I know what you’re thinking: “Great. Here’s another list of terrible comedies for idiot potheads to watch as they stuff their faces with commercial snack products and contribute nothing to the world.” That’s exactly what you’re thinking. I know it is. And you’re wrong. I’ve smoked a decent amount of pot in my life, and I tend to view it as something more meaningful than most of the casual and even committed smokers I know. I think if the only thing you get out of it is the giggles and the munchies, you’re really missing out. Smoke a bowl and take a hike in the woods. Cook. Draw something. Or just watch one of these movies.

If you have an idea for your own Top 10, email Eric at eric@scene-stealers.com.

10. Adventureland (2009)

For me, one of the biggest pleasures I experience when watching a movie is any moment of recognition. It’s one of those weird stipulations of effective writing, wherein the more specific you make something, the more universal it becomes (it’s also what makes so much of the comedy in the Judd Apatow-related films work so well). That being said, Greg Mottola’s “Adventureland” is my favorite film of the year so far, and it landed a spot on this list for one reason: it has, to my knowledge, the best representation of realizing you’re high ever put on film. That’s right. Forget “Harold and Kumar” and “Cheech and Chong.” About halfway in, there’s a scene in which the main character, James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg), is sharing a joint after hours with the resident bimbo at their place of employment. I won’t spoil it with some turgid explanation, but anyone that has ever smoked pot will recognize that scene as pitch perfect.

9. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Now, just because I think there’s more to get out of smoking pot than laughter and an increased appetite does not mean I view either as unworthy, unpleasant consequences. Here is a film that plays to one of those effects quite intensely while simultaneously bombarding the viewer with an ass-load of psychedelic imagery and eccentricity guaranteed to enhance any stoned experience. There’s only one other children’s film on this list that is more trippy than this one and I think that fact speaks to the true nature of a marijuana high (apart from the aforementioned “giggles and munchies”). I don’t know if this goes for everyone, but after I smoke, I tend to behold all things with a child-like sense of wonder and watching this film as a stoned adult really brings you back to that innocent perceptual capacity you once had as a child. It’s a nice way to renew your imagination. Also, that edible room looks damn tasty.

8. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers. So is Stanley Kubrick. “Punch-Drunk Love,” PTA’s Adam Sandler vehicle from ‘02, is a really eccentric, subverted rom-com with the aesthetic–albeit a slightly warmer tone–of a Kubrick film. Also, it’s the first time Adam Sandler did anything worth discussing and it just so happened to be fucking fantastic. Now, we saw more of that brilliance in “Funny People” (another great Apatow film), but I fear we might not see it again for another half a decade. In any case, why is this film a distinguished viewing necessity for any stoner? No one smokes in the film. No one even mentions it. In fact, smoking a joint is probably the furthest thing from a possibility for the main character. However, the film is gorgeous to look at, ambitious, strange, and the soundtrack is just right (“He Needs Me,” anyone?). I keep referring to the heightened emotional acuity you acquire after smoking, and smoking before you watch this film is laying down the foundation for an exceptional experience.

7. The Lion King (1994)

Children’s films and television shows are often said to function as entertainment for both their target audience and stoned adults. Sometimes, this dual purpose almost seems intended (“Puff the Magic Dragon,” “H.R. Pufnstuf”), but I find that kind of transparent pandering to be a little annoying and I avoid it. “The Lion King,” on the other hand, makes no clear attempt to entertain that specific demographic and for that reason–you guessed it–it winds up doing exactly that! The opening sequence alone is sufficient evidence for its placement on this list, and that’s not just because it has bright colors and loud music. I mean, it certainly does have beautiful imagery and a huge musical number, but they serve to provide an impeccable visual and emotional context for the film: a film that made me cry when I saw it in theaters as a little boy. Hopefully, a recurring theme on this Top 10 will be the heightened emotional acuity one undertakes when high (a phenomenon known as pseudo-profundity). Every meager emotional brush stroke has the potential to floor you and any philosophical inkling has the potential to make sense of it all. “Circle of Life”? You bet your ass.

6. The Last Temptation of Christ (1987)

This may seem like an odd choice to some, but I’ll rest my case on a few key elements that make this film perfect viewing for someone under the influence of tetrahydrocannabinol. First of all, the film is moving and beautiful to begin with, so seeing it high elevates these dimensions to a staggering level. I’m as secular as they come, but this is an artful, mature portrayal of Christ (as I’m sure you’ve been made aware in the 20+ years since its release) and it really hits home. There’s the soundtrack by Peter Gabriel that is at once both chaotic and heartbreaking. The way the Palm Sunday sequence is scored is so goddamn glorious I can hardly stand it after I’ve cleared a bowl. With this movie, Scorsese achieved something I’m certain he never envisioned: a religious experience for pot-smoking atheists. Thanks, Marty.

5. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

This and “Willy Wonka” really are cut from the same cloth. It’s almost cheating putting them on the same list, but I couldn’t bring myself to choose one and wind up shortchanging the other. What do I even need to tell you about this movie to make my case? Everyone in the world has seen it and almost everyone in the world has smoked weed. The film has its drug references, but that has nothing to do with its appropriateness in this particular category (’cause we all know heroin and marijuana are on opposite ends of the spectrum). I’m not going to say this is good high viewing because of the color palette or the music, although those things don’t hurt. No. It’s great high viewing because there’s a complete, wonderful world created onscreen and it’s an ideal place to be. Smoke a bowl and tell me you’re not there. “There’s no place like home.” And there’s no place like Oz on some cush.

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Much in the same vein as “Punch-Drunk Love,” Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a remarkably moving, visually exciting, inventive masterpiece starring a comedic actor in his best performance ever. So, again, why is a film such as this a valid entry on this list? And why did that rhyme? I’ll answer the former. It’s not because the film is jam-packed with personified imagination in the form of crazy, true-to-their-meaning special effects. It’s because, like so many other films I’ve mentioned, there’s beauty in it. That’s the reason I chose this instead of Gondry’s other visual masterpiece, “The Science of Sleep.” That’s a great film, too, but it’s nowhere near this one in terms of lasting emotional impact. And impact is what it’s all about, here. Why limit oneself to shitty, low-brow comedies and potato chips? Why not watch something really terrific and spend some goddamn time in the kitchen?

3. Immortal Beloved (1994)

I smoked a lot of pot when I was younger. Then, inexplicably, I stopped. Out of nowhere (and due to some pretty shaky reasoning), I called it quits and didn’t so much as take a hit for about two and a half years. But things happen. People mature. So, when I started smoking again about a year and a half ago, I had a lot to catch up on. And there were two things I wanted to experience under the influence more than anything (things like sex and mountain climbing are best delegated to sober me). Number 1: “Plainsong” by The Cure. And number 2: “Immortal Beloved.” Ignoring the film’s richness and imaginative excess, I had honed in on one scene which cultivated in me an agonizing eagerness: near the end of his life, during a concert, Ludwig Van Beethoven (Gary Oldman) imagines (or remembers with a bit of embellishment?) himself as a young boy escaping his father’s wrath and running to a pool in the middle of the forest near his home. He takes off his shirt and shoes and lies down in the water. As “Ode to Joy” plays on the soundtrack, the camera pulls back and reveals the boy in a sea of stars. It’s goddamn breathtaking. And seeing it high for the first time, I thought my head was going to explode.

2. Ponyo (2009)

“Jellyfish float freely as schools of brightly colored fish swim by. Their movements are balletic. Pockets of color burst intermittently and there are innumerable fantastic creatures gliding above and scurrying atop the seabed. There’s a tall man with long, flowing red hair standing inside a giant bubble at the edge of some kind of aquatic vehicle. He’s squirting droplets of golden liquid onto the ground which explode into rainbows.” Read the full article here.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Throwing caution to the wind, I will now make a definitive statement: Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is the best movie one could possibly watch while high. Period. The idea for this very list came to me while watching it. And I knew then, too, that it would be number one. I knew that even before it got to the kaleidoscopic-dimension-shifting segment. Watching “The Dawn of Man,” I was convinced. One of the many strengths of this movie is its willingness to leave so much open. Not open to interpretation, mind you, but to projection. There isn’t a scene throughout with anything mapped out for the viewer. It’s all lovingly crafted, thought-provoking, visually superb empty space. And what better than a drug-addled mind to fill in all those gaps? With the circumstances delineated in this Top 10, you sit there and think, “Why do other activities exist? Why can’t getting high and watching this exact movie be the goal of every human life?” Perhaps I’m exaggerating, but you give this one a shot and tell me you’re not enraptured. I don’t even think you have to smoke pot regularly to see why this is the obvious, rightful choice. Evidence? Moments before I was about to watch it high for the first time, I caught Eric online and sent him an instant message. I explained the situation to him and, while I’m having trouble recalling his exact words, his sentiment was clear: “Godspeed.”

Tags: best, films, funniest, High, list, movies, pot, stoned, stoner, ten, top, Top 10 Lists, Watch, weed, when, While, you're

The box office performance of “Observe and Report” this past weekend proves that subversive comedies usually have a way harder time finding an audience than a nice, family-friendly picture, even when that movie stars Seth Rogen. Funny thing is, subversive comedies often make a bigger impact and have a longer shelf life. To make this list, the movie has to challenge some culturally accepted notions or possess a generally rude rebellious streak. Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers,” for example, doesn’t make the list because for all of its posturing and flashiness, it’s completely obvious and says nothing new about the media. If you have a Top 10 list of your own you’d like to contribute, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com. Enjoy!

Runners-up: Obviously, I like subversive comedy. I’ve already written about “Borat,” “Harold and Maude,” “Office Space,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,”  “Series 7,” the original “Dawn of the Dead,” “Bulworth,” “Happiness,” “The Graduate,” “Brazil,” and “Dr. Strangelove” on other lists, so I’ll make them runners-up (even though “Dr. Strangelove” should probably be #1 here—I can’t have it on every list!) and include links to the other Top 10s they appear on here. Click on the title to see the original post.

10. Nurse Betty (2000)

On the surface, Neil LaBute’s black comedy is about a sweet little soap-opera-obsessed waitress from a diner in Kansas (Renée Zellweger) who travels to Los Angeles to meet her favorite actor (Greg Kinnear). What actually happens, though, is that the innocent Betty goes into shock, entering a psychological fugue state after watching her drug-dealing, cheating husband (Aaron Eckhart) get scalped(!) by two hitmen (Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman). These killers chase Betty—who has broken from reality so hard that she thinks she’s actually a part of the fictional soap opera—as she drives west to find Kinnear’s fictional doctor. Soon everybody starts playing by her rules, as Betty sucks Kinnear’s actor character into her reality and he thinks she’s a struggling method actor. In uniquely bizarre climactic scene, he gambles on her never-breaking-character routine and puts her on live TV. Lost you yet? While this is all happening, Freeman falls in love with his prey, and two bumbling cops rush cross-country to try and protect her. Like “Observe and Report,” “Nurse Betty” switches its tone on a dime and is a juggling act that doesn’t always work. Like “Observe and Report,” it’s also alternately ugly and charming—an absurd look at identity and societal roles where everyone falls under the spell of an ordinary woman who radiates goodness and purity.

9. Putney Swope (1969)

Directed by Robert Downey Sr. (yes, it’s his Dad), this spotty but inspired black-and-white B-movie was a sensation when it came out but is somehow nearly forgotten today. A black man named Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, voice dubbed uncomfortably by Downey himself) becomes the head of an otherwise all-white New York ad agency after all the other executives vote for him to be the new boss thinking that no one else will. Re-dubbed “Truth and Soul, Inc.”, Swope hires militant blacks and gets to work making outrageous attack-style anti-consumerist ads right away. His new motto for Truth and Soul is: “Rockin’ the boat’s a drag. You gotta sink the boat!” He refuses to make commercials for cigarettes, war toys, and liquor, instead making ludicrously shocking commercials (in color even) like the interracial duet for Face-Off Acne Cream (“Pimples are simple”) and the ad for Dinkleberry Frozen Chicken Pot Pies (“Miss Redneck, N.J. is a social worker and her favorite hobby is emasculation”). Not enough for ya? There’s an Abraham Lincoln dartboard in the boardroom and the President of the United States is played by a pot-smoking German midget. This low-budget curiosity is all over the place, but every moment thumbs its nose at conventional society.

8. They Live (1988)

Since I’ve already covered Terry Gilliam’s brilliant and disturbing dystopian future in “Brazil” on my Top 10 Movies That Prove the Future Will Suck list, I’ve decided to shine the spotlight on that film’s looser, shaggier stepchild. John Carpenter’s “They Live” takes place in an America in economic crisis (sound familiar?) and when unemployed construction worker Nada (pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper) puts on a pair of sunglasses, he is the only one who can see that all the bankers and politicians in power are actually aliens with metallic skull faces. Laughing yet? You will be. Nada also notices subliminal messages on billboards that read “OBEY” and “CONSUME,” while our currency reads “THIS IS YOUR GOD.” Carpenter’s movie falls too often into action/thriller cliché, but its central theme—that upper-class greed is taking over the world like an alien invasion—is even more relevant today than it was in 1988. Add in some hilarious dialogue (“I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum!”) and a seemingly neverending fight scene over a refusal to put on the special sunglasses, and you’ve got an erratic but nevertheless subversive comedy classic. Oh yeah, and—a remake is in the works. Hurm.

7. Pink Flamingos (1972)

Trying to summarize the plot of this filthy little film in one paragraph is futile, so let’s just say it involves a couple who kidnap and impregnate young women to sell their babies to lesbians, which, in turn, finances an elementary school heroin trade. The film’s tagline is truth in advertising: “An exercise in poor taste.” Despite being filmed for only $10,000, “Pink Flamingos” immediately launched its star (drag queen extraordinaire Divine) and its director (John Waters) into the collective consciousness of film fans across the globe. Waters narrates the film in—what had to have been a last minute attempt to make some kind of sense out of it—an annoying shout that matches the film’s campy tone and exaggerated “acting” style. It’s not a good film by any normal standards, but who can apply a value-driven checklist to a movie that revels in its lack of technical know-how, happy as a pig in shit? You can’t. What even the most jaded film fan will find, however, are a large number of “huh?”moments that are kind of liberating. How else would I be able to describe a movie where a mother gives her son oral sex and enthusiastically eats dog feces as “fun”?

6. Citizen Ruth (1996)

What’s funnier than abortion? Well, almost everything, but that didn’t stop writer/director Alexander Payne from making this subversive comedy starring Laura Dern as a paint-huffing pregnant woman who finds herself in the middle of a raging political debate. This comedy could have been a dismal wreck. After Dern pukes on the hood of his car, a policeman actually says to his partner about her: “I’ll drive her by the pound on the way to the station and get her spayed.” The question you have to ask through all of this, though, is who’s crazier—the cash-strapped, pregnant drug user (who’s had and lost four children already) or the zealots on either side of the pro-life/pro-choice debate? Payne skewers both in equal measure and his screenplay (co-authored with Jim Taylor) manages to say some bleakly funny things that a drama about the same subject would never be able to approach. One particularly inspired bit of casting comes in the form of Burt Reynolds as a pious, over-the-top televangelist. Like “Dr. Strangelove” parodied the military-industrial complex, “Citizen Ruth” mercilessly lampoons the abortion debate and Ruth becomes a political tool for extremists on both sides.

5. M*A*S*H (1970)

Although it is set in Korea, Robert Altman’s anti-establishment comedy was actually a not-so-thinly veiled and pointed attack on the then-raging Vietnam War. Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould are two military surgeons struggling to maintain their sanity through boozing, sex, and an utter contempt for authority in this cultural watershed movie. Altman’s almost complete disregard for Ring Larder Jr.’s script and his improvisatory style of shooting scared not only the studio, but also the film’s stars. “Donald and Elliott went in about a quarter of the way through the picture and tried to have me fired because they said I was going to ruin their careers,” Altman said. Struggles with the studio finally ceased after a wildly successful preview screening and the movie went on to gross $80 million and signal a new era of filmmaking in Hollywood. Not everyone agrees it’s a classic, though, as one of our user-contributed Top 10 lists had this film at #3 of the Most Overrated Movies.

4. Heathers (1989)

Question: When is teen suicide funny? Answer: When it actually turns out to be murder! What? Yeah, you read that correctly.  In addition, “Heathers” plays it all for laughs. This hilarious and shocking movie is still the nastiest and most bizarre of all teen comedies even after 20 years. Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are a high school Bonnie and Clyde making their way through the popular clique. Armed with a battery of surreal dream sequences, its own biting vocabulary (“Well, f*ck me gently with a chainsaw.”), and a sympathetic Ryder who manically expunges her demons and explores her conscience in her diary (giving us her outrage and sympathy), “Heathers” gave every teenaged outsider a screaming voice of discontent and a healthy amount of violent wish fulfillment at the same time. It’s really too bad that director Michael Lehmann (“Hudson Hawk,” “40 Days and 40 Nights,” “My Giant”) and writer Daniel Waters (“Batman Returns,” “Happy Campers,” “Sex and Death 101”) haven’t even come close to the dizzying highs of their first movie project.

3. The Great Dictator (1940)

Charlie Chaplin’s “Monsieur Verdoux” was certainly subversive in that Chaplin broke from his Tramp character completely and portrayed a cold-blooded serial killer, but it was this movie that took on Adolf Hitler and the entire Nazi movement before America was even at war with them. This was also Chaplin’s first feature-length “talkie,” and it saw him taking the dual role of a tyrannical dictator named Adenoid Hynkel (guess who?) and a lowly barber. Chaplin portrays Hynkel and his followers as stupid bullies and arrogant buffoons, including one famous scene that has the dictator dancing with a globe to a Wagner overture. The movie was a great success and became Chaplin’s highest-grossing film ever. As more details of Nazi war atrocities were made public, however, Chaplin admitted that had he known the extent of their crimes, he wouldn’t have been able to portray the stormtroopers in the movie in such a slapstick manner. The final scene, where the barber delivers a message of hope in disguise as the dictator (and many in the audience felt Chaplin himself was making the plea), may seem a little schmaltzy now, but in the context of World War II, it definitely resonated with audiences.

2. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

I don’t think this will be on the Heartland list of Truly Moving Pictures anytime soon, but what better way to engage with the absurdities of the Bible than with a side-splitting satire of the New Testament? Before the idea had even been hatched really, Monty Python troupe member Eric Idle offhandedly remarked to the press that their next film (following the hugely successful “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”) would be titled “Jesus Christ: Lust for Glory.” That sparked the idea of Brian—a man (Graham Chapman) who is mistaken for the Messiah, tries to evade worshippers and enemies alike, and is eventually crucified to the tune of a catchy little ditty called “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” The movie mercilessly criticizes those pesky antithetical side effects of organized religion, and even director Terry Jones admits that the movie is “heretical.” However, he also believes that “it’s not blasphemous.” Even though most of the pointed satire is delivered through the story of the decidedly non-Messianic Brian (thereby avoiding blasphemy - kind of a technicality), the rampant fanaticism and hypocrisy that the Pythons poke fun at is universal.

1. Starship Troopers (1997)

This is the most subversive comedy ever made because it’s possible—if you close your eyes to its overtly fascist ideology and all the Nazi-like military dress—to think that “Starship Troopers” is simply a dumb action movie with bad acting and giant bugs. In fact, director Paul Verhoeven’s film is subversive  in more ways than one.

It also deserves the top spot here because the movie purposely does something that few films actually do on purpose: It subverts the entire message of the Robert Heinlein sci-fi novel on which it’s based. Ouch.

The book—which envisions a society where the government only gives the right to vote to youths who fulfill their “terms of service,” which was usually in the military—was criticized as fascist when it was published in 1959. Verhoeven keeps Heinlein’s ideas intact, but pokes fun at them mercilessly throughout the movie with hilarious mini-propaganda films (one featuring soldiers giving guns to little kids), tons of Nazi iconography, and cruel military training that includes public flogging and “friendly” fire.

Moreover, he uses an enthusiastic young cast and has them act as if they just stepped out of the latest “Saved by the Bell” episode. They begin the war a bunch of idealized lemmings and come out changed by the horrors of war. It’s never explicitly said who started the war (though the humans are the ones invading the “bug” planets), but to anyone in military service, it doesn’t matter. Graphic depictions of said actors getting ripped in half by giant bugs underscore the consequences of a jingoistic worldview. You may be thinking, “Wait one minute—this was supposed to be a list of comedies!” “Starship Troopers” is a comedy. From the cheesy, naïve dialogue and acting (again, this was on purpose, to achieve an effect) to the laugh-out-loud absurdity of the Federation’s slanted news shorts (Fox News, anyone?), “Starship Troopers” is the funniest movie to have such scary foresight into what would become post-9/11 extreme patriotism. Plus, you get to see Neil Patrick Harris mature into Joseph Mengele. How is that not funny?

I Twittered/Facebooked yesterday while I was writing this list and got tons of great suggestions. Here’s a sampling to get the comments started:

@TreyHock: It’s a Wonderful Life is basically a treatise for communism wrapped in a christmas movie. Pretty awesome.
@ToServeMan: Does THEY LIVE qualify as a comedy?
@worleygirl: One fave is the much overlooked Parents, from ‘89. Bonus: the kid in it looks just like Ron Hayes. http://bit.ly/1LuNrr
@danielc: An old roommate of mine had a soft spot for Cry-Baby. I’d say Election is up there. (I would too, but I didn’t want to put two Alexander Payne movies on the list and I’d already included “Citizen Ruth.”—Eric)
@ManMadeMoon (or Duncan Jones, director of the upcoming film “Moon,” starring Sam Rockwell) retweeted @jpgardner’s suggestions: Robert Altman’s MASH to @SceneStealrEric for subversive comedies. Also, The Graduate, Catch 22 & Dr. Strangelove
@softreeds: Tapeheads.
@BeckIreland: And the original of The Out-of-Towners and Fun With Dick and Jane
@kcklo63: I think every Michael Moore movie fits into that category. Super Size Me? Born on the Fourth of July? 9 1/2 Weeks?
@dumbwhore: Brazil or Office Space. can’t decide

Sorcha Father Ted
Tim M. Neighbors
Tim V. heathers, hudsucker proxy, high school high, they live
Laura Oh. Okay. Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Brazil, Dead Alive, Dawn of the Dead (1978), The Big Lebowski
Sara Dr. Strangelove of course. I also second Life of Brian and Brazil. Harold and Maude, Desperate Living (since John Waters was mentioned), Series 7.
Dustin the dudesons.
Richard Hot Rod. Definitely Hot Rod.
Scott Bunuel movies like The Milky Way, Viridiana, or even Discreet Charm. Oh, don’t get me started!
Colin “Josie and the Pussycats,” now and forever.
Brad nurse betty, citizen ruth
Adam M. I vote Man Bites Dog or Tromeo and Juliet
Adam S. hank and mike. its very funny, and subversive, and even from canada.
Jeremy putney swope!

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