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I make this point because I think it shows the possibility for a continuity of vision from one film to the next that will be my driving focus in looking at the films this week. Continuity of vision? In a drug comedy sequel? Precisely. As “low-class” genres such as horror and sci-fi demonstrate on a recurring basis, it is precisely such an outsider status that can allow for both (expected) grossness and unexpected satire, pathos, social commentary, a willingness and ability to get away with a lot, because hey, it’s not expensive to make, and it’s just a horror/sci-fi/pot flick. Maybe it is and maybe it’s . . .

Case Study #1: Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie (1980)

Tagline: Just what we all need . . . a really good hit!

Author’s Note/Extended Digression

On a personal level, there are several inherent ironies in my choice of topics this week. The first and foremost: I was fairly straight edge as far as drug and alcohol intake went during my adolescence. At age 16, I siphoned away a single unlit cigarette left behind by a guest at our lodges and smoked about half, certain my parents would smell it on me. I did not drink until I was 21, didn’t drink to excess until a wickedly awesome night in a lesbian dance club when I was 22, and did not drink to the vomitorium point until the early hours of July 4th, 2002 when approximately 15 drinks of ridiculously mixed strengths and flavors caught up with me. I can say I have puked into a street corner New York City trashcan. I can also say I have held my breath for 40 minutes on a subway ride from the East Side up to Astoria, Queens praying that the sorts of smells one would expect to encounter on a subway car at two in the morning did not wend their way into my nose, which had a direct line to my stomach (why yes, I’ll accept the collect charges!) and wasn’t about to hang up.





I had several opportunities growing up to try pot and turned them down in turn. (Truth be told, I was a Sanctimonious Prick about such things, the kind of righteous asshole who would make sure to let the cute college freshman getting drunk and puking on the weekends in the co-ed bathrooms know that I was looking down on her. Hopefully, I am a little less smug nowadays, maybe lower-case instead of upper-case?)

At my college graduation in 1997, I was in the section whose soon-to-be graduates was passing around a 40 oz of malt liquor and an honest-to-god fattie. My parents, uncles, and grandparents were in attendance at said event. The contraband items passed in front of me. Dear reader, I… did not partake. I finally tried pot when I was 26, at the behest of a friend and co-worker, but it was admittedly the bare bones of his stash, I believe we used a soda can as a makeshift pipe, and it did nothing acknowledgeable for me.

My sole encounter with actual pot-induced highness came courtesy of a girlfriend’s pot brownies, given to her as a present by an ex. I took one, 45 minutes passed and, nothing. I took the other, 45 minutes passed, and to quote myself, “I am unfit to drive.” A trip to the local Audubon society and a screening of the just-released Let the Right One In at Cinema 21 ensued. That may have been the best possible film for me as I could feel the icy chillness of the environs and enshrouding darkness (as captured by Hoyte Van Hoytema’s masterful camera work) soak into my bones. I also got really tired and nodded off several times. And so it goes. Nowadays, the closest thing to getting high in my life are the second-hand fumes of sweet and acrid smoke that sometimes emanate from the occupants of the benches of Portland’s downtown Park blocks as I cart Finn from daycare over to our bus stop.

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