It isn’t often that my mom and I can both talk about a shared cultural experience. However, “Pineapple Express” is the Cheech and Chong for my generation, just without the van of marijuana catching on fi re and a lot fewer uses of the word “man” at the end of sentences.

I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to pay the $9 to see the movie. Then again, I also don’t want to pay $9 for a movie, but that is beside the point. After getting over the sticker shock of a movie, a bag of popcorn and an Icee, I prepared myself for a dunderheaded comedy about a couple of high guys. Which was, indeed, what it was, but the comedic talent of Seth Rogen and James Franco made it totally worth it. Rogen and Evan Goldberg of “Superbad” fame wrote the script, but the script would have been ho-hum without precise timing from the two main characters.

Rogen plays Dale Denton, a process server who smokes pot and serves legal documents to unsuspecting people. Franco plays Saul Silver, Dale’s dealer who seems to be looking for a friend. After selling Dale a new kind of weed, Pineapple Express, Dale witnesses a murder and Dale and Saul are thrown into a war between drug cartels. While on the run, they smoke, sell and fi ght their way through an adventure, which leads to a marijuana warehouse going up in smoke.

The physical comedy is hilarious and the dialogue is great, and is more intelligible than “Anchorman,” ironically. ‘Pineapple’ takes stoner comedies to new high ReAnne Utemark WASHBURN REVIEW ReAnne Utemark is a senior history major. Reach her at reanne.utemark@washburn. edu. Rogen and the rest of the Judd Apatow crew that brought us classic fi lms like “40-year-old Virgin” and “Knocked Up” are the comedy troupe to replace Jim Belushi and Chevy Chase. Will Ferrell was something to tide us over. Perhaps he peaked, once you have seen Mr. Ferrell in his underwear once or saying something about the Baby Jesus, watching it again just makes you feel a little sad that a guy in his forties is running around in tightywhiteys.

Funny is something that cannot be lost in time of war or recession. Barack Obama keeps going on about hope and change, which I think are important, too. Nevertheless, a good laugh every once in awhile makes everyone feel better.

So, this was a stoner comedy and while not brain food by any means, it is hilarious and probably worth the $9 you have to pay to see it. I am slightly ashamed to admit it, but Rogen really pulls off the paranoid while Franco plays the stereotypical bud fi end.

See Batman first, though.