Gramps Is High

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In an 8.3 N.Y. Times piece about Judd Apatow and David Gordon Green's Pineapple Express (Sony, 8.6), writer Mark Harris notes that "pot comedies seem to be flourishing lately, so much so that the genre is subdividing. Those who will always view the Cheech and Chong ouevre (particularly 1978's Up in Smoke) as archetypal can find their natural heirs in the high-and-higher flavor of the two Harold and Kumar comedies (with a third in the works)."

Harris mentions two or three others, but ignores Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys, which I've long considered one of the most aromatic "light stone" pot movies ever made.

Getting ripped has been a standard youth rite since the late '60s. Every generation of high-school or college-age students has been toking up since, at least on an every-now-and-then basis before growing out of it or deliberately putting it aside because, as anyone who's ever turned on knows, pot "gets in the way" of having a semi-disciplined, semi-organized, semi-productive life. Still, the only people who have never turned on are the 65-and-older geezer generations, or the ones who grew up in the early 1960s, '50s, '40s and '30s. And even a percentage of them have probably sampled here and there.

The population of the US of A is therefore 85% "experienced" these days, and there is nothing all that wild or provocative or envelope-pushy about pot comedies as a result. They're funny (i.e., Pineapple Express) but in a "sure, okay, whatever" sort of way. They've acquired the taint of normality.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 3, 2008 at 5:48 PM

comment #1

Scott Mendelson says ...

Wonder Boys and Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle are the best stoner comedies I have ever seen. Hell, I've always felt that Harold And Kumar 01 was the funniest, smartest, most incisive look at race relations and identity issues in America since Do The Right Thing.

As for 'Escapes From Guantanamo Bay'... every bit as boring, unfunny, hamfisted, and just plain stupid as most of us expected part 01 to be. And, as far as politics, there's the real 'right wing apologetic disguised as a left-wing warning' that Dark Knight has been accused of being. Not saying that the writers/directors are hard-righties (and if they are, then Goes To White Castle is still a masterpiece regardless), But their film ends up softening up the very real criticisms of the War On Terror by making them seem like one-time circumstances in a system that otherwise works (so, H&K are the only innocents in Gitmo, Bush is basically an ok guy who just needs to smoke dope and stand up to his father... really?).

Posted by Scott Mendelson at August 3, 2008 6:44 PM

comment #2

D.Z. says ...

"Still, the only people who have never turned on are the 65-and-older geezer generations, or the ones who grew up in the early 1960s, '50s, '40s and '30s."

So Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs were not from those generations...?

Scott: I don't consider the first Harold and Kumar as much of a pot movie as the sequel. It's more like a buddy movie with drugs.

Posted by D.Z. at August 3, 2008 7:25 PM

comment #3

EOTW says ...

Big. Lebowski. Period.

Posted by EOTW at August 3, 2008 7:36 PM

comment #4

soap-and-water says ...

Flash Gordon.
Nineteen. Eighty.
Tee Aitch Ex.
Nineteen. Seventy. One.
Period.

Posted by soap-and-water at August 3, 2008 7:54 PM

comment #5

actionman says ...

Wonder Boys is a great film that has a stony vibe not often seen in serious Hollywood dramas.

Posted by actionman at August 3, 2008 7:55 PM

comment #6

EOTW says ...

Wonder Boys is great. Love the book, love the film.

Posted by EOTW at August 3, 2008 7:57 PM

comment #7

lipranzer says ...

I'm 40, and I've never turned on, nor have I been tempted to. Also, while all my friends claimed you couldn't really get the effect of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" unless you were stoned, I listened to it over and over without that.

Having said that, I love pot movies if their well done. I love UP IN SMOKE, love WONDER BOYS, like HALF-BAKED, and though I'm not sure if DAZED AND CONFUSED technically counts as a "pot comedy," love that movie as well. And, of course, THE BIG LEBOWSKI.

Posted by lipranzer at August 3, 2008 8:11 PM

comment #8

berg says ...

CHRONIC pot mistakes in movies #2:
In American Beauty the ounce he's selling is $1200 ... no pot in the universe it that expensive ...

In Pineapple Express, when Dale buys a quarter Saul gives him a plastic bag that you couldn't even fit an eight of that fine ass weed in ... maybe a couple of screens ... just sayin'

Posted by berg at August 3, 2008 8:18 PM

comment #9

iamjoe says ...

Wonder Boys is so very underrated...it inspires me to write every time I see it. I love showing it to people who haven't see it yet...sadly, a lot of people.
And in terms of stoney comedy....Traxler rules.

Posted by iamjoe at August 3, 2008 8:34 PM

comment #10

quitstaringatme says ...

Love Wonder Boys, the movie that made me fall in love with Robert Downey Jr again.

But does a pot comedy necessarily have to have pot smoking in it? Because I would love to nominate Wet Hot American Summer as my favorite movie to watch baked, but there's no illicit drug use. (except for one should-be-legendary musical montage)

Posted by quitstaringatme at August 3, 2008 8:46 PM

comment #11

racsluos says ...

quitstaringatme!

http://intenseguys.typepad.com/intense_guys/2008/06/wet-hot-america.html

Posted by racsluos at August 3, 2008 9:50 PM

comment #12

BurmaShave says ...

Completely unrelated, but right not on AMC they are showing a dubbed version of LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA. I thought this kind of shit was a thing of the past.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 3, 2008 11:04 PM

comment #13

MickTravis says ...

I like the novel "Wonder Boys," but the movie lacks the book's backstories and interior explanations, and as such it's hard not to view Grady (the Michael Douglas character) as an insufferable asshole.

But anyway here's one of the greatest weed scenes of the past 350 years ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57DdviStOFo

Posted by MickTravis at August 4, 2008 7:27 AM

comment #14

Jay T. says ...

I would say at most under-35 parties these days, you'll get more of a negative reaction by lighting up a regular cigarette than a joint. And typically when someone asks, "Do you smoke?" the answer is almost always a question in return: "Do you mean cigarettes or...?"

Posted by Jay T. at August 4, 2008 10:10 AM

comment #15

randy says ...

SMILEY FACE is way up there on the stoner comedy list.

Posted by randy at August 4, 2008 10:15 AM

comment #16

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Burmashave: I'm just spitballing and I could be wrong, but my guess is that they're showing a dubbed Letters From Iwo Jima in order to attract all the xenophobic dumb-asses out there who'll be voting for...uhm, Obama! Heh-heh, kidding.

Posted by gruver1 at August 4, 2008 1:21 PM

comment #17

BurmaShave says ...

Wells you're right of course, but it was disconcerting after MAD MEN to be plunged back into that mindset.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 4, 2008 1:44 PM

comment #18

corey3rd says ...

Big Lebowski isn't a true dope film. The Dude might be a stoner, but the man is all about his White Russians. It's a boozer film. he has his wild dream not on dope, but from his drink being laced.

Far as a dubbed Iwo Jima, In my area, the resolution of AMC is pretty crappy. I don't want to have to read blurred letters late at night. The people in Japan aren't forced to read the film to understand it. Why must we have to spend most of the movie staring at the bottom of the screen and not fully digesting the action?

Posted by corey3rd at August 4, 2008 1:45 PM

comment #19

LexG says ...

Question for stoners:

How do you know where your weed has been? That's just something I've always wondered, being a bit of a germaphobe. If they legalized it and it was professionally packaged and grown, sure. But as is, isn't buying weed from some shady dude in a park the equivalent of drinking vodka that's been mixed in a mildewy tub and stored in old shoes for a week? You don't know where that's shit been, and you're putting it in your system?

Christ, just man up and get drunk.

IWO JIMA: Isn't it odd that Iwo ENTIRELY SKIPPED PAY TELEVISION and went directly to AMC? Cinemax and HBO still show FLAGS almost daily, but didn't bite on Iwo Jima? Maybe if they'd known a dubbed version was available...

Posted by LexG at August 4, 2008 3:57 PM

comment #20

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comment #21