High Times: The Best “Alternate” Movies for Stoners

• John Fitzgerald
• Monday, January 19, 2009

Have you ever noticed that most movies about getting high, from Dazed and Confused to Pineapple Express, aren’t really that much more fun to watch if you actually are high?

Granted, classic stoner films like The Wall, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Cheech and Chong’s entire catalog give us bong loads of comedic and audiovisual treats.

But after you’ve seen those, like, twenty times, wouldn’t you just dig something new? I mean, the double-chamber is great, but wouldn’t you love a new hookah?

Even the most jaded and most faded want something new every once in a while.

We’ve got you covered.

Here are some films that will come in handy when you just can’t get stoked at the thought of another viewing of Drugstore Cowboy or Half Baked. Frankly, they’ll blow your doors off, and you might add them to your list of classics pretty damn quick.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

Cartoon Network’s trippiest late-night series became 2007’s trippiest motion picture in this hilarious animated tale of giant talking food products squaring off against a sentient exercise machine from the future (or is it the past?) bent on world domination.

And really, when it comes to weirdness in this film that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Fans of the hit TV show will be happy to find most of their favorite characters in the film – from the Space Invader, heavily anti-social Mooninites to the reincarnated rapper MC Pee Pants (who this time returns from Hell as a fly with a taste for, yes, dog shit). And then there’s the Aqua Teen’s long-suffering, creepy slob of a neighbor, Carl.

Neil Peart of the band Rush has a cameo as himself – well, himself with the power to resurrect the dead via drum solos. Naturally. If all of this sounds a little too crazy to the uninitiated, just toke up and enjoy – and soon everything will make sense. Sort of.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

You don’t even have to be high to enjoy Jim Jarmusch’s 1999 moody samurai/gangster adventure, but it makes it even cooler.

Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker stars as the title character, a self-made modern samurai warrior who works as a hit man for the low-level mob boss who once saved his life.

The movie has parts that are just custom made for stoners — long, hypnotically dreamy sequences set to RZA’s original soundtrack, broken-up with scatter-shot violent action scenes, with a cool and intriguing story of double and triple-crosses.

Plus, Whitaker’s somber narration, mediating on the samurai warrior’s code, heroism, friendship, and loyalty leads you right into numerous stoner ponders. Whoa. Dude, I can totally relate to that.

Paprika

Be careful with this one–if you’re too high, this 2006 anime hit about the intersection between dreams and reality might actually blow your mind.

The story revolves around a new technology that allows individuals to record their dreams and for others to view them. The device, called the DC Mini, is intended for use in psychotherapy–but several prototypes are stolen and fall into the wrong hands. Of course.

The stolen DC Minis are abused, and as a result the dreamworld starts spilling over into reality. One of the device’s creators, the rather buttoned-down Dr. Atsuko Chiba, assumes the alter-ego of the free-spirited Paprika in order to enter the dreamworld and put things right.

In addition to a tight, engaging storyline, Paprika’s biggest strength is its creatively unsettling visuals. As the dreamworld spills into reality, you’re treated to a multitude of totally strange and often creepy sights. Not “head in the refrigerator” creepy – creepy in that un-namable way usually only found in dreams.

If that’s not clear to you, picture a parade… of expressionless dolls… and kitchen appliances…. slithering through the streets. That should clear things right up for you. It’s in there.

Belly

Music video director Hype Williams’ first (and, understandably, only) feature film straddles such a strange line between being predictably derivative and totally incomprehensible that being stoned is practically a requirement for viewing.

The movie stars 90s rap icons Nas and DMX as career criminals looking for a way out of the game, in a convoluted plot likely to make even sober viewers feel high. Characters and story threads are randomly introduced, only to disappear without ever being heard from again (a subplot about a new form of super-heroin seems to be from a totally different movie).

Even the film’s voice over narration does little to clarify just what the hell is going on. So why the recommendation? Well, Hype Williams may not be able to write a screenplay to save his life, but the one thing he can do is make it all look good–and he does that with a vengeance.

The first half of Belly, especially the opening scene of a highly stylized heist, features some of the most visually inventive, highly-trippy cinematography around. Sure, it’s the ultimate triumph of style over substance, but it looks so fucking cool.

Dark City

Over a year before The Matrix subjected the movie-going public to Keanu Reeves’ monotone heroism, Dark City told basically the same story — but with much more visual style and flair.

It’s a neo-noir tale of an amnesiac on the lam in a city where it’s always night that engrosses you into looking at the amorphous nature of reality. Totally stoner.

As the hero is pursued by both the police and the chalk-skinned, vaguely demonic “Strangers” lurking in the shadows, he begins to uncover a trippy conspiracy that might involve everyone in the city.

It’s mind-jarring, far-reaching, and as an added bonus has Jennifer Connelly as a hottie lounge singer femme-fatale. Sweet.

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