(Written 2 months ago.)
Dear High Times,
It took every bit of strength in my body and mind to not open this note with “What’s up, dudes?” I hold you in higher esteem than that, my colleagues. While I normally reserve reading your action-packed pages on trips that require a seated journey of personal elimination and evacuation, I sometimes find myself entertained by your publication at gas stations and liquor stores while I’m waiting for a guy named “Pepsi” (I swear, he works at Mobil on Main and that’s his actual name) to find me an emerald green lighter.
Your noble journalists rarely deviate from what must be a tried-and-true formula: stories about pot, stories about people who smoke pot, stories about new strains of pot, and stories about new equipment with which you can smoke pot. I’m really behind you guys on the carbonite, by the way. Where you drop the ball, however, is in your music and movie review section. People smoke weed in order to either enhance or determine their interests. Therefore, your blanket assertion of “two bongs up” or whatever doesn’t explain anything to me. In fact, it just speaks volumes about your lassitude, High Times.
Despite a miserable economy, I managed to find a job where I can write all day and since I make enough money to pay for my way of life, I am willing to write for you por gratis. That’s right, you could get this beast for free. The devil is in the details, High Times, thus I have discovered and collected ten relatively-unexplored movie subgenres, the reviews of which I will provide at no cost.
These are in no particular order:
10. Movies with laughably “erotic” food scenes. No matter how you slice it, there’s nothing that sexy about watching someone lick Richard Dreyfuss’s mustard stain…unless it’s Close Encounters-era Richard Dreyfuss. We can negotiate that.
09. Movies that would be so much better if the main character died. Think about “The Fugitive.” Remember the scene where Tommy Lee Jones watches Harrison Ford make that death plunge into a reservoir? What if Harrison Ford, a.k.a. Dr. Richard Kimball, didn’t survive it and the rest of the movie was just TLJ talking to a corpse on a slab, promising to avenge his death? Killer!
08. Movies where it’s pretty obvious the other cop is the killer so you’re not really spoiling anything by talking about it. I’m looking at you, Brian Dennehy, Nick Nolte, and Ned Beatty.
07. Famous people with albinism besides Edgar Winter and Tobin Bell. This isn’t really a movie genre, but I think it merits a national discussion.
06. Movies that completely justify Edward Woodward’s paranoia
05. Movies that completely justify Gene Hackman’s paranoia
04. Movies that completely justify my paranoia: any documentary.
03. Teen sex comedies based on Norse mythology. Take an honest look at “Just One of the Guys” and you tell me. Also, how great is the Stooges song in that movie?
02. Picaresque about a wild-eyed teen on a quest (to resolve what’s clearly a mixed bag of mother issues and Catholic guilt) that involves getting laid and winning concert tickets. Yeah, I said picaresque not picturesque.
01. Movies that aren’t obvious stoner classics. I assure you, the world doesn’t need another pothead’s review of “Superbad”, but it does need a review of “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.”
My spellcheck didn’t pick up “pothead” and that really blew my mind. Get back to me.
Legalize it,
Esther
