Stoner Cinema (pt. III)

Up in Smoke

How High

Hey, man, how’s it going? No, but, for real, we’ve made it to the middle of April of this chaotic year and I wanna know, how are y’all? I’m personally far from mellow at the moment, so it seemed high time to kick back, end my stoner cinema tolerance break, and enjoy some classic weed movies like we have in years past. I’m from Austin, Texas—the birthplace of the cosmic cowboy music genre, the iconic home of Dazed and Confused landmarks, and an odd, blue oasis that loves the green even in our big, intolerant, red state—so I naturally have an appreciation for stoner cinema. It also shouldn’t come as any surprise, given my soft spot for bro cinema. The stoner film genre is largely male-dominated, as the filmmaking space is in general, so I give kudos to television shows like Broad City and High Maintenance for featuring and normalizing female stoners, in a way that goes beyond Bridget Fonda smoking weed but not having a personality in Jackie Brown. I crave the nuanced, complex, but also fun perspective that Harold and Kumar brought to the stoner film canon, but I’ll always settle for silly and stupid if it’s done well, and both of tonights buddy bud comedies did silly and stupid superbly well. I have to begin with an absolute classic marijuana movie that became an instant word-of-mouth cult-hit back in 1978, the movie that launched careers and catchphrases and effectively birthed the genre of stoner films as a whole: Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong were already established comedians when this film was released, having already released five comedy albums that they essentially combined and tweaked to create the script for Up in Smoke. Like the majority of stoner cinematic classics, Up in Smoke proves that having a coherent plot is inconsequential, and that all that truly matters is how funny you are. Cheech plays Pedro, a man who seemingly has a wife and many kids with whom he shares a home, though these details are also inconsequential. Chong’s character is credited as just “Man”, but his rich, white parents—Arnold and Tempest Stoner (played by Strother Martin and Edie Adams) call him Anthony as they beg him to get a job and get his life together. Chong/Anthony/Man somehow finds himself stranded off the side of what appears to be the PCH, where he ties his shirt into a tight crop, stuffs his shirt, and shows some leg in the hopes that his haphazard drag will flag down a car to give him a lift. Pedro/Cheech’s “Love Machine” happens to roll by just in time to pick up this hitchhiker, whom Pedro is disappointed to learn is actually a man. When Anthony eventually pulls out a comically-large joint, however, he gets over it and two quickly become friends. After briefly being in the custody of the police, the two new friends go off in search of more weed, and Pedro promises that his cousin Strawberry will hook them up. Strawberry (played by Tom Skerrit who’d allegedly only met Cheech and Chong the day before filming and had no idea what he was signing up for) is scarred from fighting in Vietnam and is easily-spooked, so the two have to tread lightly. But they once again have to tangle with the police and a couple more hijinks later, Pedro and Anthony find themselves deported to Mexico. Thankfully, Pedro’s uncle has a van they can take back to California, but unbeknownst to them this van is made entirely out of weed. And the plot doesn’t get any less insane from there, as we witness Cheech and Chong on a stoner’s odyssey where they dodge cops, pick up some women, engage in more hijinks, and randomly decide to compete in the Battle of the Bands at the Roxy since, as Pedro says, “It’s just punk rock man, you don’t even need to know how to play, you just gotta be a punk.” As inexperienced and stoned as they are, though, these two dudes sound a lot better than the other punks they’re competing with—one of whom struts on stage like a chicken with his lips pouting, in what can only be an expert impersonation of Mick Jagger. I shan’t give away the entire hazy plot of Up in Smoke, because it’s a classic for a reason and it should be seen—whether or not you identify as a stoner—but I will tell you that in its 86-minute running time, the word “Man” is uttered 295 times. The soundtrack of this film is so much fun, and it’s always cool (to this critic, at least) to see an older and chiller Los Angeles. I saw Up in Smoke or, rather, a very edited and cut-up version of Up in Smoke on TV as a child, but I knew that I had to revisit this one as an adult. I remember recognizing Cheech from Spy Kids, and I’d soon recognize Chong from That 70s Show and Zootopia, and this film was funny to me then, just as it is now. I’m now older and wiser but still a sucker for dumb bro humor, and Cheech and Chong revolutionized this form of entertainment. Not only is Up in Smoke a stoner classic but it’s also just a great buddy comedy and road trip movie. I’m sure this pair only had the intention to make a movie and maybe make some money off of it, but Up in Smoke carved out a significant name for Cheech and Chong, and more-or-less fine-tuned this dynamic of dopey dudes that our Western pop culture is still obsessed with. Cheech and Chong would go onto make seven more movies together as their famous characters, and star in countless other projects that were clearly inspired by them. Oddly enough, neither Cheech nor Chong make an appearance in tonight’s next stoner classic, but they still clearly served as a massive inspiration. If the plot of Up in Smoke is charmingly-incoherent, than Jesse Dylan’s 2001 film How High is positively incomprehensible, but it was still just as much fun. You know you’re in for a treat when Cypress Hill’s “Hits from the Bong” plays, and How High had the insight to not only open with this song, but feature Cypress Hill as themselves later on in the film. How High introduces us to neighborhood weed dealer Silas P. Silas (Method Man) as he conducts business deal after business deal through a tiny slot in his apartment door. Business is booming and everyone in the neighborhood seemingly knows Silas, including Ivory (Chuck Deezy), a friend who hopes that Silas can hook him up with a romantic strain of weed for his date that night. Silas warns Ivory that his hair is wack, and that no girl is gonna tolerate it, but Ivory assures Silas that this girl is different, saying “All she cares about is Kevin Costner movies.” But when Ivory’s date arrives at his apartment to watch Dances with Wolves, she swiftly proves Silas’ point and dips. Bummed out, Ivory lights up his date night weed but accidentally falls asleep with the blunt in his mouth—eventually setting himself and his busted hairdo on fire. Mere moments after being introduced to this lovable character Ivory, the film decided to kill him, which informed me that How High would not be the stoner movie that I was expecting. Silas can’t believe his friend is gone, and recalls how Ivory always encouraged him to actually apply himself and try college. So, he does what any grieving friend would do: he takes Ivory’s ashes and infuses his soil with it to grow a strain of weed in his late friend’s honor before attempting to take the THC (Testing for Higher Credentials.) Meanwhile, Jamal (Redman) is prepping for the THC’s as well, trying to convince his mom (Anna Maria Horsford, who plays Ice Cube’s mom in Friday [we love a stoner mom]) that his bong is actually just a lamp without a shade. Jamal rolls up to the THCs and realizes he has no weed to pregame his test with just as Silas rolls up and realizes that he has no papers to roll up his weed in. Silas and Jamal meet just as Romeo and Juliet do in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation—glass in between them, but still drawn to one another as if destined to meet. The two instantly rely on each other, smoke with each other, and realize that when they smoke the special Ivory-infused strain of weed, they become…smarter? When they toke up with this supernatural strain, Ivory’s ghost appears, and tells both of these boys all of the answers they need to pass the test—ensuring them both spots at whatever university they desire. We then see a montage of several colleges pitching themselves to these stoner scholars, each segment making innovative uses of the term “higher learning”, but the winner ends up being Harvard—run by president Fred Willard (RIfuckingP.) The rest of the film is somehow even more bizarre and stupid and insane than the beginning, as we witness Silas and Jamal smoke out this legendarily stuffy institution, and make a real impression on the profoundly white and narrow-minded student body. All of the white kids and Fred Willard are constantly misinterpreting Silas and Jamal’s weed lingo, making for hilarious misunderstandings and lots of cringey white overcompensating. During their tenure at Harvard, our protagonists receive a higher education, not just within their school’s curriculum, but within learning the different factions and perspectives among the students. They butt heads with professors, especially with one of the only other black people on campus, Professor Dean Cain (Obba Babatundé), who’s years-long enduring of the white world of academia makes him in desperate need of some black culture and liberation. Hector Elizondo plays the rowing coach, who delights in Jamal’s teasing and one-upping of the self-proclaimed big man on campus named Bart (Chris Elwood), and adopts a blaccent somewhere along the way. This was one of the more playfully-out-of-touch moments of How High, but where this film really showed its age was in its exploitation of women and the female form, in general. Don’t get me wrong, I was laughing my ass off at this film, and I have observed far worse displays of misogyny in my beloved bro comedies, but it’s still always a bummer when the patriarchy’s presence is so felt. Also, why were so many movies at this time, including How High and American Pie, so insistent that non-consensually filming women during sex be a part of the plot? It’s just odd that this is a plot point in multiple films from this era. Regardless, How High just visited sexist territory, it didn’t dwell in it, and the majority of this film is so ridiculously funny and absurd that I couldn’t stay mad at it. I loved that Method Man’s character Silas was not only intelligent, but had an advanced vocabulary, and I love how sweet him and Redman’s characters were—especially as they became more popular at Harvard, I appreciated how these dudes never changed and never compromised their kindness (even when pranking and engaging in hijinks.) The hijinks of Cheech and Chong’s original stoner spectacle walked so that the surrealist stupidity of Method Man and Redman’s How High could run. There were too many hijinks and shenanigans to make note of, too many funny lines of dialogue and double entendres to list, but it all made for a really, really entertaining time. Apart from some offensive humor, and the fact that known-pedophile Jeffrey Jones plays a role, How High was a fairly perfect stoner movie, complete with a fun soundtrack, a dedicated cast, ghosts, and an unbelievably wild and silly premise. As crazy as the entirety of this film is, the final fifteen-ish minutes of this movie descends into a level of madness that simply must be seen to be believed. This film also features a continuation of its story AND outtakes during the credits, which never happens anymore and I miss it desperately. Even the early 2000s humor and testosterone couldn’t make How High a bad trip, and it certainly belongs in the pantheon of prestigious pothead pictures. I’m no botanist, but these stoner cinematic classics really grew on me as they went along, and made a true fan out of this critic. Happy 4/20, dear readers, don’t let the man keep you down, and keep those spirits high.