I don’t smoke weed, but if I did, I’d spend today getting high and watching a marathon of movies that are (supposedly) better when you’re stoned. Why? Because it’s 4/20, the high holy day for marijuana fans. You’ve probably seen a billion of these lists, which recommend the same bunch of psychedelic classics beloved by stoners everywhere. So, instead of including such obvious choices as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and other familiar titles, I’ve picked some alternatives to the usual 4/20 favorites, because after awhile, the same old visuals just don’t do it for me — I mean, those sick, degenerate reefer addicts — anymore.
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Comic-Con begins this week, not with a bang, but a blaze. Sony’s eagerly awaited next installment in the train that is Judd Apatow continues barreling down the track with multiple word of mouth screenings of Pineapple Express this week, including one in San Diego during the massive weekend of the Con. It’s worth trying to get into one just for the Huey Lewis and the News song that rolls over the end credits.

I was lucky enough to see the flick last night, and it was excellent on all counts. It’s over the top, violent, and very funny. And while Danny McBride’s Red character threatens to outfunny both Seth Rogen and James Franco, it’s Franco who brings us back the loveable movie stoner that we’ve missed so much.

People have been smoking pot in movies for decades now, but where Knocked Up just gave us useless layabouts who light up all the time, there’s actually a long line of lovable movie stoners who have handed off the torch to Franco, and he continues their tradition in glorious fashion. Here’s to those who helped pave the road.

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Over at PopMatters, Charles Moss has posted a lengthy consideration of Michael Bay’s Transformers as a “Generation X” phenomenon. An excerpt:

Brian Goldner, Hasbro’s chief operating officer, realized that most of the boys who played with Transformers in the ‘80s are now adult men. He knew that we would be suckers for it. And we are. We’ve become nostalgia-loving adults who find it comforting to revel in childhood as a sign that we don’t take ourselves as seriously as our parents, the baby boomers, had. It’s not that we have refused to grow up, but like the transforming toys we loved so much, the transformation from childhood to adulthood is one which we want to take our time making, figuring out the right twists and turns, making sure every piece of our lives is in place.

Oddly, though Moss’s piece has much to say about slackers, it’s got nothing to say about Slacker.

Moss credits Kevin Smith with bringing “Generation X out of the fanboy closet with 1994’s Clerks, which started a string of films dealing with 20-something slackers who spent most of their time discussing the finer points of Star Wars or superhero sex,” but he doesn’t mention Richard Linklater. I don’t know about you, but to me it seems more and more like Linklater is the true stand-out director of that pack of early-to-mid 90s Sundance brats, the only one with the ability to speak to tendencies common to an entire generation, and not just the Jersey-based comic-gobbling wing of it (I actually wouldn’t want to knock Kevin Smith specifically–there are numerous other directors who could be cited for nailing one specific aspect of Gen X culture while failing to grasp the bigger picture, from Gregg Araki to Wes Anderson to–but Moss brought it up). …Read more