Like any good stoner, High School is running a little late.
The movie, which opens this Friday, has been waiting more than three years to make its theatrical debut.
Don't expect Anchor Bay's R-rated stoner movie to take a bite out of Snow White and the Huntsman, but if you're looking for an alternative to the big studio film (and you're not up to seeing Cinedigm's fight documentary Like Water), High School may be for you.
Despite the presence of several truly talented actors – Oscar-winner Adrien Brody, Emmy-winner Michael Chiklis, and the very solid Colin Hanks – this movie isn't going to win any awards any time soon. It's about a high school valedictorian who, after getting stoned, finds out that everyone in his graduating class faces a drug test.
He's afraid the THC will keep him out of MIT, so he arranges a bake sale – get it? A bake sale – with marijuana-laced brownies. The way he figures it, if everyone at the school fails the drug test, no one will.
As they say, mayhem ensues.
Is it the best movie ever?
Nope. But it's fun.
Is it the best stoner movie ever? Not likely.
That designation would go to one of these films in this uniquely American art form:
10. Up in Smoke (1978)
You can't make a list of stoner films without including something from Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. Up in Smoke is the team's first feature, and in it, Chong plays a guy whose last name is Stoner. Wait: It gets more stonery. Stoner is a drummer. Is it good? Well, judging by its box office, it's terrific. Paramount's R-rated movie grossed $44.4 million, making it the 12th-biggest movie of 1978. And it was banned in South Africa.
9. Reefer Madness (1936)
The propaganda film, originally released as Tell Your Children, is unintentionally hilarious. It opens with an on-screen warning that marijuana's "first effect is violent, uncontrollable laughter; then come dangerous hallucinations – space expands – time slows down, almost stands still … Fixed ideas come next, conjuring up monstrous extravagances – followed by emotional disturbances, the total inability to direct thoughts, the loss of all power to resist physical emotions … leading finally to acts of shocking violence … ending often in incurable insanity." And that's just the beginning! Then the acting starts.
8. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
Kevin Smith, who directed the spectacular Clerks, directed and wrote the movie, which he also stars in. It's silly and it's fun and it's meta. And it has Ben Affleck, Will Ferrell, Jason Lee, and Chris Rock. And it has the ridiculous twists that only a stoner film can have. Less fun, the R-rated movie from Dimension Films has a surprisingly homophobic tone that shouldn't have any place in a stoner film. Or any film.
7. Our Idiot Brother (2011)
The title tells you everything you need to know about The Weinstein Company's 2011 film. It's about a guy who gives a bag of marijuana to a cop. While the cop is in uniform. He's an idiot brother who barges into his sisters' life. The R-rated movie has a talented cast, including Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, and Rashida Jones. It didn't open as well as it should have, but it's a sweet and plenty funny movie.
6. Dazed and Confused (1993)
This movie could be one of the all-time best movies about summer. Or one of the best coming-of-age pictures. And like Our Idiot Brother, the R-rated movie from Gramercy Pictures is aptly titled. It's about the last day of school, when everyone is messed-up. The ensemble includes Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Milla Jovovich, and Ben Affleck. And it's one of Quentin Tarantino's list of greatest films of all times.
5. Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Stoners get the munchies. They decide that only White Castle hamburgers can satiate them. Neil Patrick Harris plays himself in New Line's oddly joyous R-rated movie.
4. The Wackness (2008)
A totally underrated movie about Luke Shapiro, a teenager who spends the summer of 1994 selling marijuana out of his ice cream pushcart. At its widest release, the R-rated film from Sony Pictures Classics was only on 142 screens, but Jonathan Levine's movie, which stars Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, and Mary-Kate Olsen, deserved more. And it's just plain funny to watch Sir Ben take a rip off a bong.
3. Dude, Where's My Car (2000)
A sci-fi stoner comedy that's totally quotable and has the most innovative use of bubble wrap ever. Plus, it captured an era where saying things like, "dude" and "sweet" was fine (incidentally, it's still fine to say "sweet"). And where else do you get to hear stoners say "continuum transfunctioner?" Stoners save the world in Fox's PG-13-rated movie. And what could be better than that?
2. Pineapple Express (2008)
It could be a bad action film – a process server and his pot dealer witness a murder, then go on the run from hitmen and corrupt police. But David Gordon-Green's R-rated movie from Sony is funny and well-done. And it stars Seth Rogen and James Franco. And it earned Franco a Golden Globe nomination. Pineapple Express is a great buddy movie – as well as a great stoner film.
1. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Sean Penn sets the stoner standard as Jeff Spicoli in a movie directed by Amy Heckerling and written by Cameron Crowe. Universal's R-rated picture has a perfect soundtrack (Jackson Browne, Joe Walsh, The Cars, The Go Gos, Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, Oingo Boingo), and some of the best, most quotable lines ever. The cast includes three future Oscar-winners: Penn, Forest Whitaker, and Nicolas Cage. And watching Penn, as Spicoli, smack his head with his shoe and say, "That was my skull! I'm so wasted!" somehow is sublime.
- Joshua L. Weinstein
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