For quite a while now, the rumor that Huey Lewis would be performing the theme song for the expectedly hilarious Pineapple Express has been making the rounds, and today... oh, today, it has come to sweet fruition, as the theme song hits first the soundtrack's MySpace profile and then my beating heart.

I can't tell you how much it tickles me to have the sax of the News accompanied by the sound of Huey uttering the word 'chronic'. Then again, I can't tell you how much I'm tickled that we're actually facing a summer movie season that will cap itself off with Huey Lewis doing the theme song for a Judd Apatow-produced, David Gordon Green-directed stoner-buddy action-comedy, followed the week after by Robert Downey Jr. in blackface. Seriously, could you have called that this time last year?

If you don't know why I'm so psyched, I've included the NSFW red-band trailer after the jump, and for those of you who are right there with me, Pineapple Express hits (snicker) on August 8th.

[God bless Spout Blog for bringing this to our attention. I'm tempted to send you guys over a basket full of pineapples just out of principle.]

Back in 2000, we saw the brilliant debut of filmmaker David Gordon Green. The movie, George Washington, also marked the first screen credit for Danny McBride. Three years later, with Green's also-brilliant sophomore effort, All the Real Girls, McBride made the switch from second unit director to supporting actor, playing the film's excellent comic-relief character, "Bust-Ass". Then the two film school classmates kind of went separate ways. Green continued making beautiful little independents like Undertow and Snow Angels, while McBride wrote and starred in the low-budget comedy The Foot-Fist Way (which finally hits theaters this weekend) and then continued to find minor roles in big-budget comedies such as Hot Rod, Drillbit Taylor and The Heartbreak Kid (and the upcoming Tropic Thunder). Finally, this summer Green and McBride are reunited for the Judd Apatow production, Pineapple Express.

When you think John Grisham, you usually think of legal thrillers, right? Well, that and the term 'airplane reading', but you probably don't think pastoral sports stories (I know I don't). The Hollywood Reporter announced that Phoenix Pictures has purchased the rights to Grisham's 2007 novel, Playing for Pizza, and the company is already on the hunt for a writer and director for the sports dramedy.

Pizza centers on a third string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns named Rick Docker. After blowing his team's championship shot, Rick is dropped from the team and blacklisted from the NFL. Luckily for him, his enterprising agent finds him a spot in the Italian football league playing for the Parma Panthers. From then on the story is probably a compendium of 'fish out of water jokes', and general cultural misunderstanding -- I'm thinking something along the lines of Under the Tuscan Sun, but with a lot more tackling.

Why We Can't Wait to See It: It's a fresh, yet classic stoner story written by Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, and Evan Goldberg. The trailer looks funnier than hell, there's 227 references, and Huey frickin' Lewis wrote the theme song. Also, Rogen gets to not only fly through the air, but also carry James Franco out of a burning building all action hero-style.

Why It Might Do Well: Between The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad, Seth Rogen has been comedy gold lately. At the very least, the movie will get the loyal Judd Apatow contingent, along with those curious to see what David Gordon Green can do with comedy.

Why It Might Not Do Well: Aliens land on earth and the world ends. Realistically, it should do quite well, but it won't get as many young girls and action-hungry mens seeing it -- both Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and Hell Ride open on the same day.

Fun Fact: The chorus of Huey Lewis' theme song for the film: "We got in trouble, we got to get out of here. I've got you, you've got me. We are as high as we can be. That's all right. How did we get into this mess? Pineapple Express!"

Trivia:



Answer Key

Finally, after all of the waiting, Moviefone has the trailer for The Pineapple Express, which you can watch above (or over there in glorious HD)! And man, it's been worth the anxious wait, even if there's no Huey Lewis to be heard. Under the directorial eye of David Gordon Green, Seth Rogen and James Franco are two pot smoking friends who get in over their heads when Rogen witnesses a cop murder someone. Of course, the only thing to do is go straight to the pot-dealing Franco.

Rogen is, well, Rogen, although he's got one heck of a flying through the air moment that was just completely brilliant, and has me waiting for Seth to take on a buddy cop movie. Franco, meanwhile, is just excellent. Really -- after pushing the boundaries of annoyance with Spidey, he's just stoner greatness. And, it's nice to see Rosie Perez getting down with her bad self.

Watch out for the barracudas!

(Fun Fact: A little birdie out at SXSW told us that, originally, Rogen was supposed to play the stoner and Franco the straight guy. However, Judd Apatow wanted to take a risk and flipped the roles before filming began.)

With each picture since his 2000 debut George Washington, David Gordon Green has taken at least a small step backward. That gradual regression becomes a full-fledged precipitous decline with Snow Angels, a film in which the director (working from a novel by Stewart O'Nan) flails about in search of poetry, and comes up with only trivial stylistic flourishes that compound his story's overwrought faux-naturalism. Considering the lyrical grace of his heralded first feature, Green's devolution from one of American cinema's most promising talents to his current status as just another middling indie lightweight is tough to fathom. Yet with his latest, Green misses the mark in so many respects -- from a multi-strand plot devoid of insight, to performances that are generally overcooked, to a mise-en-scène that comes up largely empty in the department of inspired grace and beauty -- that it makes one wonder if his upcoming foray into director-for-hire work (with this summer's raunchy stoner comedy The Pineapple Express) isn't a shrewd attempt to escape his own increasingly faulty auteurist instincts.

I really don't know what to say. I saw All the Real Girls. I dug it. However, I could also see how it's an indie movie for indie lovers -- slow, somber, meandering. I haven't gotten to see Snow Angels yet, but that's another dramatic film, and quite heart-wrenching. Then there's Seth Rogen's Pineapple Express, and now... SUSPIRIA?

Yes, in a discussion with MTV, director David Gordon Green confirms that he is involved with the upcoming Suspiria remake -- the one that was on in 2006, then off, and then on again last May. "No, it doesn't make a lick of sense," the director said, but no, he's not talking about his involvement, but rather the film: "I love it, plot holes and everything." He's written the new version, and is hoping to direct it as well.

Green says: "It's an opportunity to take all artistic excellence and be inspired by what was a low budget Italian 70's gore movie, where the art world meets the violent and supernatural." Jokingly, he also says, with his involvement it would be "some classy shiat." Maybe if he can handle a funny Rogen film, and the slow and serious, he can speed things up a little and make a great remake. But what do you think? Would a Green-helmed Suspiria remake be "classy shiat?"

My fangirl heart went nuts last November, when a rumor went around that Seth Rogen wanted Huey Lewis to record music for Pineapple Express. When he popped up in the ever-so-brilliant Kimmel/Affleck "We Are the World" spoof, I began to wonder again. Huey still sounds great, and really, the world needs more of him. Well, I now "Believe in Love" because he is, indeed, the music man for the upcoming comedy's feature song.

I missed this the other day, but Movieweb was talking with director David Gordon Green, and got him to "perform" some of the theme song. Well, more like mumble some of the words, which really doesn't do it justice. The lyrics of the chorus are: "We got in trouble, we got to get out of here. I've got you, you've got me. We are as high as we can be. That's all right. How did we get into this mess? Pineapple Express!"

Originally, Seth Rogen was looking for the "Power of Love," but Green says it is more like "Back in Time." As long as Huey performs it, instead of David, I bet it'll be great. Now we've just got to see if they've Lewis-ized it any more. I still think a spoof of "I Want a New Drug" would be perfect for this flick. But I'll settle for "Pineapple Express" and a lot of alto sax.

Until recently, David Gorden Green was supposed to be directing Goat, an adaption of a memoir by Brad Land about his experiences with hazing endured while pledging to the Kappa Sigma fraternity. When I was interviewing Jeff Nichols, director of Shotgun Stories and one of the nominees for the John Cassavetes Award at the upcoming Film Independent Spirit Awards (for another outlet), I learned that Nichols' next project is taking over helming duties on Goat. Nichols said he also did some work on the script, for which he will also get co-writer credit along with Green.

It seems like a good fit for Nichols, who hails from Green's hometown of Little Rock (both filmmakers are also grads of North Carolina School of the Arts, which is producing a plethora of hot young filmmakers these days), and whose first film was, like Goat, set in the South and about relationships between men. No word on what Green will be directing next; he recently wrapped work on the stoner-ific Pineapple Express. Our own Erik Davis, as you may recall, loved the trailer for that one.

Our friends over at indieWIRE continue their ongoing series of discussions with filmmakers at the Apple Store Soho by bringing in director David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls) to show scenes from and discuss his latest film, Snow Angels, which opens March 7. Snow Angels, which stars Sam Rockwell, Kate Beckinsale, Amy Sedaris, Olivia Thirlby, and Griffin Dunne, is about two romantic relationships -- one just beginning, and one beginning to end. If you live in NYC, this should be a great filmmaker discussion to check out. The event happens Wednesday, March 5 from 7:00-8:00PM at the Apple Store Soho, 103 Prince St.; seating is first-come, first-served, so you might want to get there early.

In the meantime, you can read our review of Snow Angels from Sundance 2007, and listen to James Rocchi's interview with David Gordon Green from that fest.