The Golden Age of the Pot Movie
Maybe it's because we're living in an age that can appreciate the absurdity of Reefer Madness for all its ironic glory or maybe it's because there's some actual steam behind the legalization movement, but the past decade has been something of a golden age for movies about marijuana and the people who use it. We've definitely come a long way since the juvenile, ramshackle comedies of the 80's like Up In Smoke. Though all the following films owe some of their aesthetic to the hazy movies of the past, they all go above and beyond the usual trappings of the pot comedy.
Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
When Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's strangely-titled comedy hit theaters in 2004, it drew unflattering comparisons to another one of director Danny Leiner's films, the abysmal Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott vehicle Dude, Where's My Car? After all, it was another pot-fueled buddy comedy about two guys who have a wild, improbable adventure. The opening box office for Harold and Kumar was lukewarm, but it didn't take long for word to get around that it was one of the year's best comedies. It launched the careers of stars Kal Penn and John Cho while reintroducing the world to Neil Patrick Harris, who was just about to steal the spotlight in the hit TV series How I Met Your Mother. The beauty of Harold and Kumar is that it's not just a movie about two dudes getting baked, it's also a delightfully unpredictable chain of sketches with a little social commentary thrown in for good measure.
Pineapple Express
According to star Seth Rogen, he wrote the first draft of the 2008 crime comedy Pineapple Express when he was a teenager. By the time the film went into production, Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg managed to keep the adolescent obsessions with pot, impossible violence and distrust of authority in the movie while simultaneously courting a much smarter, more grown-up audience. The story of a shaggy process server who finds himself in the crosshairs of a brutal drug kingpin, Pineapple Express has a murderer's row of awesome comic actors, including Gary Cole, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson and James Franco. Its loving, postmodern send-up of action movies and its accurate portrayal of stoned logic makes Pineapple Express an instant classic.
Smiley Face
Director Gregg Araki is known for his intense, gay-themed dramas, so when he made the cult classic pot comedy Smiley Face in 2007 nobody quite knew what to expect. It didn't get a very wide release, so aside from a brief screening period in Los Angeles and a smattering of independent theaters in America and the UK it basically got relegated to video store shelves and Netflix queues. It's a shame, too, because Smiley Face is a thoroughly fun film that has the good sense to put Anna Faris, perhaps the most criminally under-used comic actress of her time, in the lead role. Faris plays Jane, a young woman who has a bizarre day after consuming a few too many pot-laced cupcakes. In her travels, Jane meets a variety of quirky characters played by a number of familiar faces, including John Krasinski, Jane Lynch, Brian Posehn, Danny Trejo and fellow pot movie actor John Cho. Despite its strong cast and good humor, Smiley Face was a flop. It deserved better, but at least it gets to join the pantheon of great smoke movies.
