FESTIVAL GALLERY: Rothbury, Michigan, July 3rd – 6th, 2008
Photos By: Water Bear Thu Jul 10, 2008 21
World's Biggest Joint at the Seattle Hempfest
See Jack Herer smoke the world's biggest joint. Meet TV host Rick Steves. Listen to Rick Cusick and …
Fri Aug 22, 2008 7
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HIGH TIMES PRESENTS: JORGE CERVANTES' ULTIMATE GROW DVD
The world's ultimate ganja guide brings his expertise to his first instructional DVD, taking you step-by-step from seeds and clones to harvest in high style.
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MOVIE REVIEW: The Darjeeling Limited
Tue Oct 16, 2007
By Brian Abrams.jpg)
In 1998, Wes Anderson was critically lauded for his prep school slacker flick Rushmore, and it all went downhill from there. Ever since, the writer/director has puked up the most pretentious and annoying movies onto the big screen, and they get worse every time.
More than a decade ago, when Wes Anderson teamed up with Luke and Owen Wilson to shoot his quirky debut Bottle Rocket, the Texas trio made a pretty funny and charming buddy comedy out of it. With little budget and a lot of heart, Rocket emitted a sort of just-cocking-around-with-the-camera feel, as if the film's culprits weren't taking the whole thing so seriously. Rushmore has a faint sense of that carefree vibe – it's arguably Anderson's best – but, beyond that, Anderson's other films are smug.
Take The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, for examples: both cloying and colorful movies …READ MOREtags: 16 « add a comment
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DVD REVIEW: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Seasons One and Two
Tue Sep 18, 2007
By Brian Abrams
On paper the plot sounds all too familiar: father Frank (Danny DeVito), son Dennis (Glenn Howerton), and his two high school buddies Charlie (Charlie Day) and Mac (Rob McElhenney) own a bar in the City of Brotherly Love. Dennis's struggling actress sister Deandra (Kaitlin Olson) helps out in between auditions.
If you're behind on season three of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which premiered its first two episodes last week, then you'd probably dismiss the above synopsis as just another forgettable show on a major network. However, the FX cult sitcom is the total opposite.
A blatant and hilarious mixture of Arrested Development's postmodern zaniness with Curb Your Enthusiasm's there-goes-the-neighborhood storylines, sadly, Sunny isn't talked about among boob tubers the way one would expect. Not that I've paid attention to the Nielsen ratings lately, but I'd wager that the two-year old show …READ MOREtags: 1 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: The Simpsons Movie
Mon Jul 30, 2007
By Brian Abrams
In an interview last year on NPR, Artie Lange said “The Howard Stern Show is a hit because it entertains dumb and smart people at the same time for different reasons.” He went on to cite The Simpsons as another show that masters this double-natured brand of humor. The Sirius Satellite’s radio program offers lowbrow and gross-out forms of entertainment such as skullfucking and Sybian machine-riding, but Stern and Lange and the gang also satirize on the idiocy of the media and popular culture – oftentimes within the same segment. The same goes for Fox’s sitcom, even after a near 20 years on the air.
The subtle shticks found among the animated community are what give the ‘toon its merit for being arguably the most influential sitcom in television history. It has such a rich, elaborate history of back-stories and character developments, so, why didn’t The Simpsons Movie use all …READ MOREtags: 16 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Sicko - Michael Moore v. American Healthcare
Tue Jul 10, 2007
By Brian Abrams
Michael Moore’s latest assault-on-celluloid certainly pushes buttons – and that’s despite your partisanship.
Sicko puts the screws to the American healthcare system the way Moore’s Roger and Me did to General Motors and as much as Fahrenheit 9/11 did to the current administration, only this time the Oscar-winning documentarian doesn’t ask you to so much pick a political party as he does ask the government to have a fucking heart.
The corrupt institution responsible for, Moore claims, 50 million Americans living and dying without health insurance – a conspiracy which includes the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical manufacturers, and, of course, the lobbyist bunch on Capitol Hill – doesn’t care if your checkbook donates to the Republican or Democratic parties. It just wants a piece, and with giving as little in return as possible.
And …READ MOREtags: 17 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Bug - Not Your Average Thriller
Mon Jun 4, 2007
By Brian Abrams
The artwork on the poster for William Friedkin’s Bug carries the weight of your everyday supernatural thriller. With Ashley Judd’s mug front and center, the remainder of the advertisement is dark, covered in spooky shades of black and blue.
It gives you the feeling that the movie follows the footsteps of your typical creature feature in which a large cockroach chases innocent victims down subway lines or of one where the leading lady has telekinetic powers and figures out a way to make beehives fall onto her asshole neighbors’ heads. Yep, pure studio marketing at its finest – just the sort of generic poster design that is purported to reel in the Friday night fright masses.
If that were the case with Bug – and it isn’t – we could take comfort in engaging in such an innocuous, familiar plot. And, of course, writer/director Friedkin would be expected to make something …READ MOREtags: 3 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Spider-Man 3 - The Latest Installment in the Formulaic yet Enjoyable Superhero Series
Tue May 8, 2007
By Brian Abrams
For a larger-than-life adaptation based on Marvel comic book characters, Spider-Man 3 isn’t bad, necessarily; it’s just a bit much.
The most common problem among these blockbuster superhero series is that, by the third installment, the screenwriters have painted themselves in a corner. Tim Burton’s Batman movies held strong through the first two titles (the convincing back-stories of The Joker, The Penguin, and Catwoman were pretty sweet, let’s admit), but, by the time actors like Jim Carrey and Arnold Schwarzenegger slapped on some costumes, the whole Gotham City vibe wore off. The series went from sexy to silly after just two titles.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films haven’t gone as wayward as the former caped crusader’s flicks, but they might be headed in that direction. Really, how many more heavies can the scribes extract from Stan Lee’s vintage comics? …READ MOREtags: 5 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: The Tripper - Sociopolitical Exploration by way of Hatchet Wielding Mayhem
Mon Apr 23, 2007
By Brian Abrams
David Arquette’s directorial debut The Tripper tells the story of a mysterious psycho who stalks a bunch of party animals at a music festival in a small backwoods town. But don’t mistake the independent title (opening in select theaters April 20) as just another genre-laden slasher with a marketable jam band soundtrack. There could be more to this indie scare-comedy.
Arquette cleverly uses the serial-killer-thriller formula as a pretext to illustrate the cultural angst between the right and left during George Dubya Bush’s first term in office. The homicidal maniac in question is dressed to the tee like Ronald Reagan, replete with a latex mask smiling from both corners of its mouth.
The fortieth president isn’t spotted right away at this music festival, where he quietly – and enjoyably – slices and dices a throng of shaggy-haired twenty-somethings.
“Kids these …READ MOREtags: 1 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Tue Apr 10, 2007
By Brian Abrams
Rock star burnout Glen Danzig shops for a house that has blood pouring from its walls. A talking robotic chicken clad in post-apocalyptic armor obsesses over false histories of the evolution of its species. An overweight, unemployed hairy New Jersey-ite attempts a bowel movement in his front yard with a space-age waterless toilet designed to conserve the world’s most precious resource.
These are only a smidgen of plot lines in the harebrained Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the animated series that runs on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” late night lineup. So if you’re at all confused or lost by these psychotic premises, just know that the episodes are less than 15 minutes each. The feature length film is more of the same, only Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters runs at an everlasting 86 minutes.
For those unfamiliar with creators Matt Maiellaro’s and Dave …READ MOREtags: 5 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Color Me Kubrick - Malkovich’s Intriguing Portrayal of Kubrick Impersonating Con Man
Mon Mar 26, 2007
By Brian Abrams
Stanley Kubrick was a well-known recluse. The New York-born photographer-turned-iconic filmmaker wasn’t seen much at parties or involved with Hollywood shenanigans; it was always understood that the late, great one kept to himself at his home in England, where he was probably working on his next ambitious epic project.
That’s probably why it came so easy to Alan Conway to assume the man’s identity for a few months in the early 90s, when the con man fooled quite a few British working-class peoples into believing he was, in fact, Kubrick. With the real director out of the public eye, Conway manipulated everyday drones into ordering cocktails, renting hotel rooms, and cutting personal checks, among a slew of other pampering accoutrements bought for him on a day-to-day basis.
And this is, in fact, a true story on which the deadpan comedy Color Me Kubrick (which hit theaters last weekend) is loosely …READ MOREtags: 2 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Bemoaning Black Snake Moan
Thu Mar 8, 2007
By Brian Abrams
Soft-core porn from the disco era is without question a prime example of poor filmmaking. Nonetheless, there is still a fan base for this brand of low-grade fare. Even with unapologetic, misogynistic content, the drive-in nudie movies were just deluded and over-the-top enough to please the smut-seekers back in the day, and, what’s more, manifest a cult audience years later.
At no point did these skin-centric pieces of shit pretend to have a purpose outside of showing some tush. Eddie Romero’s Black Mama, White Mama was basically a 90-minute prison shower scene with Pam Grier’s shining buns standing front and center. Cheri Caffaro was crowned a queen of the era for her work in the Ginger detective series, in which she portrayed the title character, unafraid to wrestle another bikini-clad thug babe on the beach – even if it meant the loser had to strip off every thread.
Praise the genre …READ MOREtags: 1 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Reno 911!: Miami - A New Setting for the Same Old Shtick
Tue Feb 27, 2007
By Brian Abrams
MTV’s defunct cult television program The State brought viewers many laughs both during its too brief run and with the various side projects of cast members since. However, Reno 911!: Miami, which released last weekend, cannot be counted among the successes of the long gone sketch comedy show’s alums.
On The State, stoner-friendly bits - from musical numbers titled “The Jew, The Italian, and the Redhead Gay” to one-liner scenarios centered on a guy named Louie who attends house parties and wants to dip his “balls” in hors d’oeuvres - were the norm. The material may not sound impressive, but, when put into action, The State’s punch lines were pretty damn funny, at the very least, a lot funnier than those in Reno 911!: Miami.
The guys (and gal) behind The State, which aired from 1993 to 1995, have put out more than just this forgotten …READ MOREtags: 3 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: An Unreasonable Man - Ralph Nader Becomes the Latest Also-Ran Appearing on Celluloid
Wed Feb 7, 2007
By Brian Abrams
Surely only a matter of months will pass before movies devoted to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards – hell, even that Governor of Iowa dude – will slate to hit theaters.
Because, in the past few years, the independent film community has embraced political figures as central subjects for documentary features. Errol Morris’ The Fog of War, his brooding doc on Robert S. McNamara, won him the Oscar in 2004. In the same year, Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry garnered all sorts of critical acclaim. Last summer, An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore’s global warming blockbuster) broke the $100 million mark at the box office and ranks as the third highest grossing documentary in history.
The non-fiction poli-biopic is a win-win deal: White House candidates will bend over backwards for such a powerful campaign tool, and filmmakers look awfully cutting edge (regardless of …READ MOREtags: 0 « add a comment
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Movie Review: Alpha Dog - Two Takes on the Pot Sodden True Crime Flick
Thu Jan 25, 2007
TAKE ONE: In (Somewhat Reluctant) Praise of Justin Timberlake
By Brian Abrams
My 14-year old cousin raves about his new movie on her MySpace page. The girlfriend is anxious to see it, as she grooves daily to his latest LP on the road. Even Rolling Stone’s film critic Peter Travers described his character as “a pot smoking bad ass” in its most recent issue.
Everyone’s mad about Justin Timberlake, and it’s not just his obvious girlie fan base for bringing sexy back. It’s a surprise alone that the former ‘N Sync boy has acting skills, but I never in my life would have thought the guy so universally appealing on the big screen.
In the ensemble production Alpha Dog, J.T. plays Frankie Ballenbacher, an over-privileged twenty-something punk who lounges around all day at his father’s posh pad in the valley. There, he clips forest green pieces of bud from the old …READ MOREtags: 3 « add a comment
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MOVIE REVIEW: Children of Men – It’s the End of the World as They Know it
Tue Jan 16, 2007
By Brian Abrams
In an age where leftist documentaries pop up in theaters and on Netflix every other week, who would expect a science fiction title to become the most important, and most relevant, anti-war movie of our time? For a genre usually responsible for implausible and fantastical movies, the premise behind Children of Men, oddly enough, isn’t at all far-fetched.
A frightening tell-tale of what could very well happen to our world a couple decades from now, director Alfonso Cuaron’s modern dystopian classic might as well be a finger-wagging at our civilization’s ways today.
The film is set in a post-apocalyptic London, where the mystery slowly unravels as to why our world has turned to shit. Explanations for the aftermath are hinted to the audience via subtle dialogue, television ads, and periodical clippings posted on random wallboards and newsstands. But the evidence is so rich that one gets enthralled by …READ MOREtags: 3 « add a comment
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2006 in Review – The Top Ten (Not Necessarily Pot-centric) Films of the Year
Fri Dec 22, 2006
By Brian Abrams
This year I watched somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty movies, a quantity laughable to some (i.e. film critics on salary) and appalling to others (i.e. my girlfriend). But I skipped the majority of Oscar bait, despite big names behind the camera (Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese), forcibly “smart” stories (The Good Shepherd, The Good German), and obvious Academy Award-winning titles (Pursuit of Happyness, Dreamgirls).
And for every title I passed on, a stranger piece of fiction took its place. So if you want to discount the top ten list below because I didn’t spend two hours watching Beyonce and Jamie Foxx crooning or Jack Nicholson pretending to be a Yankee mobster, so be it. Just know there are other movies out there to watch aside from what the talking heads shove down your throat. Some damn good ones, too.
10. Half Nelson
The movie itself …READ MOREtags: 7 « add a comment
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NORML.ORG CN BC: Greenhouse Pot Bust Biggest Ever
(Tue, 26 Aug 2008) Province, The (CN BC)