[Welsh Leprecaun]

Planning on watching a stoner film tonight but can't decide, so would appreciate some input. Managed to whittle it down to one of High School, Beerfest, A Scanner Darkly, The Wackness or Puddle Cruiser. Any other suggestions would be welcome

[aja89]

Pineapple Express

[SnoochToTheBooch]

enter the void is good to watch whilst intoxicated

[PoGo HoPz]

Requiem for a Dream or Harold and Kumar go to White Castle/Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

[sammy-lou]

In before someone says Trainspotting.

[Joinedup]

Cheech and chong

[DannyBoy123]

Dazed and Confused, especially if you are high,

[hogso]

Gummo

[velvetbrain]

Altered States.

[RabbitCFH]

If you're high, watch American Dad episode "For Whom The Sleigh Bell Tolls". Try not to trip too much.

[zjs]

(Original post by PoGo HoPz)
Requiem for a Dream or Harold and Kumar go to White Castle/Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Requiem for a Dream is just about the exact opposite of a 'stoner film'.

[Kiss]

Donnie Darko, Bill & Ted's Bogus Adventure, Rocky Horror Picture Show

[PoGo HoPz]

(Original post by zjs)
Requiem for a Dream is just about the exact opposite of a 'stoner film'.

Really?

[zjs]

(Original post by PoGo HoPz)
Really?

Stoner films tend to have favourable treatment of drugs, or tie in with the psyche of a 'typical' stoner. A Scanner Darkly is quite a dark stoner film, but it's full of light relief and a focus on paranoia, for example.

Requiem for a Dream is staunchly anti drugs to the point of almost becoming anti drugs propaganda, and many critics have leveled this criticism at it. There's no redemption, no humour, just an extremely bleak look at lives becoming consumed by addiction.

The fact that it centres around drugs doesn't make it a stoner movie.

[velvetbrain]

I think I completely misunderstood the thread and the sub-genre then.

Altered States is still a trippy movie.

[Minotauro]

Grandmas Boy is a classic

[PoGo HoPz]

(Original post by zjs)
Stoner films tend to have favourable treatment of drugs, or tie in with the psyche of a 'typical' stoner. A Scanner Darkly is quite a dark stoner film, but it's full of light relief and a focus on paranoia, for example.

Requiem for a Dream is staunchly anti drugs to the point of almost becoming anti drugs propaganda, and many critics have leveled this criticism at it. There's no redemption, no humour, just an extremely bleak look at lives becoming consumed by addiction.

The fact that it centres around drugs doesn't make it a stoner movie.

I suppose you're right. Requiem for a Dream does have a rather bleak outlook on drugs and does purvey an anti-drugs message throughout, but I never really thought that that mattered, to be perfectly honest.

I'm afraid I've always been guilty of assuming that a 'stoner movie' equates to any movie that simply has drug taking.

[truthisevil]

Jay and Silent Bob marathon!

[zjs]

(Original post by PoGo HoPz)
I suppose you're right. Requiem for a Dream does have a rather bleak outlook on drugs and does purvey an anti-drugs message throughout, but I never really thought that that mattered, to be perfectly honest.

I'm afraid I've always been guilty of assuming that a 'stoner movie' equates to any movie that simply has drug taking.

It's excessively bleak. Compare it with a film like Trainspotting (which is, admittedly, pretty upbeat about its subject matter) and there seems to be an overarching message in Requiem of 'all drugs are bad, all drugs will ruin your life'. There seems to be no positive portrayal, no hint that the characters might do it out of anything other than a grubby necessity, and it seems impossible - according to the film - to get off the path when you start down it. Trainspotting is far more realistic, particularly the 'why do you think we do it? we're not ****ing stupid' sort of lines. In a base, Requiem, attitude to drugs, that's instantly condoning heroin use, but in reality it's simply an attempt to actually present a point of view and discover reasons behind it; the film overall is hardly glowing about how fantastic heroin is (the characters might feel this; their circumstances and some of the experiences say otherwise).

Some people do hold that view, but the point of a stoner movie is that it relates to stoners, focuses on stoners and/or is watched by stoners. The themes aren't always light, breezy and silly (as in How High), it's not always hilarious (as in Pineapple Express) and it's not always all about paranoia (as in Scanner), but these elements exist, at least to some extent. Trainspotting is arguably a stoner film because of the humourous way it presents itself, but this is where the similarities between stoner film and film involving drug taking ends.