On Fire!

I may not know much about stoner humor, but I know what I find funny.

For example, I know that the meandering, PHC soaked breakfast-after-the-action scene at the end of "Pineapple Express" went completely over my head, not eliciting one grin out of me. I also know that watching some poor projectionist try to beat out a fire in the projection booth with a rag before "Express" began was one of the funniest damn things I've seen in a long time.

Today is my birthday and by way of a present, my wife said "go catch a movie." I'm a fan of Judd Apatow in general and kinda sorta a fan of Seth Rogen, so "Pineapple Express" it was. Not to get too into a review, but the movie was fun and goofy with an uneven sense of action and characters that thought they were much more interesting than they were. Subplots went nowhere quickly and at the end, it was kind of a middling success. I'm not sorry I saw it, in other words, but I probably don't need to see it again.

When I got to the theater for my Sunday afternoon matinee, the theater was about 1/5 full. The designated start time came, the lights dimmed, the pre-movie show began and then promptly stopped. The lights came up and the 40 or so folks in the theater looked back to see what the hell. We were treated to the site of the projection room filling with smoke and a dude trying to put out the film stock, which was visibly on fire. It wasn't a big fire. It wasn't an "oh God we need to get out of here" fire. It was just enough to see the orange and just enough panic the poor dude in the booth.

I don't know if it was the way he was beating the film spooled out on the platter or what, but pretty much everyone started laughing. The dude in the booth gave us the "thumbs up" sign after the danger had passed and shortly thereafter we smelled the burning film stock. It smells like if someone had poured Kool-Aid into some sort of acid.

It took about 10 minutes for the movie to start, and even then the film was a little "streaky" with white light reaching to the top of every frame. No matter. It wasn't a bad flick and now I know what burning film smells like.

One more word on "Pineapple Express:" It has my favorite fight scene of the year consisting of three white guys destroying a house, beating each other and then apologizing for it. -Punch- I'm sorry dude. -smack- Oh, that might have been too much. It struck me funny, but not as funny as the rapid beating of a rag against burning film.