STONER FLICKS HAVE SLOWLY SEEPED INTO MODERN CULTURE

Scoring Big At The Box Office, Pot-Friendly Films Have Become Mainstream

With pot-friendly flicks often scoring huge at the box office -- and
earning bags of pop culture credibility -- stoners are almost
mainstream. In honour of pot-action comedy Pineapple Express, we're
taking a look at genre-defining stoner flicks.

How High (2001)

Premise: When two pot-smoking, underachieving high school students
(Wu Tang's Method Man and Redman) fertilize a crop of marijuana with
their dead friend's ashes, his ghost helps them score a scholarship to Harvard.

Why it's awesome: Hey, who hasn't wanted to use the ashes of a dead
friend for fertilizer? While not the funniest or most creative of
stoner flicks, How High manages to get belly laughs out of us every
time. Maybe it's the easy comedy chops of Method Man and Redman,
maybe it's Fred Willard (who's funny in everything) or maybe it's
that somewhere down the line, sixth U.S. President John Quincy Adams'
ashes get toked -- though we can't remember why, for some reason.

Rating: 1 bong hit out of 5

Reefer Madness (1936)

Premise: A few seemingly harmless "marihuana" cigarettes lead a bunch
of young innocents into a sordid, drug-crazed world of murder, rape,
insanity and really-fast piano solos.

Why it's awesome: Originally intended to scare people from fooling
with the demon weed, this church-funded flick didn't get an audience
until the '70s when it became a regular midnight-movie favourite
among pot-head college students (read: your parents).Nothing beats
campy, old-timey propaganda.

Rating: 2 bong hits out of 5

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

Premise: When a film, based on a comic book, based on them, is being
made without their permission, friendly neighbourhood pot dealers Jay
(Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) head to Hollywood to stop
it or, at least, "get (their) motherf--king movie cheque."

Why it's awesome: Sure, Jay and Silent Bob have been in all those
Kevin Smith films, but only this one can say it's a stoner flick. The
two Clerks movies, Mallrats and Chasing Amy were about relationships
and friendships and growing up, while Dogma was about religion and
faith. J&SBSB channels the best of classic trips from Cheech & Chong
and mixes it with some pinches from your "cool" older cousin's '70s
and '80s comic book and VHS tape collection. Throw in a cameo by Luke
Skywalker/Mark Hamill, a classic Will Ferrell appearance as an
over-the-top wildlife marshal and a performance by Morris Day and the
Time, and you've got a sweet trip for the ages.

Rating: 3 bong hits out of 5

Friday (1995)

Premise: Two dudes from South Central Los Angeles (Ice Cube and Chris
Tucker) get mixed up in various shenanigans and misunderstandings
over the course of one Friday.

Why it's awesome: Tightly written and good-natured, Friday is like a
body buzz for the soul. Full of infinitely quotable lines, hilarious
situations and memorable characters, the film maintains a perfect
pace and doesn't overindulge in either preaching (stop smoking pot
and grow up) or slacking (quitting pot and growing up is for The Man).

Rating: 3.5 bong hits out of 5

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Premise: Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski was just a dude -- content to a
life of bowling with pals and doing a 'J' from time to time. But when
some thugs mistake him for a millionaire (that would be the Big
Lebowski), he winds up involved in a complicated plot involving
possible kidnappings, nihilists, a porn mogul and a trippy bowling
dream sequence.

Why it's awesome: The Big Lebowski isn't a stoner movie in the most
obvious sense, but The Dude, Jeff Lebowski (though he never had much
use for that handle himself), is sort of your archetypal aging
pothead. He breathes stoned, drives stoned, bowls stoned, mixes white
Russians stoned, solves complicated Raymond Chandler-esque mysteries
stoned. And regardless of which genre you drop it in, this Coen
Brothers flick is a modern classic -- full of memorable characters
and dialogue.

Rating: 4 bong hits out of 5

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Premise: The highs and lows of several Texas highschool students are
seen over the course of one day. (May 28, 1976, to be exact.)

Why it's awesome: Director Richard Linklater's seminal '90s look back
at the '70s featured so many future stars (Matthew McConaughey, Ben
Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Parker Posey and Adam Goldberg, to name a
few) it was just silly. It also boasts a loosely structured and
well-paced collection of scenes that followed an ensemble of
pot-friendly characters through various high school and adolescent
trials and epiphanies. It may sound like a total bummer, but it's movie gold.

Rating: 4 bong hits out of 5

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

Premise: After a rough day, buddies Harold and Kumar decide to unwind
by getting "blitzed out of their skulls." A deep hunger for munchies
follows, one that can only be satisfied by the bite-sized,
four-cornered burgers of White Castle. Unfortunately, their local
franchise has been bought out by "Burger Shack," and the guys must
embark on an epic quest for this paragon of grilled meats.

Why it's awesome: It's basically your by-the-book stoner/buddy movie:
two dudes on a quest, who happen to do exceptionally stupid (and
therefore, funny) things along the way because they're, well, high.
But Harold and Kumar is as much a social satire as anything else --
which is impressive given all the smoke.

Rating: 4 bong hits out of 5

Up in Smoke (1978)

Premise: In their classic first film together, Cheech Marin and Tommy
Chong play two potheads who unknowingly smuggle a van -- made
entirely of cannabis -- from Mexico to L.A., enjoying adventures (and
the munchies) along the way.

Why it's awesome: Cheech and Chong basically created the stoner movie
genre and Up in Smoke was their first crack at it. Its mix of (then
taboo) drug humour, (then taboo) sex humour, and (then taboo)
minority-centric humour. An anti-establishment undercurrent made the
film -- like their stand-up shows and comedy albums before it -- an
instant underground classic. This was ground zero for all the typical
wacky one-night adventures, hilarious black holes of stoner logic,
insanely-intricate drug paraphernalia, munchies and other stoner
flick cliches that have come since.

Rating: 4.5 bong hits out of 5

Half Baked (1998)

Premise: A crew of stoners, led by Dave Chapelle, needs to raise bail
for a pal who's been tossed into prison for feeding a lethal dose of
munchies to a diabetic horse. Their plan for raising the cash: Start
selling medicinal marijuana swiped from Chapelle's big pharma bosses.
But when drug-lord Sampson Simpson finds out these guys are putting
him out of business, he sends in the toughs.

Why it's awesome: Like any good stoner movie, you're expected to
suspend your disbelief like you've been smoking what Simpson's been
dealing. Sure, the plot doesn't have much going for it. Yeah, that's
totally Toronto's Yonge and Dundas Square subbing in for NYC. And
maybe Jerry Garcia couldn't actually jump out of a pouch and knock a
guy out with his guitar. But it's all hilariously absurd -- and a
must for anyone who loved The Chappelle Show.

Rating: 5 bong hits out of 5