Magic Review: The Pineapple Express

The Pineapple Express is the next stoner flick from the makers of Knocked Up, Superbad and my personal favorite of the bunch Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The film stars flavor of the month Seth Rogen who also Co-wrote the film as Dale Denton, a process server who visits his dealer James Franco (Spiderman) for the sole purpose of getting high quality weed. When Denton is given a rare strain of weed known as the Pineapple Express and whilst indulging in some before serving a criminal, he witnesses a murder and leaves his butt at the scene which can be traced back to himself and his dealer. The two are forced to go on the run whilst being tracked down by two criminal outfits. This is an hilarious film which also stars the usual supporting crew of the Aptow/Rogen group. One actress which blew my mind and has not been in a noteable movie since White Men Can't Jump (1992) is Rosie Perez. For anyone who was a fan of that movie will agree with me and say that this latino missy has aged quiet gracefully and still has the appeal she did alongside Snipes and Harrelson. Overall I enjoyed this movie which at times relied on stupid banter between parties which results in prolonged scenes of bomb jokes followed by funny ones. This is the first movie I have seen which could be described as a "Stoner Action Flick" and I commend Rogen and Co for moving into untapped territories. Furthermore the fight scenes in this movie are awesome as they are so realistic and you actually feel like the shit has been kicked out of you at times. I recommend people between the ages of 17-35 to see this film, not to ostracize the elderly but I feel that they would get bored and not relate to alot of the humour delivered.

Magic Rating: 7.1/10

Magic Review: The Bank Job

The Bank Job is a dramatic portrayal of the events surrounding the 1971 Baker St robbery in England brought to us from Australian director Roger Donaldson (The Recruit, Dantes Peak). The film offers a very cool line up including career tough guy Jason Stantham (The transporter), Saffron Burrows (Boston Legal) and a variety of other unheard of yet great supporting actors. I enjoyed this film which has all of the elements of a good action movie including corruption, sex, deception and murder. The robbery of the baker street bank sees the assailants come across a photo of a certain member of the royal family along with a shit load of money and details of a local crime bosses activities. This puts the team in hot water with a variety of gangsters, MI5 and other groups which are on the trail of the robbers.  Whilst watching this movie I was constantly thinking how much of the story was fact and how much was just dramatic overtones. After looking into it I realised that this is pure drama and the facts really were that Llyods bank was robbed, a radio operator overheard the team who communicated on walkie talkies and after the robbery was found out the government issued a D-Notice which caused all media coverage of the event to stop. This raised speculation that a British member of the royal family was involved is some sort of scandal. It was until last year that some of the truth was discovered. The film also involves 70's black power member Michael X (Englands Malcolm X) who was a drug dealer and stand over man who was prominent in the London Underworld at the time. I enjoyed this film and thought that some of the performances were great. I did however feel at times like I was watching the Italian Job (2003) again and it ironically boasted one of the same actors. I would recommend this movie only if you could not find anything else interesting to watch.

Magic Rating: 6.7/10