
Anyone who has watched Motor City Comics’ video reviews will understand why the very first thing we see in the film is well, you guessed it, smoke.
The debut film of David Bushell premieres at the SXSW and, judging from its Australian promo material, it tells a fairly definitive story about the legendary comic duo together with other members who created characters in the early 1970s Cultural Movement, animated featuring their sold-out concerts, best-selling comedy audio records, and movies. It is enjoyable to watch how you rejoin them in this movie about their relationship spanning plenty of years in its intermitted way, as well as watch them in the desert and hear them endlessly improvisation together, and sounding totally off-beat. This is about the closest we will ever get to another real Cheech&Chong movie, and I don’t think that’s such a bad thing considering the dreadful lack of substance in their recent few movies.
The director has found many old videos and archival footage including great shots of the couple being interviewed at the Playboy Mansion and as they talk, there are naked women swimming in the grotto behind them and are only momentarily distracted, by the almost soon-to-be Fox News Geraldo Rivera, who appears to be trying to fit into their routine. It also contains a number of recent interviews with the two, where they discuss their lives and collaboration with each other in an open and candid manner.
Their collaboration has an interesting backstory. Tommy Chong, who is half-Chinese and hails from Canada, dropped out of high school because he discovered weed and the music of Ornette Coleman. Chong became a musician and played the guitar for different bands until he became known for writing a single ‘Does your Mamma Know About Me’ for Bobby Taylor & the Vancouver’s. Cheech Marin, a Mexican-American born in Los Angeles as Richard Anthony Marin, was the son of an LAPD officer and relocated to Canada because of the Vietnam War Draft.
There, he encountered Chong who at that stage was working in a strip club where he was part of an improv troupe. The two quickly realized that they had a different kind of chemistry that involved quite a bit of weed and they formed a comedy duo. They explain that they chose their name because it is “Cheech and Chong” and Cheech sounds better than Chong. Once they arrived in Los Angeles, they gained popularity fast with their live performances such as “Sister Mary Elephant” and “Basketball Jones”. The latter has a very funny story with Jack Nicholson and George Harrison and is acked by basic cartoons.
They recorded their first comedy album which was produced by Lou Adler and interestingly enough the album contained their famous catchphrases, “Dave’s Not Here!” Adler has referred to them as “the first rock ‘n’ roll comedians.” Adler also directed their very first film the 1978 film Up in Smoke which was very successful against its low cost. In the documentary, they do not hold back and describe the troubles Adler has put them through and how they only received $2000 along with a tape recorder from the film. They aren’t bitter though, as Adler is in the film, and they recognize him as he walks through the desert and gives him a ride.
Other funny moments from this time that are worthy of note include one of their appearances on The Virginia Graham Show, where the confused host calls the duo “Cheech and Kong” and asks Chong if he is really Chinese.
The initial star power in the first picture made a few sequels possible but as time went by, the Cheech and Chong franchise lost its appeal. A few examples include Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, Nice Dreams, Things Are Tough Are All Over, and Still Smokin’. Their weak point was definitely Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers, a muddled mess that promised much more than it could deliver, and it wasn’t even a cheesy stoner comedy.
The same films, however, did produce the kind of personal crises that eventually fractured them as a duo. They got over their fights and learned to work together but even today do not see eye to eye on everything. Simply put, there was a conspiracy while they wrote and starred in their movies, it was Chong who endeavored to call most of the shots, and that irritated his colleague. “He’s got an ego out of proportion to his actual talent,” says Marin.
Marin is now a seasoned filmmaker with considerable solo success having directed, produced, and starred in a picture Born in East LA which was based on the duo’s hit single. Chong, on the other hand, found himself in jail for about nine months from 2003 – 2004 because of his failure to comply with drug paraphernalia distribution laws. Nevertheless, they had still been in contact and worked together on a number of occasions since the 1980s.
Chong probes, “So, is this a documentary or a movie?” “I don’t know, man,” is Cheech’s incomparable response. That ambiguity is what makes Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie as amusing as it is educational. Even now, their discreet romance and the problems they went through in the past, as well as their love for each other, have not completely disappeared, providing an enjoyable sense of nostalgia that you do not even have to be high to appreciate.
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