Your list of best and worst stoner movies
GONE TO POT: This year’s 4/20 celebration is the perfect time to enjoy this particular strain of comedic sub-genre
With cannabis legalization imminent in Canada, this year’s 4/20 — the annual celebration of stoner culture — represents the perfect time to examine a particular strain of comedic sub-genre. A category that encourages participation and demands leniency, the stoner movie adheres to a simple formula frequented by coming-of-age tales and clumsy quests.
In honour of 4/20, as well as Friday’s timely release of pot-friendly sequel Super Troopers 2, we endeavour on a ponderous journey of our own, through a ranking of stoner movies — from worst to best :
20. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
(2006): Fresh out the clink after an ATM heist expectedly gone wrong, Ricky, Julian and Bubbles rehash various moments from the episodic cult Canadian classic. It lacks the six-paper joints and pastoral charms of the TV version.
19. Reefer Madness (1936):
Kids, don’t smoke weed or else you’ll become a murderous, crazed lunatic. That’s the message of this melodramatic propaganda-cumunintentional satire meant to keep kids out of Dad’s stash box.
18. Bio-Dome (1996): This gem has a five-per-cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes’Tomatometer, and that may be generous.
17. Kids (1995): Larry Clark’s debut is raw, unfiltered and at times frightening, profiling a band of
New York City teens who when left to their own devices amount to a rather undesirable lot.
16. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998): A journey, both
for the two grating leads and the viewer, adroit psychedelic courier Terry Gilliam somehow does Hunter S. Thompson’s words a disservice.
15. Harold & Kumar Go To White
Castle (2004): A pair of blazed buddies, check. Red eyes and absent thoughts, check. The pursuit of a simple goal made inexplicably difficult, check.
14. Billy Madison (1995): Before overgrown rich kids held office, they valued leisure, marvelled at peculiar apparitions, hit on women they shouldn’t have and spouted infantile drivel.
13. Pineapple Express (2008):
Vancouver-born chortler Seth Rogen teams with James Franco’s aloof drug dealer as David Gordon Green takes the conventional stoner flick and makes it violent.
12. Friday (1995): South Central is the backdrop for this front porch buddy flick with Ice Cube’s Craig the no-nonsense accompaniment to Chris Tucker’s shrill showboat weed dealer Smokey.
11. Fast Times at Ridgemont
High (1982): Nostalgia overload as Jeff Spicoli and Co. mimic So-Cal high school students on the brink of adult impasse.
10. This is the End (2013): Selfindulgent yet silly, Rogen and
Co. play themselves at a party as the world burns. Drugs are done, friendships are tested and Rihanna falls into a gaping hole in the Earth. It’s a tale as old as time.
9. The Wackness (2008): Likable characters buoy this depiction of mid-90s New York, with Ben Kingsley playing a shrink who trades weed for therapy with Josh Peck’s reticent hip-hop-tinted teen. Parents quarrel, virginity is lost and joints are smoked.
8. Cheech & Chong’s Up in
Smoke (1978): The archetype of the oeuvre comprising the two pillars of stoner movies: a buddy flick with a simple goal completed in the most roundabout way imaginable.
Cheech & Chong’s first cinematic offering — which celebrated its 40th anniversary this week — is the benchmark.
7. Dazed and Confused (1993):
Persistent themes abound: High school, 1970s bush weed, confronting adult problems and ensemble casts, with the added bonus of Matthew McConaughey as toe-the-line creep Wooderson.
6. Knocked Up (2007):
Rogen plays a gregarious bong savant whose one-night fling with Katherine Heigl’s mid-20s professional establishes an unlikely odd couple, giving hope to stoners everywhere.
5. Clerks (1994): Jumbo jorts ambassador Kevin Smith’s low-budget black-and-white breakthrough is an earnest day in the life of cynical slackers, deadend jobs and rooftop roller hockey.
4. Bill & Ted’s Excellent
Adventure (1989): The devil’s grass lurks off camera as buzzed bozos Ted Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston Esq. go back in time to complete a high school assignment. Kids today with their search engines have it so easy.
3. Half Baked (1998): Toronto landmarks are aplenty in this superbly stupid and almost entirely harmless comedy.
2. Easy Rider (1969): What’s cooler than riding choppers with your buddy from L.A. to New Orleans bankrolled by the proceeds of a cocaine deal? Nothing. Fonda and Hopper were the essence of drug-fuelled anti-establishment chic.
1. The Big Lebowski (1998):
The Coen Bros. crafted cult classic separates itself from its peers courtesy of an inventive script and notable performances from John Goodman and Jeff Bridges.
The list abides.