You’re not James Franco.
You’re not Jason Statham, I know that.
So, who are you?
Oh, it’s a rhetorical question. I could go to the official website and learn your identity. I could read the credits on the poster and see three additional names and figure it out by process of elimination, knowing that you’re not Gary Cole or Rosie Perez.
But that’s not the point.
I have walked past the poster many times.
I have driven by similarly designed billboards.
Text: ROGEN, FRANCO
Image: Three guys
Reaction: Annoyance
Will it keep me from seeing the movie? No, it won’t. I’ve seen all of the recent Apatow-related efforts. Even caught Drillbit Taylor on a recent flight. (You really phoned in that script, Rogen.)
But don’t push me, fellas.
This is like the converse to the annoyance I felt 20 years ago, when Young Guns came out.
Emilio Estevez: check. Kiefer Sutherland: check. Lou Diamond Phillips: check. Charlie Sheen: check.
Casey Siemaszko?
Who the %^&#& was Casey Siemaszko? And why was he getting equal billing with Hollywood’s genuine young guns? (I know, I know, I’m giving Dermot Mulroney a free pass on this one; I didn’t know him in 1988 either. But let’s face it, things have worked out a little better for Mulroney, and at least he didn’t have an absurd above-the-title name. Which was read aloud on the commercials—shih-MOSH-ko—much to my irritation.)
Wait: Maybe he is the third guy in Pineapple Express….
Jack Silbert, curator