Movie #3: Half Baked (1998)

Deciding to smoke weed was one of the worst decisions I ever made in my life. Starting freshman year at Ithaca, it annihilated my motivation to take full advantage of college. Making movies and seeking out new experiences became less of a priority than smoking blunts in dorm bathrooms. And like a Xenomorph facehugger, it soon attached itself to all activities, impossible to separate the two: Watching something? Gotta get high first. Making dinner? Smoke a bowl so it tastes better. Going to sleep or waking up in the morning? That tough, man, take the edge off! While I never got busted by the cops or got ripped off by dealers, I just got tired of the lost weekends, gained pounds and disappearing social life after gaining a reputation as a stoner.

Anyway, I had a moment of clarity after hitting a version of rock bottom and haven't touched the stuff since December 28, 2014. Story for another day, maybe.

So why did I chose "Half Baked" today? Mainly because I wanted to watch a comedy after the events of the past 24-hours/week/month/fucking year. In the honeymoon period, I would hear from smoking buddies about how funny this film is, "but yuh gotta watch it high, maaaaan!". Seeing it on Comedy Central never appealed to me, with the commercials and pain-staking edits that go into making an R-rated film appropriate for all ages. Cause when I used to watch media stoned, my ritual required not wasting a minute of my high on anything non-essential; much like how heroin users start injecting intravenously so they don't waste a grain of powder from smoking or snorting - it's being conservative!

After pregaming with some decaf tea and raisins (good shit, yo), I fired it up on Netflix and was surprised at the underlying anti-weed message throughout the film. Chappelle's character gives up the drug to live happily ever after with the love interest (aptly named Mary Jane) and it's treated as a victory. They nailed the Different Types of Users Montage (I identified with Janeane Garafalo's "I can only be creative while stoned" a little too much) and the much-hyped Jon Steward and Bob Saget cameos did not disappoint. Despite the guys living in the most brightly-lit apartment you can shake a Billy Bong Thorton at, there were some solid comedy beats that prompted a few hearty guffaws. It's dumb in the logic department, but it's supposed to be. I would never watch this movie ever again.

While I never knew anyone as weed-retarded like Jim Breuer's character (only guy who came close always insisted on calling joints "doobies" without a hint of irony), I turned it off wondering why this was so heavily praised. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just on TV a lot. Maybe when you're in the depths of a marijuana binge, anything that in the slightest assures you that smoking is all laughs and munchies is like a beacon in a storm. But when the rain clears and the waves calm, you'll find yourself on the boat in the middle of the ocean. And one more hit or just another dimebag isn't going to get you to shore. 

Movie #2: John Wick (2014)

Join me as I use an acronym to sum up my thoughts on this taut action film!

Opening in media res followed by our hero waking up to an alarm clock gave me PTSD-laden flashbacks to student film screenings in college.

How much I would've loved to see a scene where John hires a concrete guy to properly hide his weapon cache. Then again, if all the cops don't want nothing to do with him, was it necessary beyond a bad-ass sledgehammer scene?

Nice touch on the subtitles with their varying placement and fonts, artistic brushstrokes that communicate a sense of whimsy and properly set up the storybook-aspect re: John as the one you send to kill the Boogeyman.

World building was this film's strongest suit, the entire underground criminal world was unlike I've ever seen in a movie before. Not realistic but incredibly entertaining, with very little expository hand-holding. A bad version of this movie would've featured John voiceovering about the gold coins, the rules of the hotel, histories of the various players.

I was That Guy who Proselytized "The Wire" in College so something awakened inside once I realized Lt. Daniels and Cool Lester Smooth were at the Continental, even if they didn't share a scene together. Which reminds me, if you want to borrow my DVDs of the best show ever -- snap out of it, Peck!

Can movies stop ignoring that you can't legally pump your own gas in New Jersey? I get that you need the inciting incident of the Russian punks seeing and wanting John's car but there had to be a better location/situation for that to happen.

Kill count: 77! According to Wikipedia, that number is associated with Jesus Christ, where C=3, H=8, R=18, I=9, S=19, T=20 which add up to 77. See, this overwrought device to sum up my thoughts was planned from that start!

Movie #1: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Ever since I found out about "Salò" being called one of the most disturbing films in existence, it became my white whale, a 24fps car accident I couldn't look away from. The Criterion Collection offered it very early in their run, but after the rights expired it went out of print. Copies on ebay and Amazon ran into the hundreds and my interest skyrocketed. Thankfully (?), it's been re-issued on Blu-Ray and thanks to some joker in Barnes & Noble corporate, it was prominently displayed in the New Releases section years after it's re-release. But it sat on my shelf unwatched, never finding the right time to screen it. I told myself I'd have to get wasted first, in order to "get through it".
Having watched it sober, that wouldn't have helped one iota.

The film depicts four months of a graphic, gag-inducing death orgy, set up by four powerful Italian fascists in 1943, structured through four distinct segments (perhaps a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). They round up the best-looking teenagers in town, hold them up in a well-staffed and armed mansion and lay out the rules: they are "beyond any reach of legality" and begin to...well, this is where some would put a spoiler warning. But there's no real plot to spoil. Pretty much every twisted urge and whim these sick bastards think of are met without real conflict. Each segment begins with a woman spinning tales of sexual fantasies scored to live piano (and later accordion) music. Then the Four Fascists force their hostages into torture, sodomy and the most elegant depiction of coprophagia you'll ever see. Those who resist and break the rules have their names written down in "the punishment book". The lucky ones are shot.

It's a disgusting movie but one has to admire the craft that went into making it. From the fearless actors who frequently appear naked to the filmmaker's devotion to the subject matter, not hiding the horrors through long shots but forcing you to be an observer in the nightmare. In a scene after the "Circle of Shit" title card (after which I jotted "oh fuck" into my notes), the camera frames the main course with the composition and lighting of an Applebee's commercial. When the final scene does choose to depict the apex of violence and torture through binocular lenses, finally giving us some distance from the action, it's a relief but not without cost. We now see the world through the villain's perspective, having completed our evolution from observer into willing participant. As one of ringleaders comments during a break, "nothing is more contagious than evil."

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch reruns of "Parks & Rec" in hopes of tricking my brain into never thinking of dough-balls with nails inside ever again...