rosie perez Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I might be dating myself with this title, but I couldn't help it. (The Arsenio Hall Show, get it!?)

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Arsenio Hall, Craig Ferguson, and Rosie Perez are lending their voices to the upcoming animated feature, The Hero of Color City. This is the project that Magnolia picked up back in 2006, and that signed Christina Ricci in June of this year. And now we've got two talk show titans and the tough cop from Pineapple Express added to the mix of color.

The film focuses on crayons who try and save Color City from an "evil tyrant," whilst living between two worlds -- the magical city itself and the "real world" preschool where they work. Now, I could understand markers, but how exactly do these crayons get used and still live? If there's one thing I remember from my preschool days was that crayons got massacred and it was close to impossible to find one with a point. Most were worn into nothing.

But I guess if crayons are already talking and saving their world and facing a tyrant, little tykes won't kill 'em. Magnola plans to release this color-filled feature in 2010.

(No, I'm not stoned. It's just that Pineapple Express opens today (8/6), but my review was published over a week ago. This reprint is brought to you by Cinematical's Recycling Division. We care about wasted bandwidth.)

I won't get into the precise reasons, but my friends always seem to think I'm going to LOVE the next big "pot comedy." They chuckle and assume such silly things despite the fact that the only real pothead comedies that I truly enjoy are Up in Smoke, Next Movie, and a large portion of the Harold & Kumar misadventures. Frankly I'm of the opinion that most pot comedies feel like they were written by someone very stoned, and let's just say that writers don't always do their best work when they're extra-baked. (They might THINK their stuff is hilarious, but usually it's not. That's just the weed talking.) Oh, you'll definitely find a few cannabis-caked giggles in Half-Baked, Grandma's Boy, and Smiley Face -- just not enough to sustain a whole movie, if it's me you're asking.

So it is with much pleasure, enthusiasm, and recently-applied Visine that I offer you Pineapple Express, which just may be the Casablanca of Pot Comedies. Or perhaps it's more like When Ultra-High Harry Met Super-Stoned Sally, but either way Pineapple Express showcases some of the funniest "weed culture" insights since the arrival of Richard Linklater's fantastic Dazed & Confused -- which I wouldn't call a full-bore "pot comedy," but it sure isn't shy about passing those joints around. Best of all, while Pineapple Express will absolutely appeal to both the casual and committed pot-smokers, it's also just a very funny buddy comedy / action flick parody that comes bearing the very unique stamp of director David Gordon Green.

If there's one film that's going to finally beat The Dark Knight at the box office this weekend, it's the hip, hysterical Apatow-produced stoner action/comedy Pineapple Express. Seth Rogen stars as a process server/stoner who, along with his flaky pot dealer (James Franco), go on the run from a crooked cop and a drug kingpin after witnessing them commit a murder. While you can't see the movie in theaters until tomorrow, we've got you covered: Rogen and Franco sat down for another installment in Moviefone's fabulous Unscripted series, where stars interview one another using your questions and some of their own.

Above you'll see an outtake from their chat that's only featured here on Cinematical (the boys talk Hudson Hawk, Shane Black, etc ...), then you can skip on over to Moviefone and watch the entire thing. In it, Rogen and Franco talk about Pineapple Express, they wonder what their Freaks and Geeks characters would be up to today, why James Franco won't be acting much in the near future and what they consider to be the best stoner movie of all time, among a slew of other things. Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of either dude, or you just feel like laughing a little this morning. I'll be back later with some more quotes from the Pineapple Express NT press day where Rosie Perez was looking totally hot. You go girl!

One thing you'll probably notice if you watch a lot of festival movies is this: When you dig beneath the big-time, A-list, "gala titles," you come across a lot of medium-sized flicks that come from relative newcomers -- but feature some great work from veteran actors. Renny Harlin's Cleaner is one such example: It's a so-so movie that's probably worth seeing just for the performances of Samuel L. Jackson and Ed Harris. Brad Furman's The Take is another one of those flicks: It's got a passably compelling story, a half-decent screenplay, some nifty touches from a young director ... and a lead performance by John Leguizamo that's really quite excellent.

Written by Josh and Jonas Pate (Deceiver), The Take opens by introducing us to a firmly middle-class (but entirely admirable) nobody: Felix De La Pena (Leguizamo) is an armored truck driver who gets kidnapped and shot in the head during a vicious robbery. Against all odds, Felix survives and (with the help of his devoted wife Marina) slowly starts down the road to recovery. But Felix isn't the same man anymore. Although he's still able to walk, talk, drive and otherwise function pretty reasonably, he's also quite a bit "slower" in the head ... plus he's now fostering one nasty little temper. Meanwhile the brutal crook who led the robbery (Tyrese Gibson) is busy tying up a bunch of loose ends -- and you just know the two men are bound to butt heads again.

While big-budget features move like clockwork from theater to pay-per-view cable to DVD to premium cable to regular cable -- regardless of quality -- it's obviously a much tougher trip for independent and foreign-language films to undertake. That's why I'm glad to see unexpected titles popping up on DVD release lists this week. I'll start with the only one I've actually seen in its entirety: How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) details the artistic life of Melvin Van Peebles. His son Mario Van Peebles is probably the one you've heard of -- Mario made Baadasssss! as a tribute to his father a few years ago -- but as good as that film was, it only hints at the full life that Melvin had already led. How to Eat Your Watermelon reveals Melvin's life in France as a writer and ground-breaking filmmaker, and then shows his life as a Wall Street trader and influential musician. Director Joe Angio includes interviews with Melvin, Mario and other family members, as well as Spike Lee, Elvis Mitchell, Gil Scott-Heron and many more. The doc is well-paced, informative and entertaining.

Rosie Perez co-directed and appears on-camera in Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas! Using the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City as a starting point, the doc "uncovers the complex and controversial history between Puerto Rico and the United States." I've seen parts of the film, and it deals with some troubling issues. Perez' bubbly personality doesn't hide her outrage at certain historical facts that are revealed. On the other hand, Warrior of Light (pictured) doesn't have any celebrities, but is no less noteworthy for filmmaker Monika Treut's portrait of human rights activist Yvonne Bezzerra de Mello and her work with homeless boys in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The production company's web site has much more information; the reviews quoted there make it sound like it's worth checking out. Finally The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is a wild comedy/drama from Japan that has been highly praised by certain people I respect, so I mention it here, but be advised that it contains a multitude of soft-core sex scenes.

Odds and ends from Friday/Saturday:

• An interesting trio of stars have lined up to play roles in The Take, to be directed by Brad Furman. According to Production Weekly, John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez and Tyrese Gibson are attached to the heist flick, which was penned by siblings Josh and Jonas Pete. Story will surround a security guard (Leguizamo) who gets caught up in a carefully orchestrated heist. While recovering from the dramatic event, he learns the FBI and police are targeting him as their prime suspect. Damn, talk about a guy that deserves a pay raise.
• While I'm sure Martha is still holding out hope the Weinstein's remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai will mysteriously disappear and never happen ... like, ever, it does appear everything is going forward as planned since a scribe has now been attached. Screenwriter John Fusco (Hidalgo, Young Guns) has been tapped to bring a little bit of the American west to 16th Century Japan. Seeing as Kurosawa originally used the Western for inspiration during Samurai, this seems like a logical choice. Whether or not the remake should happen in the first place? Well, that's a debate I'm sure will heat up as time goes on.
• Those of you who have been waiting for a sequel to the comedy classic Animal House may get a chance to see the whole thing play out in real life. Authorities recently raided the Alpha Delta fraternity house that inspired the1978 hit film. Located at Dartmouth College, police confiscated a computer, videotapes and two sledgehammers. Though no one is saying what this is all about (and if Alpha Delta is now on double secret probation), the police chief did note that it was not drug related. Animal House scribe, Chris Miller, was a member of the same fraternity when he graduated from Dartmouth in 1964 and later used his experience to help create the wonderful characters we've grown to love over the years.