Altos Sonhos de Cheech e Chong

These guys made a terrific movie in their first try. It was an accident, but what happened was a combination of things. There was cool self-reference and the perversion of the buddy road movie. It has a looseness to it that was new to "mainstream" movies in those days. Yes, part of the charm was that this was a mainstream movie and it treated dope smoking as a trivial amusement. It was in a way, the "Thin Man" of dope.

Afterwards, these guys made nothing but drek, sort of a demonstration of the dullness that dope brings. These things aren't even watched any more by the doper crowd because market forces have moved to supply them with hipper, more supportive fare. So if you are considering watching this for almost any reason, you'll find better elsewhere.

That is, except for the appearance of Timothy Leary. In those days, there really were distinct drug cultures. Pot was originally a Black Jazz thing, appropriated by kids. LSD was for the spiritually ambitious. Coke for bored celebrities, Heroin for the ghetto. Speed for the fringe biker crowd. Sects formed around these in the 70s and they became icons for different "life style" choices, though that silly term would be invented later.

This movie was the first C&C that threw all drugs in the same barrel. Pot, coke and acid, all the same.

That last makes its appearance here, ushered in by Leary. I'm convinced that the world would be a radically different place today if he weren't so inadequately suited for the role he adopted: prophet of synthesized enlightenment. By 1980, he was a joke and already exploiting his celebrity status to earn a living.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.