There’s nothing straight about this movie. But here’s the dope anyway: Cheech and Chong make their film debut in this riotous rock’n'roll comedy, bringing with them the same madness, lifestyles and sketches that sold over 10 million records in the early ’70s. Cheech and Chong’s marijuana-laced humor keeps their spirits high and leads them to an outrageous finale in L.A.’s Roxy Theatre, where Cheech performs in a pink tutu and Chong dresses as a large red quaalude. It will make you feel very funny.Cheech & Chong’s first cannabis comedy is also their best, a souvenir from the more carefree days before “Just Say No,” when people did not feel so defensive about inhaling. In 1978, the prevailing spirit was more like “Just Say Blow.” Even New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael liked it (the movie, that is), adding that it was “an exploitation slapstick comedy, rather than a family picture, such as Blazing Saddles or High Anxiety–which means that it’s dirtier, wilder, and sillier.” The story has to do with bumbling potheads Cheech & Chong searching for primo bud, while being tailed by a team of inept law-enforcement officers, led by Sgt. Stedenko (Stacy Keach). Sample dialogue: When a cop pulls them over to ask if they are any illegal substances in his vehicle, Cheech replies: “Not any more, man.” Up in Smoke is an irresistibly silly and charming movie that–despite, or perhaps because of, the national furor over drug use–plays today like a relic from a bygone era, a sweeter, more open, more innocent period in our history. –Jim Emerson
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March 5, 2010
#1
This is a sorry excuse for a comedy which I am sure inspired a whole generation of young teenagers to start experimenting with marijuana. No doubt in a couple of years some of them would have overdosed on heroin but that fact seems to be conveniently overlooked by the makers of this piece of junk.Any movie which
“Glorifies” drug use is NOT COOL and Cheech and Chong aren’t even very likeable in this movie.It is also interesting to note that Stacey Keach plays a Drug Policeman in this movie and then in Real Life he was busted for Possesion Of Drugs which seriously damaged his career and only goes to show that Real Life is a lot more serious than the movies. How on Earth Tommy Chong ever managed to produce a beautiful off spring such as Rae Dawn Chong is totally beyond my comprehension. I give this movie 5 stars because I do get the feeling that it just might be funny if you are dumb enough to ingest some illicit substances before watching it. However this is not enough of a good reason for me to to recommend it .
March 5, 2010
#2
I go back a ways. I had lots of the Cheech and Chong albums on vinyl back in the 70s and enjoyed them immensely. But I was never interested in their movies. When Cheech starting appearing in movies on his own, I found him amusing, so I purchased Up in Smoke out of curiosity and nostalgia.
I’m probably in the minority, but I found this movie stupid and boring. It has one or two funny moments, but it consists mostly of a long, rambling plot that rips off some of the material from their albums and actually manages to make it NOT funny. The Battle of the Bands segment is the most boring sequence of any film I’ve seen in years. Awful.
Rent before you buy. You may even feel ripped off that you paid to rent it!
March 5, 2010
#3
When UP IN SMOKE was first released it seemed to be a very funny movie for its type. Since then times have changed and it now has taken on a dated appearance and its slapstick humor has begun to look quite sick.
March 5, 2010
#4
Cheech & Chong’s ‘Up in Smoke’ is NOT a comedy and never meant to be. It is a cry for the people, a small group of people, a minority that believes in one just and noble cause: Marijuana and Rock n Roll are the only two things in this world you can believe in.
The comic portrayls of C&C and various other characters are symbolic of the world’s injustices. Take for example the Mexican Van built entirely of weed. Our Heros are looking for weed, but are ironicly surrounded by thousands of pounds of so-called ‘cyber-weed’. Case in point, see the trees in the forest and you may just find what you’re looking for.
Cheech’s last minute writing of their contest winning song? They were not punk rockers, but they won. How you ask? They took punk and gave it a new approach (a brass section of all things). It worked not because they gave in and surrendered their true artistic goals, but rather accepted, turned the tables, and left everyone floored. That is the message. Conform, but in your own way.
Chong hitch-hiking on the side of the road posing as a woman has deep Freudian issues that he was trying to bring to the audience. Remember his parents in the beginning scene before the credits? Bend and Stoop, Bend and Stoop boy. I have a friend with United Fruit. Chong’s open rebellion didn’t come from his father wanting him to be like the Finkelstein kid, it came from his mother. Chong loved his mother as he showed when he flipped her off on his way out the door.
Judge Dykes (the raving, vodka swigging, authority figure) is inded THE MAN. But as a woman, THE MAN takes on a whole and frightening new side. This film was made years before Hillary Clinton’s rise to power, but this movie prophisizes her coming.
Sgt. ‘don’t know who dis is’ Stadinko is the representation of commercialism taken to the extreme. Like the BackStreet Boys, and N’Sync, Sgt. Stadinko’s time is short lived, but accepted by the mass public. Ten years from now who’ll never know any of them ever existed at all. The bumbling, misguided record companies who force feed us ‘fast food’ music is expressed in the heart rendering line….”I got the munchies and you tell me to go with it?…I’LL GO WITH IT!!” Sad such a state society has become.
The ‘frisking of the nuns’ is Cheech’s way of snubbing the Catholic Church. I interpret it in this way as the student viewer. Cheech believes the Catholic Church with 2000 years of oppresion, terror, and brain-washing, Cheech believes even it, the institution itself, can be brought down by the common man,. When enough people call for a change, the change will come. Watch this scene closely. Chong’s symbollic ‘tossing of the joint’ into the nun-wagon is the ‘lighting of the fuse’ so to speak. The fuse of course burns to the ‘Times to Come’ as reflected upon by St. John in the Book of Revelation. Cheech and Chong’s religious fury burns alive after the viewer understands the symbolism.
The ‘lude girl’ who proclaims Chong’s name as ‘Alex’ from that point on is the Earth, Mother Earth. Dressed as a hippie and having a supply of amphetimeans, she roams the world looking for unspoiled environments in which to take root. Nature is her theme, and her blonde friend, we’ll call her ‘Sunshine’, represents the light that Earth so desperately needs for survival.
Curtis, Oh Curtis, Oh simple, elegant Curtis. His time is coming. The uniforms must all be different and he’ll make it so. Those are for real diamonds, and he makes the choice cut. Watch his actions and mannerisms. It is easy who he is symbollic of. To the layman I will tell you the answer. Curtis is non other than Winston Churchill. Behold the windshield cutting scene. He draws the line, much like Churchill did against the Russian occupation of a defeated Germany.
Either that or it’s just a great movie to remind you of the good old days when a ‘joint’ and a ‘hit’ had nothing to do with anatomy or physical violence.
March 5, 2010
#5
CHEECH AND CHONG ARE HILARIOUS..HERE IN ALASKA IN NOVEMBER 07 2000 THERE FINALLY TRYING TO LEGALIZE HEMP IN THE STATE AND VOTE ON IT I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL I MEAN IT HAS A LOT OF USES AND I THINK EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD SHOULD VOTE ON IT THERE STILL TALKING ABOUT IT AND ALL AND I HOPE EVERYTHING GOES WELL JG IN AK CHILLIN.