Up in Smoke

Up in Smoke
by Tommy Chong, Lou Adler

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Movie Reviews of Up in Smoke

Movie Review: The rallying cry of the minority!!!
Summary: 5 Stars

The comic portrayls of C&C and various other characters are symbolic of the world's injustices. Take for example the Mexican Van built entirely of weed. Our Heros are looking for weed, but are ironicly surrounded by thousands of pounds of so-called 'cyber-weed'. Case in point, see the trees in the forest and you may just find what you're looking for.

Cheech's last minute writing of their contest winning song? They were not punk rockers, but they won. How you ask? They took punk and gave it a new approach (a brass section of all things). It worked not because they gave in and surrendered their true artistic goals, but rather accepted, turned the tables, and left everyone floored. That is the message. Conform, but in your own way.

Chong hitch-hiking on the side of the road posing as a woman has deep Freudian issues that he was trying to bring to the audience. Remember his parents in the beginning scene before the credits? Bend and Stoop, Bend and Stoop boy. I have a friend with United Fruit. Chong's open rebellion didn't come from his father wanting him to be like the Finkelstein kid, it came from his mother. Chong loved his mother as he showed when he flipped her off on his way out the door.

Judge Dykes (the raving, vodka swigging, authority figure) is inded THE MAN. But as a woman, THE MAN takes on a whole and frightening new side. This film was made years before Hillary Clinton's rise to power, but this movie prophisizes her coming.

Sgt. 'don't know who dis is' Stadinko is the representation of commercialism taken to the extreme. Like the BackStreet Boys, and N'Sync, Sgt. Stadinko's time is short lived, but accepted by the mass public. Ten years from now who'll never know any of them ever existed at all. The bumbling, misguided record companies who force feed us 'fast food' music is expressed in the heart rendering line...."I got the munchies and you tell me to go with it?...I'LL GO WITH IT!!" Sad such a state society has become.

The 'frisking of the nuns' is Cheech's way of snubbing the Catholic Church. I interpret it in this way as the student viewer. Cheech believes the Catholic Church with 2000 years of oppresion, terror, and brain-washing, Cheech believes even it, the institution itself, can be brought down by the common man,. When enough people call for a change, the change will come. Watch this scene closely. Chong's symbollic 'tossing of the joint' into the nun-wagon is the 'lighting of the fuse' so to speak. The fuse of course burns to the 'Times to Come' as reflected upon by St. John in the Book of Revelation. Cheech and Chong's religious fury burns alive after the viewer understands the symbolism.

The 'lude girl' who proclaims Chong's name as 'Alex' from that point on is the Earth, Mother Earth. Dressed as a hippie and having a supply of amphetimeans, she roams the world looking for unspoiled environments in which to take root. Nature is her theme, and her blonde friend, we'll call her 'Sunshine', represents the light that Earth so desperately needs for survival.

Curtis, Oh Curtis, Oh simple, elegant Curtis. His time is coming. The uniforms must all be different and he'll make it so. Those are for real diamonds, and he makes the choice cut. Watch his actions and mannerisms. It is easy who he is symbollic of. To the layman I will tell you the answer. Curtis is non other than Winston Churchill. Behold the windshield cutting scene. He draws the line, much like Churchill did against the Russian occupation of a defeated Germany.

Either that or it's just a great movie to remind you of the good old days when a 'joint' and a 'hit' had nothing to do with anatomy or physical violence.