movie talk

Published 2:22 pm Thursday, August 14, 2008

Movie talk

Stoners honor roll

Stoners are riding high nowadays. Fans are buzzing about the reunion of Cheech and Chong after a long feud, and a couple of tokers are lighting up the box office with “Pineapple Express.”

From TV’s “Weeds” Sean Penn’s dude in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” stoners have been a beloved subset among Hollywood fringe players.

Some win Academy Awards (Kevin Spacey for his suburban sad-sack in “American Beauty”). Some lose their wheels (Ashton Kutcher in “Dude, Where’s My Car?”). Some merely abide (Jeff Bridges’ “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski”).

The canon of stoner flicks is almost as old as Hollywood itself, back to the 1936 propa-ganda film “Reefer Madness.”

“Pineapple Express” casts Seth Rogen as a pot smoker hunted by drug lords and crooked cops and James Franco as his dealer. The movie inhaled a healthy $40.5 million its first weekend since opening Aug. 6.

Here are other favorites:

— Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong: Undisputed marijuana monarchs of Hollywood. Cheech and Chong turned their comedy act as loopy stoners into a big-screen career with “Up in Smoke.”

— Harold and Kumar: John Cho’s Harold and Kal Penn’s Kumar prove that bright college boys can turn their brains to mush with the best of them.

— The boys from “Weeds”: While the ups and downs of Mary-Louise Parker’s marijuana empire take center stage on this TV series, Andy (Justin Kirk) and Doug (Kevin Nealon) often steal the show.

“How can you be so blindly pro-Bush?” Andy asks.

“I like his wife, Laura,” Doug replies. “Used to buy weed from her at SMU.”

— Jay and Silent Bob: The pair introduced as pot dealers in “Clerks” became a common thread through Kevin Smith’s movies. Jason Mewes (Jay) eventually cleaned up, so his character and Silent Bob (Smith) did too. — AP