The Interview

In a week when cheaters can still play in the Super Bowl and major cities braced for winter superstorms that never came, what better time to review The Interview?

Originally intended to be just another bad stoner flick from James Franco and Seth Rogan, The Interview gained frightening national and international infamy by reputedly being the target of a cyber attack on Sony supposedly by North Korea. While the facts of who did what may be in question, it seems that making a film about what a monster the leader of North Korea is and how a couple of idiots attempt to assassinate him could actually lead to an act of war. Sounds silly, doesn't it? But apparently it happened.

I didn't plan on seeing this movie, but now that it is quickly available on Netflix, I thought, what the heck I might take a peek. And it's not a matter of wanting to see it as much as it's a matter of wanting to see what all the fuss is about. In The Interview, James Franco is an idiot talk show host and Seth Rogan his long suffering producer who longs to do serious journalism. In an attempt to remedy the latter, they land an exclusive interview with Kim Jong-un. The CIA intervenes and hopes to get them to stealthily assassinate the dictator.

The opening scene with Eminem is hilarious. There are sweet moments like Franco bonding with Kim Jong-un and Seth Rogan mooning over his North Korean counterpart but for the most part this is another Franco/Rogan dick and fart joke stoner movie, nothing new and nothing should be expected to be new. And when it takes a serious turn in the middle of its childish humor, I didn't know how to feel. Really, this film has a moral lesson and political agenda now? Way out of left field.

This is still a terrible movie, but it's better than it has any right to be. And I'm not sure whether that's good or bad. I certainly didn't hate it like I did This Is The End. I really didn't think I could hate James Franco more than I already did, and then I saw The Interview. The man is now on my do-not-watch list. Yeah, he's that bad. He makes Adam Sandler look like Cary Grant. Seth Rogan isn't bad, and Lizzy Caplan does her best with what she has to work with.

These movies seem to be quite popular and I don't like them much. A friend threw an idea my way that has been weighing on me, so I thought I'd throw it out to you. She compared the Franco/Rogan films to some of the sillier comedies of the 1960s, and suggested that they were just this generation's version of that type of humor. She mentioned two names in particular, and I'll pass them along - are these the type of movies that Jerry Lewis or Don Knotts be making if they were in their prime today? Thoughts?

Otherwise, I would say to wait to see The Interview for free, if at all. This flick is only a curiosity because of the controversy around it, not because of anything special in it.

On The Interview

I wasn't going to pipe in on this one. I figured it was old news by the time I had the time to get to my blog, and no one would care any more, but this story has seemed to linger. That, and many friends, both online and in real life, have wanted me to say something, so here you go. Yeah, I'm talking about The Interview.

The Interview is not a film I would have paid to see. I might have caught it when it got to my pay cable channels, but not otherwise. As I've said here before, I'm not a big fan of stoner movies, and James Franco and Seth Rogan, the stars of the film, left a really bad taste in my mouth the last time they got together - so this one was definitely not on my watch list.

What bothers me the most about the situation is that now everyone wants to see this movie, and not for the right reasons. If it ever gets released, it will make a mint. The other major thing that gets in my crawl is that Sony backed down, they pulled the film, and in short - the terrorists won. I hate that.

What if this was an important film (yes, there are important films) rather than some silly stoner comedy, would Sony have knuckled under as well? Is our entertainment now at the mercy of foreign powers or terror groups? Rant over. It's Christmas, I'm going to try to be happy now.

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.