Pick of the week: Up In Smoke
Dog of the week: Delta Farce
The drug humor genre had a short spacey run in the 1970s -- better to burn out than to fade away, it seems. Only one act managed to mainstream the running gag of dopes with dope: Cheech & Chong.
The Vancouver comedy act found fame in 1972 with their first two comedy albums, produced by rock czar Lou Adler. Six years later came their film "Up in Smoke," which re-created many of the duo's longtime comedy-club bits. A few decent C&C movies followed, but none topped the original.
Perhaps marking 30 years of toking and joking, Paramount Home Entertainment this week revived "Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke
How does the movie's decades-old drug humor translate to our new century? One DVD critic just noted: "It just doesn't fly while watching sober." Perhaps so. Hell, even the original marketing campaign urged: "Don't watch this movie while straight!"
In the interests of science, I tested "Up in Smoke" in both states of mind -- straight and stoned. No sacrifice being too great for this DVD blog. (The neighborhood punk kid left a joint behind while tagging the garage wall, that's how.)
I gave Straight a head start, watching the first half in my usual Diet Pepsi-fueled state. Then came Stoned for the last half.
Let's go to the clipboard. The results:
Straight: Freaking hilarious.
Stoned: Freaking hilarious.
Slight statistical differences did not affect the outcome of the study, man.
The old DVD of "Up in Smoke" was what you'd expect -- the movie duly presented plus a commentary with Cheech Marin and Adler, plus a handful of deleted scenes.
This time, Paramount fills the DVD bong with a terrific new animated music video for the movie's "Alice Bowie" song; a new featurette with Adler and Cheech & Chong (separately) talking about the movie; a high-speed montage of every instance someone says "man" in the movie; and some newly animated 1970s radio promos -- all presented in the high spirits of the film.
The old commentary and new featurette tell some great tales about the movie and the people who worked on it, such as Stacey Keach, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, Edie Adams and one-man test audience Jack Nicholson.
The widescreen DVD images look great, especially upconverted, with lots of bright, saturated primary colors that come across as reasonably natural. The music benefits from some tasty stereo separation and the dialogue is clear -- even when the boys are good and zonked.
A natural but equally loopy high can be obtained from a pair of Jim Jarmusch titles on Criterion, "Night on Earth
New and notable:
Bobby Z (Sony)
The City of Violence (Dragon Dynasty)
Desperate Housewives 3 (Disney)
Georgia Rule (Universal)
Gumby Essentials (Classic Media/Genius)
I Dream of Jeannie 4 (Sony)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Fox)
Night on Earth (Criterion)
Stranger Than Paradise (Criterion)
Nip/Tuck 4 (Warner)
The Office 3 (Universal)
Resident Evil Double Feature (Sony)
Robot Chicken Season 2 (Warner)
30 Rock (Universal)
Up in Smoke High-Larious Edition (Paramount)
Wind Chill (Sony)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Genius Products)
Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org
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