BIASES: mid 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare

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How High

MOVIE BIASES: This looks like the dumbest movie ever made. I'm afraid it might actually be good.
MAJOR PLAYERS: Method Man (rapper), Redman (rapper), Lark Voorhies (TV's Saved by the Bell), and director Jesse Dylan.

Talk about perfect counterprogramming. When you think of the holidays, don't you usually think about family, friends, and…weed? Jersey Films and Universal sure hopes you do, as they've launched the perfect antithesis to such holiday heavyweight movies like "Ali" or "A Beautiful Mind." But what's on Method Man and Redman's minds (or lack thereof)? Puff, puff, pass, pa'tna.

Silas (Method Man) is a ghetto botanist versed in cultivating many a form of fine marijuana. Jamal (Redman) is a perpetual student who stays in a constant cloud of ganja. Together, they get high right before their college entrance exam, acing it, and becoming two of the most desirable students to a diversity desperate Harvard. Bingo, they get in, turn campus upside down, and engage in some of the most scandalous, ludicrous activities possible wholly unconnected to anything resembling a plot.

Who needs actors when you have Meth and Red doing what they do best? I bet that must've been a FUN set. Nobody else does any acting either, but I can't blame them. With the sketch of a (pretty funny) script and a director asleep at the wheel, "what's their motivation?" Dylan: "Um, Method Man, Redman…In this scene you two are…high. Again." While everyone does throw themselves into the most preposterous script since "Three Strikes" (but infinitely funnier), the only salvageable thing from this movie for me was my seeing an old pre-REEL DEAL crush (Lark Voorhies from her Lisa days on "Saved by the Bell" - yum!) and the finding of a new REEL DEAL Crush. Yes, I know it's been a while since THE REEL DEAL has had a new Crush, but her name is Essence Atkins. My how we've grown since "The Smart Guy!"

This is a horrible, horrible movie. But calling this thing a movie would be giving it much more credit than it deserves. While it aspires to be "Animal House" crossed with "Friday," it plays more like a bad "Saturday Night Live" sketch bred with a student film. It has no plot, no acting, no third act, no ending, no taste, and no conscience. It also has no shame. What appalls me the most is the fact that I laughed - a lot. If it weren't just so godawful to watch, I could see this movie rising to cult classic like status. Surprisingly, the funniest parts weren't just in the trailers and, if you're high, this movie is probably your new "Cheech and Chong" (which sucks, by the way; but, of course, I didn't see it high). The only thing saving this from zero @ oblivion is the fact that I laughed more times than this flick deserves. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this is a cheap, ridiculous cinematic entertainment masquerading as a movie. As much as I laughed, this movie isn't "How High." It's "How Low."

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