Cheech & Chong's Animated Movie!

I was never a big fan of the Cheech & Chong movies (or stoner movies in general, not being a stoner I guess), but by the time I was old enough to get most of the jokes, I was already well versed in their comedy routines. In the Philadelphia area, Cheech & Chong were staples of Sunday nights on Dr. Demento and WYSP's Comedy Hour.

One of my favorites was "Earache My Eye," a skit that included a song by 'Alice Bowie' that I always wished was longer. Much like the Richard Pryor "Wanted" album, the first three Steve Martin albums, and all the words to Monty Python and the Holy Grail - these routines were committed to memory by myself and my friends, and composed probably forty percent of our total junior high school conversations.

Such is the legacy of Cheech & Chong. These days Cheech Marin is more known for his acting, especially his tour de force in From Dusk Till Dawn, and Chong is probably known better as poor Tommy Chong, because of his run-ins with the US legal system, as opposed to his recent fame on "Dancing with the Stars." This feature, Cheech & Chong's Animated Movie!, is a throwback to those simpler, funnier times back in junior high.

This feature is a pretty simple concept, old Cheech & Chong comedy routines animated. At first it reminds me of the Cokelogic animations of Opie & Anthony radio bits, but these are better and much funnier. All the classics are here like "Let's Make a Dope Deal," "Ralph and Herbie," "Dave's Not Here," "Sister Mary Elephant," and even Alice Bowie. Fun and nostalgic, bring your own munchies.

Half Baked

When "The Dave Chappelle Show" debuted on Comedy Central, I loved it, and I laughed and laughed. I became an instant fan. I had never known however where he came from. He couldn't have just appeared as a full-blown superstar overnight, right?

His claim to fame was a movie called Half Baked, one that as a stoner comedy was never on my radar. Shrugs. You win some, you lose some. When I found out about it, and saw it also starred another actor I like a lot, Guillermo Diaz, I decided it was probably time to see it. The next time it came around in rotation on IFC, I DVRed it.

Also in the cast are Jim Breuer and Harland Williams, and along with Diaz, and Chappelle, who also co-wrote it, and whose character narrates it - these are our four main stoners, I mean characters. You can plainly see the genius already in Chappelle, and the others follow suit. Stoned since ninth grade, these four grow up to be not just stoners but slackers too. When Williams go to jail, the other three come up with a pot-selling scheme to raise bail.

While the flick can easily be dismissed as a stoner comedy, it's also interesting to watch the early evolution of Chapelle. Diaz is very different from his current "Scandal" incarnation. He certainly made a transformation over the years. Williams has always been goofy, and Breuer has made a career of looking at least perpetually stoned. Steven Wright is also fun in his minor role.

Half Baked is also directed by Tamra Davis who previously worked in music video and now works in television, but along the way has done some really innovative stuff like Guncrazy. Her cred puts the movie in a higher bracket than the average stoner comedy.

There are some cool cameos by Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofolo, Tracy Morgan, Bob Saget, Stephen Baldwin, and Tommy Chong. Co-writer Neal Brennan also shows up. He would later co-create and co-write Dave Chapelle's Comedy Central show.

For the most part, it's a fun flick, only slowed down by an actual plot and subplots. It's much better with just the stoner humor without trying to be a real movie. And of course I bet it's a lot funnier if you watch it while high.

This Is The End

This Is The End ~ This film does one thing that I like. Usually when one sees a movie with name stars, unless the movie completely immerses the viewer or the acting is prime, one will always think of the star as the star rather than the character. For instance most folks don't know who John McClane is, but they know Bruce Willis was all that in the Die Hard films.

This Is The End uses that logic in its own favor by having its stars - Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, etc. - play themselves. Well, it's themselves as pot smoking partying losers, which may or may not be the truth, but at least you know who is who. As someone who stopped 'partying' quite some time ago, it made me think of most of these actors in a lesser light, fiction or not. Now get off my lawn.

Anyway, the pothead slob comedy brigade are at a party at James Franco's house when apparently The Rapture happens, followed by an apparent Hell on Earth. It vacillates between end of days satire and Exorcist parody and succeeds in neither. The movie tries really hard to be funny, but unlike old Cheech and Chong, which is funny whether you're high or not, I imagine only stoners would find this flick hilarious.

The only time I even smiled was when Emma Watson from the Harry Potter films, and later the Backstreet Boys, showed up for a couple minutes. Although I did jump when the demon bull jumped in through the window - so points for horror but very little for comedy. For a movie called This Is The End, it really never seemed to end, it just went on and on and on. This was relentlessly bad, I hated it a lot.