Seth Rogen and James Franco in what may be the first pot action comedy, Pineapple Express (Sony Pictures)

I have a weakness for pot comedies. I think there's a lack of mean-spiritedness in pot comedies even when there are gross out gags or in the case of Pineapple Express (opening August 6 throughout San Diego) violence. You can always find a goofy sweetness lurking somewhere in a pot comedy and I find that oddly endearing. In the case of Pineapple Express that sweetness can be found in James Franco's broad innocent grin and in a totally frivolous scene where the two main characters take a moment to goof off in the woods. You could cut that scene out and not disrupt the plot at all yet that scene seems essential to me in terms of defining this film as a pot comedy. But while films such as Harold and Kumar, Garden State, and Knocked Up are all obvious pot comedies, Pineapple Express may be the first pot action comedy. Now cops have always been a part of pot comedies if only in the sense that characters are often on the look out for cops in order to avoid arrest, or find themselves being pursued by law enforcement. But pot comedies have avoided using cops, guns, and criminals in full-blown action mode - until now. Check out the video of the Pineapple Express Comic-Con panel.

Listen to our KPBS Film Club of the Air discussion of the new documentary Man on Wire (opening August 8 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas). The film chronicles the obessions of Philippe Petit who, on August 7th 1974, walked across a wire illegally rigged between New York's Twin Towers, which were at that time the world's tallest buildings. The film's title is taken from the police report that used the phrase "man on wire" to describe the incident. Filmmaker James Marsh documents -- with an amazing amount of archival footage -- Petit's dream project.  Petit himself is a bundle of energy, passion, and enthusiasm as he describes his dreams and the nuts and bolts details of achieving it. Marsh lets the story play out like a heist film. Without ever mentioning 9/11, Marsh invokes the tragedy as he shows the towers being built and the awe they inspired. The fact that Petit and his crew could sneak into those building with bows and arrows and huge cables, and essentially be able to walk away because their prank was deemed to be not malicious reveals a kind of innocence that we may never be able to recapture. The film has a very bittersweet tone as it almost delivers an elegy to a bygone, more innocent time. Just as Petit after his famous stunt seems unable to recapture that drive and enthusiasm we don't seem able to go back and recapture something from our collective past either. Man on Wire is definitely worth checking out.

Bartholomew's Song, from Destin Cretton and Lowell Frank, screens as part of the Best of BestFest (Flagpop)

The 10th Annual BestFest Festival arrives August 16-17 at the Jewish Community Center's Garfield Theater. But as a lead in to this year's event you can sample some of the Best of BestFest Thursday August 7 beginning at the Ultrastar Mission Valley Theaters at Hazard Center. BestFest America will host a reception and screen five award-winning films. The reception begins in the UltraLounge and will feature food from Roppongi's, Sammy's Woodfired Pizza and Mosaic Catering. The screening begins at 7:30 om and will include: 2001's Killing Time by SDSU's Ron Najor and Tyler Spangler; 2005's I'm Afraid of Americans by Grossmont College's De Veau Dunn; 2006's Bartholomew's Song by SDSU's Destin Cretton and Lowell Frank; 2007's Bananamation by La Jolla High's Daniel Jaffe; and, 2007's Flattest by Torrey Pines High's Michael Gallagher, Matt Rosen, Chris Hanke, Mark Wessling, Jana Winternitz, Peter Dominguez, and Ariel Adler. The filmmakers will be on hand to introduce the films and take questions from teh audience. I have screened both Killing Time and Bartholomew's Song as part of the Film School Confidential student showcase that I run so I can attest to the high quality of those two films. My advice: check out these young filmmakers now so you can say you saw them back when...

Tickets are available at the UltraStar Mission Valley Theaters box office or online. Tickets are $10 for the reception and screening; $5 for the screening alone.

The 1985 poster for The Breakfast Club and the initial poster designed for American Teen (Paramount Vantage)

The new documentary American Teen (opening August 8 at select theaters) is something of a real life Breakfast Club (you remember that John Hughes film about "a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel, and a recluse..."). American Teen focuses on five teens representing such school cliques as jocks, geeks, and the popular set. I spoke with director Nanette Burstein about capturing contemporary teen life for her film. You can listen to my radio feature or read the extended interview.

We all remember that iconic and epic film The Breakfast Club. Either you were born watching it or your parents got you into it or even the latest fad of being retro required you to have a large knowledge of whether you were a princess, a brain, a criminal, etc. So when you walked down the theatre aisle and saw this new movie poster for the latest documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, American Teen, you probably had to take a second look, to make sure that it isn't a remake. This documentary has been compared to the most famous 80s movie, but this film is most definitely not a remake. This movie, being a documentary, takes a world that has been displayed in fiction, and in over-dramatic television "reality" shows, and it offers a more in depth and sincere look at the lives of the modern high school teen. The film includes the cliques, struggling to graduate, and teen heartbreak. Overall this film is a great model of what preteens have to look forward to, what teenagers have to live through, and what adults have successfully survived. After I had seen this film I had the great opportunity of meeting and interviewing the director, Nanette Burstein. In the way she spoke of her subjects, I saw the love she had for them and it assured me that this director only had the truest intentions in what that life is like, and I was grateful that this woman chose to deliver this message.

-- Candace Kavanagh just graduated from Mount Miguel High School. She spends her life absorbing celluloid images. She loves every type of film from so-called "chick flicks" such as My Fair Lady and Legally Blonde, to mind bending thrillers like Mulholland Drive and Hard Candy -- with every zombie movie, action flick, musical, and comedy in between.

Now that I can more easily add video elements to my blog I have decided to start a new weekly feature: Trailer Tuesdays. Each Tuesday I will try to post up a fun or interesting trailer from an upcoming new film or maybe a classic old one or something cool on DVD. The first trailer going up is for Pineapple Express (opening August 6 throughout San Diego). Imagine the Big Lebowski crossed with True Romance, or Hot Fuzz with the added layer of being a pot comedy and you'll have a good idea of what Pineapple Express is like. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the creative team behind Superbad, and produced by Judd Apatow, Pineapple Express focuses on Rogen's character Dale who witnesses a hit while taking a hit, and then all hell breaks loose. The film marks the first mainstream effort from lyrical indie director David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls, Snow Angels). Check out the trailer and let me know if there are any trailers you'd like to see posted or dug up from the archives. Trailer courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Ben Whishaw and Matthew Goode star in a new adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (Miramax)

We get a break from superheroes this week as a new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited comes to the big screen. PBS adapted Brideshead Revisited back in 1981. The very popular mini-series concerned class and religion in pre-war England, and it launched Jeremy Irons' career. But a mini-series has the luxury of time that a single feature film does not. So that's the challenge facing Julian Jarrold as he revisits Brideshead Revisited (opened August 1 at Landmark's Hillcrest and La Jolla Village Theaters) and must decide what to cut and what to hold onto from Waugh's novel. So while the PBS series got to cover more of the actual text, this new film offers a truncated but more narrowly focused version of the book.

Set in 19th century France, The Last Mistress (opening August 1 at Landmark's Ken Cinema) is a steamy period drama that chronicles the love affair between a tempestuous Spanish mistress named Vellini (Asia Argento) and the well-bred Ryno de Marigny (impossibly beautiful newcomer Fu'ad Ait Aattou). The sultry, dark-eyed Argento (seen in the U.S. in Land of the Dead and xXx) brings her unique brand of feral sensuality to the role of Vellini. She creates a completely sexual being entirely consumed by her passions. She rivets viewers just as she beguiles Ryno.

Serial killer or funny guy? Baghead (Sony Pictures Classics)

When Mark and Jay Duplass were shooting their first indie film The Puffy Chair, they had to make long drives back and forth from the set late at night through the woods. On one of those dark nights the discussion turned to what's scary.

Mark Duplass recalls, "Somebody piped up from the back of the van, ‘I think if you are sitting in your living room and you look out the window and a dude with a bag on his head is looking back at you that would be pretty terrifying.' Everybody started laughing but that night everybody was totally freaked out. The next morning that sensation that it's really funny and its kind of creepy too got us inspired to try and make some kind of horror comedy hybrid that had the most low-fi, stupidest villain ever." And so Baghead (opening August 1 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) was born.

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John Cho and Kal Penn as the new Bob Hope and Bing Crosby? Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo comes out on DVD/Blu Ray this week. (Warner Brothers)

At the Harold and Kumar panel at Comic-Con this past Sunday, someone asked if they could be a stoner version of Hope and Crosby creating a whole new set of Road pictures for the new millennium. And I have to admit that thought crossed my mind too. As wacky as that sounds, it's kind of accurate because like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Harold and Kumar are buddies with an appealing chemistry and marked set of differences, and they keep hitting the road for comic adventures. I have to confess I took something of a slacker approach to covering the last H&K road pic, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay when it opened theatrically back in April. Instead, I made one of the teen critics hustle to get his review up in time for the film's opening. But if there's any film where such slacker behavior might be acceptable, Harold and Kumar would be it. So dudes, here's my belated review of what is now the DVD/Blu Ray release of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo. (By the way, check out video highlights of their Comic-Con panel --and see how unlike Kumar Kal Penn is -- at the KPBS Comic-Con blog)