "real" and "not real" in these kinds of movies -- especially when there's no "Wizard of Oz" framing device that tries to make it explicit. (Oh, Kansas is "real" because it's in b&w.) The movie is the movie -- it's all an act of imagination. The question is whether it behaves according to the principles of its own world. I've written about this extensively -- including in that "head-trip movie" article I linked to. A good movie will tell you how to watch it. This one does. Don't apply the laws (especially of physics) in "The Dark Knight" to "Pineapple Express."

P.S. I think "Donnie Darko" is all about how Donnie wants to have sex with his sister but can't admit it to himself. I've gone into great detail about that one...

And that Donnie Darko piece of yours is yet another example of your pseudo-intellectual over-analysis of movies.

Stop trying so hard.

JE: It's not hard at all. It's the most obvious thing in the world. It's fun. It provides another angle that enriches the movie -- far more compelling than all the geeky rules and regulations about time warps or whatever. And it's thematically consistent! I think it makes the movie (the original movie, not the over-thought director's edition) more fun than ever. On top of that, it actually gives the movie thematic substance. There are several ways to look at the movie; this one, I argue, is thoroughly rewarding, from beginning to end.

Hey, you think Jim is guilty of extrapolating?

Michel Chion wrote that Eyes Wide Shut is told from the point of view of Dr. Bill's (Cruise's) future child who is conceived right after Kidman's final "suggestion" in the film.

Please. No American critic can ever out-extrapolate a French critic. Ever!

More on to Jim's point. Just about any film text yields multiple interpretatons. Some texts are far more readerly than others, of course. Authorial intent isn't relevant here - a film exists primarily at the point of reception, doesn't it?

What's interesting is the argument used to support more esoteric readings of a film.

I think "Eyes Wide Shut" is, in part, Kubrick's parodic take on his early entries in the film noir genre. If I ever get motivated enough to start my own blog, I'll tell you why. I don't know anything about future babies, though.

The lyrics to the Robert Palmer song seem wierdly apropos as well, along with that fantastic Carribean/African vibe it has...

I was waiting for you
I was sat in the sun
I could picture your face on the tip of my tongue
I woke up laughing
I broke into a sweat
I broke into a run
You were hot in my heels so I hired a gun
I woke up laughing
I was flat on my back
I was taking a plunge
It was making a stand but my plan was undone
I woke up laughing
Well I planned an escape for the middle of June
But I drug too fast and I fire too soon
I woke up laughing
Woke up laughing

You make yourself a fortune, out in Hong Kong
You sit at home and wonder whether you were wrong
You take a small vacation just to keep sane
You find on your return your home has blown away
You meditate, you make haste
You run a risk, you come late,
You pay a bill, you lose face
You're not fully unaware
Your star or your fate
If you fall do you break
You go to war, you make love
You sign out in a box

I'm beginning to wonder why I even bother.

Have you even seen the extras to the DVD of Pineapple Express or listened to the commentary? You really think of all people that Seth Rogen is ironically dropping hints and blurring the line between reality and dream sequences in Pineapple Express? Do I even need to say that you have clearly put more thought and analysis into this line of thinking than the writers EVER intended?

That's not to say the angles you are perceiving are or aren't there. Hell, you could make an argument that Rogen's authorial catalog to this point, Superbad and Pineapple Express, are about repressed homosexuality given the very overt displays of affection between males and the almost reflexive use of phallic insults, terminology and visual depictions in both films. I could as well point to the seemingly arbitrary heterosexual relationships in the two films that serve merely plot functions and are largely a background exercise in futility while the male homosocial bonds are significantly foregrounded. Does that mean I would argue that either movie is about repressed homosexuality? No way. Absolutely not.

It's equally clear to me that Pineapple Express is what it says it is. A ludicrously straightforward stoner-action-buddy film-comedy. Why is it necessary to dress it up and try to make it more probing and multi-dimensional than it is? I seriously think that being analytical is sometimes a drawback when the product does not demand heavy analysis. I love Pineapple Express for what it is, not what I want it to be.

JE: Trust the art, not the artist. This is no "heavy analysis." It's part of the fun of the movie.

Totally valid interpretation. I just got the 2-disc DVD and have watched it and the special features numerous times already. Sometimes I go with your view (the head-trip) and sometimes I go with the face-value view. Both work perfectly well. I do have doubts as to whether or not that's what Rogen and Evan Goldberg were thinking when they first starting writing the script, though. Judging by the making-of featurettes, I'd say they were shooting more for the face-value absurdity of dropping two stoned goofballs into an '80s action flick.
Arguably, I'd say that no movie this year gave more overall enjoyment than Pineapple Express, not even ones I thought were "greater" in terms of importance or relevance. On my top five movies of '08 list this was preceded only by In Bruges, Milk, and Slumdog Millionaire. (Unfortunately, I didn't see Gran Torino or The Wrestler until just recently, but they were my other favorites.) You were right in your first Pineapple blog: it IS the greatest movie ever made, even though it's obviously not...but it still is...you know what I mean. I'll take Pineapple Express over a million calculated indie films that essentially boil down to upper middle class white people whining about their pain.

P.S. When are you gonna do that Generation Kill essay?

I took a look, finally, at "Pineapple Express" a couple of weeks ago, and have to admit that I never thought of it as a dream, or "their conception of a great action movie". As a few other readers have noted, I think the movie plays with conventions found in both action and stoner flicks, and that's all the interpretation I found necessary. If it is a dream, or if it is a lot of sly self-referential business, I'm not sure it matters that much. Dream, or no dream, this movie bears no resemblance to reality. I don't think it would lose or gain much power by swinging either way. If it is a dream, I'm glad that there was no obvious framing device, because explaining that "it was all a dream" seems like one of the biggest screenwriting cop-outs ever.

I'm glad that you've championed the movie, because it was one of the factors driving me to see it. It's a damn funny movie no matter how you read it. As long as Apatow continues to put out movies like this, and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", I'll remain a fan.

By Brice on January 16, 2009 10:07 PM
And that Donnie Darko piece of yours is yet another example of your pseudo-intellectual over-analysis of movies.

Stop trying so hard.

JE: It's not hard at all. It's the most obvious thing in the world. It's fun. It provides another angle that enriches the movie -- far more compelling than all the geeky rules and regulations about time warps or whatever. And it's thematically consistent! I think it makes the movie (the original movie, not the over-thought director's edition) more fun than ever. On top of that, it actually gives the movie thematic substance. There are several ways to look at the movie; this one, I argue, is thoroughly rewarding, from beginning to end.

Karlos:
Just wanted to agree that Jim's reading of Donnie Darko is both the most rewarding reading I've read and the most sensible... even more sensible than "Ah, it's just a bunch of nothing that people are reading into." I think it's a film that asks us to read into it... and when you do, as Jim has, you'll see the incest/ alienated teen angle is there... though not blatantly obvious. This stuff happens all the time. See the movie "Detour". The narrator whines and complains about how fate ruined his life, when really he ruined it himself and, to a degree, enjoyed the ruining. The truth of a film's meaning tends to find a way out, even if the filmmaker themselves isn't exactly conscious of what they are making. I'm not sure if Richard Kelly even realizes he made a movie about incest and flirting with suicide, hence the time warp explanation. But all it takes is a closer look, like critics have taken another look at "Detour", and you'll see the film's peculiarities are actually signals to reconsider what you're seeing.

I think Emerson's interpretation is not only valid, but reasonable and insightful and creative. I also don't think the filmmakers intended what he suggests they intended. But I have no way to be sure.

The movie works, either way. It's three or four times funnier than Tropic Thunder (those are not official figures), and, though not as smart or as iconic, about as funny as Lebowski. I really have little tolerance for most of what passes for comedy movies these days, but once Franco got onscreen I spent the whole showing, except for the Gary Cole/Rosie Perez stuff, cracking up. Franco was being very funny in this.

I should have added that what I thought the movie was going for was just a riff on the action buddy comedy things, and nothing really more complicated than that. But what's onscreen does admit of Emerson's interpretation.

Don't agree with this reading of the film, though I do enjoy the idea. Like most of you, my favourite line in the film involves "murder", except I didn't see it listed yet. When they're first fleeing Saul's apartment:

Dale: "What do you know about Ted Jones?"
Saul: "Just that he's, like, crazy about murdering."

It's a total throw-away line (and the movie is full of great ones like "Has anyone seen my bigger knife?"), but only "little gun when I was a prostitute" makes me laugh harder than that one.

Christopher Long sez: "...authorial intent isn't relevant here - a film exists primarily at the point of reception, doesn't it?"

That point is itself something that's debated strongly in artistic circles. What I was taught was that there's a point directly in between the artist and the viewer, where the art happens. Where authorial intent mixes with viewer response.

However, I find that many films do not give themselves up to open interpretation; indeed, many have a goal or idea they're trying to communicate, and I try to understand that, and how they approach it, and whether or not it's successful. It could be that I think that because I'm trying to produce stories of my own.

Obviously people are open to interpretations of art, but when a person's involvement in the analysis significantly outweighs what the art presents, I start to question the purpose - unless they're going for some oblique type of self-analysis.

JE: There's a moment of insight on the commentary track for "Pineapple Express" during the breakfast scene when Seth Rogen observes that the characters/stars of the movie are having the conversation the audience will be having about the movie right afterwards. He says something like: "We're doing it for you!" That's the point of much of the scene's humor; it doesn't require any deep analysis. It's right there on the surface, with or without the commentary.

Thanks for sparking a lively debate, Jim. I plan on re-watching Donnie Darko soon - it will, no doubt, be an entirely new experience.

Nonetheless ...

JE: I never, EVER imagine that there's only one interpretation "any of us" are having. I'm giving my reading of the film, based on what's right there on the screen.

Which is all well and good. However, in your original post:

If there's any doubt in your mind (and I can't imagine why there would be) that "Pineapple Express" is a head trip movie about stoners imagining themselves the heroes of a movie they'd like to see ...

The reading of this suggests that there is only one worthwhile interpretation of this particular film, and that you hold a certain disregard for alternative viewpoints. Jim, I know you don't believe this to be the case, but I'm sure you can see why certain posters felt the need to defend their views so vehemently.

I feel 'The Pineapple Express' flirts with the idea of being a movie about a movie. On one hand: It's postmodern in that it questions itself and the culture of action films and stoner flicks. On the other: I found much of the comedy dependent on the idea that the crazy stuff is actually happening.

With this in my mind, I think The Pineapple Express emulates the way stories are told by people when stoned (a marijuana induced Chinese whispers, if you will). Some of it probably happened, but paranoia, time distortions, and delusions make the stories seem far more epic than they actually were.

In the end, I think Alex Murillo hit the nail on the head as to why I didn't enjoy the movie as much as I felt I should: 'It's more fun to be high, than to watch someone else get high.'

JE: My parenthetical comment was intended as a joke (because I knew not everyone had considered the movie that way) -- but I never expected it would upset anybody so much. After all, I'd already written about this aspect of the film twice here at Scanners. Anyway, I've never insisted that a film is open to only one interpretation. It should be patently obvious: Can we agree that "Pineapple Express" is a stoner comedy? Does that mean it's not also, at the same time, other things: an action movie, a bromance, a gangster picture, a paranoid chase thriller, etc. ?

What I mean, I guess, is exactly the opposite of what you're assuming: There's no reason to rule out one interpretation (based on specific moments within the film), just because you may also see other ways of looking at it. Obviously, I write about what I see in a film -- and others write in with theirs. I thought that was the whole idea of a blog that invites comments...

But, as I've written many times, I do feel critics and audiences in general are too dismissive of comedies, and I go out of my way to write about the ones I think are particularly inspired, and what I admire about them. So, yes, I will take issue with anybody who brushes off this movie -- written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, directed by David Gordon Green -- as unworthy of close attention just because it's a stoner comedy (among all those other things).

James,

I agree with your point and that's exactly what I meant when I said that "some texts are more readerly than others" which is the term used in film theory to describe a text more open to multiple interpretations vs. a "writerly" text where the author closes off more of the possibilities (i.e. makes his or her point much more clearly). All texts are readerly to some degree, however, and reception is still the key.

Also to your point, the author has been declared "dead" many times but she is constantly being resurrected. :)

"Once Upon A Time In America," that's your head-trip picture.

I think the author's/filmmaker's stated intent, while not the WHOLE story (he may be lying, or he may, more likely, have put stuff into the work he wasn't conscious of) has more authority than either any critical interpretation, or any fan consensus interpretation. The author/filmmaker really should get that much respect.

Another point, kind of related, is that some interpretations are simply invalid because they don't pay enough attention to the actual work, and make mistakes because of it, and suggest impossibilities. And these interpretations can even become consensus ones. The famous case is Fahrenheit 451. For decades everyone's been saying it's about censorship, it's an anti-censorship book, finally recently Ray Bradbury emerges from wherever Ray Bradbury hibernates, and says, "You fools! It's not about censorship it's about how people willingly quit reading and learning, and instead decided to watch TV and become estranged from one another." And the backlash to this hit on many points of this discussion, with fans responding "Hey it's all well and good for Ray to say what he intended, but our interpretations are equally valid." Only, of course, they weren't, because had anyone actually paid attention to the book they'd read, they'd have noticed that within the narrative, the book-burning only occurs long after almost everyone has voluntarily stopped reading. It never COULD have been an anti-censorship book, it wouldn't have made sense considering the narrative.

And so on.

JE: Excellent points. I haven't read "Fahrenheit 451" since junior high, so I can't speak to that because I don't remember the context, or what, exactly, Bradbury wrote. In the case of "Pineapple Express," though, it's all there in the movie. You don't HAVE to read it that way (though the idea that their adventures are enhanced by pot paranoia would be pretty hard, and pointless, to disregard), but I think the prologue, epilogue and everything in between (especially Red's injuries) encourage you to look at THIS movie the way the main characters would, if they'd just switched the channel from "227." No matter how you look at it, it's a multi-genre movie parody that comments on itself. That kind of interpretation isn't the equivalent of what you're saying about "F451" being misunderstood, though. After all, Bradbury didn't say he was advocating censorship; he said (as you describe it) that the censorship he depicted came about a result of people's lack of critical thinking, TV-watching, and atrophied social abilities.

I found this in an LA Weekly article from May, 2007:

“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.

His fear in 1953 that television would kill books has, he says, been partially confirmed by television’s effect on substance in the news. The front page of that day’s L.A. Times reported on the weekend box-office receipts for the third in the Spider-Man series of movies, seeming to prove his point.

“Useless,” Bradbury says. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” He bristles when others tell him what his stories mean, and once walked out of a class at UCLA where students insisted his book was about government censorship.

http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/

If movies like "taxi driver", "vanilla sky", "fight club" and "donnie darko" are sometimes referred to as "brain in vats" movies since it's possible/certain that all the events transpired solely in the protagonist brain then what would you refer to "pineapple express" as?

JE: You set me up nicely: a "brain in bong" movie? Movies themselves are ways of immersing yourself in someone else's consciousness, of looking at the world through another's eyes, as it's often put. That goes for EVERY movie -- from documentaries to musical comedies. The movie itself is the construction, the "dream" you're sharing. It's doesn't necessarily take place inside the narrative protagonist's head-space, but the movie is always going to be an expression of the consciousness of the person/people who made it. Sometimes it's the director's sensibility that you feel is animating every frame. I feel this most strongly when entering the film-worlds of auteurs whose sensibilities I feel most in tune with. For me, that would include Buster Keaton, Robert Altman, the Coens, Luis Bunuel, Roman Polanski...

OK. So I read the post and responses, and also your original post on the head trip movie.

So why, oh why, doesn't Once Upon a Time in America rate at least an honorable mention in the genre? It certainly beats out most of the movies mentioned, by a mile.

I'll always remember the delightfully drugged up, mystical, and floating state I felt when leaving THAT one (that is, when it was re-released in the director's original cut).

JE: Absolutely right -- beginning with the phone ringing and ending with the close-up in the opium den. (See my short, "Close Up.") I don't know if you saw the original cut when it was released in 1984, but I can't describe the sense of disappointment surrounding it. It was just a mess. A couple years later we saw Leone's version and it was a revelation from the very start! If I hand to choose, I think "Once Upon a Time in America" and "Cutter's Way" may be the two greatest films of the 1980s.

Jim, thanks for your response, but I wasn't ruling out your interpretation. In fact, your thoughts opened up my eyes to thinking about the film in ways I hadn't considered before.

With my comment, I was only adding how I felt about the film, and I wasn't attempting to undermine your own insightful analysis - I was merely trying to highlight why other people were upset at your original comment (which was merely a misunderstanding between all parties involved (I'm sorry for not making this clearer)).

I do enjoy reading your blog, and I'm pleased you've opened up a lively debate on an otherwise intellectually neglected film.

"I found this in an LA Weekly article from May, 2007:"

The responses to that article (many of them including a variation of 'I respect his opinion but it can be about BOTH things!' (when, again, it is logically impossible for it to be about censorship), as well as the fellow (in the article) lamely arguing that TV has helped reading gain a foothold (because of the popularity of - Stephen King!) in the US is, uh, pretty disheartening.

I agree with you tho that your interpretation of PE, while a bit fanciful, is not at all inconsistent with what's actually onscreen. No real selective logic/illogic has to be employed to make sense of it. But many interpretations do fail on a careful re-reading/re-viewing of the book/movie.

I don't know if you read comments to old blog entries or not. But it feels to me that what you are sensing is the irony that exists in today's pop/indie culture. Its 'oh its okay that its ridiculous, because I (in this case, the director and actors) know that its ridiculous!'

That's all the ending of the film is. Its their way of saying that they realize that what has just happened is ridiculous, and all of the movies it immitates, are ridiculous, but that this one is okay because it realizes that its ridiculous (unlike those who we are immitating who think that its serious stuff).

Finally saw the extended version yesterday on Blu-ray...these are the brief comments I posted elsewhere:

A virtual comic vacuum in its first and last 30 minutes, with some scattered chuckles in its second act, this stoner action comedy is a mixed bag of potentially potent ingredients. It generates slightly more empathy and investment in its story than Tropic Thunder, but it lives and dies by superficial, self-reflexive asides, most of which are mildly diverting at best. A talented ensemble of comic actors, mostly, uh, wasted. B-

...

Empathy is the area where most mainstream comedies come up short. If you can't invest, emotionally, in these characters, and this story, on some level, you can only react to its various gags on the most superficial of levels. I've spoken to numerous folks who gave up on the film entirely before the second act, and another who rated it a 2-out-of-10 (!). Now I'm not THAT cold, but amongst the thirty or so films I've seen from 2008, it ranks somewhere in the bottom five. Mind you, I actively avoid critically reviled stuff like The Love Guru and The Happening, which, I'm sure, would make Pineapple seem like a masterpiece by comparison.

The action in the film was neither exciting nor funny and, quite frankly, could've come straight out of a Police Academy movie. It was completely on auto-pilot in the third act, self-conscious, and borderline tedious, asides notwithstanding.

As to your reading of the film, I guess we can project any and all interpretations onto any film, particularly one of a metatextual nature, but to me, this one's hardly worth the effort. Donnie Darko, Fight Club, etc., are another matter altogether. Comedies, in general, should most certainly not be underestimated, but from where I'm standing, the overall critical reception (mixed at best) to this film is entirely reasonable.