Five Iconic Comedies That Will Leave You on a High Note
Grab your munchies and kick back
Despite what T.S. Eliot wrote, April doesn’t have to be the cruelest month. It can be comic and crazy with these fan-favorite films. Get into the season by kicking back with these hilarious movies.
From cult classics like Dazed and Confused and The Big Lebowski to mind-bending, original comedies like Kajillionaire, make sure to add these movies to your slate for a season of feel-good entertainment.
Dazed and Confused | Party at the Moonlight Tower
Rory Cochrane, Jason London, and Sasha Jenson in Dazed and Confused
Dazed and Confused
30 years ago, Richard Linklater’s teenage tale, Dazed and Confused, brilliantly captured the comic reality of being young in America. Set in Austin in 1976 during the last day of school, the film follows—with anthropological precision—the rituals of adolescence. In naming it one of the 10 best stoner movies of all time, Rolling Stone writes, “Richard Linklater gets the Seventies details right—including how these kids spend practically every minute blazing to Aerosmith and Foghat, arguing about aliens, sex and how much weed George Washington smoked.” The fun had by the large ensemble of up-and-comers—such as Milla Jovovich, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, and Matthew McConaughey—spills over into the film’s high-spirited nature. Entertainment Weekly writes that Linklater is “an inspired entertainer whose characters are hilarious, subtle, offbeat, moving, and bracingly life-size [in]…a stoned comedy of manners.” Linklater says in Letterboxd, “Increasingly, people were getting high in the theaters, which...I took as a huge compliment, standing ovation.”
The Big Lebowski | The Dude Meets The Lebowskis
Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski
The Big Lebowski
The Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski has evolved into one of the most beloved comedies of all time. The story focuses on a Southern Californian stoner, The Dude (Jeff Bridges), who stumbles into a Raymond Chandleresque mystery involving mistaken identity, a Vietnam Vet bowler (John Goodman), a downtown performance artist (Julianne Moore), a terrorist gang of German nihilists, a kidnapping, a Busby Berkeley-style dream scenario, and a mysterious cowboy narrator (Sam Elliott) who hangs out at bowling alleys. What holds it all together is The Dude’s laidback style, in a kind of stoner-cinematic rhythm. In explaining why The Big Lebowski is “everything you want in a stoner movie,” Film School Rejects writes that the film, like its hero, “is in no hurry to get to the next scene or even unravel the mystery behind the central kidnapping plot.” Looking back on the film for its 20th anniversary, Den of Geek reminds us, “No matter how anxious or full of care our lives are, there’s something wonderful about spending time with a character who is so content with relatively little.”
Watch The Big Lebowski now on iTunes or Amazon!
Wet Hot American Summer | The Camp Firewood Talent Show
The cast of Wet Hot American Summer
Wet Hot American Summer
Set in 1981, David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer takes the idea of camp to a whole new level. The film revels in making its jokes fast, furious, and absurd. Indeed, Far Out Magazine writes, “You’d be hard-pressed to find another film that packs in as many jokes per minute as Wet Hot American Summer.” Relocating its emerging actors—including Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Janeane Garofalo, Molly Shannon, and Bradley Cooper—to an actual camp in Pennsylvania, the filmmakers let the cast go wild. “It was like being in summer camp and everybody hung out with everybody,” Rudd told Entertainment Weekly. The cast’s campy camaraderie fueled the film’s unique sense of humor on screen. In a humorous piece on films “you don't have to be stoned to love,” NJ.com writes, “Come for the cast, stay because there's a talking can of beans.”
Watch Wet Hot American Summer now on iTunes or Amazon!
The official trailer for Shaun of the Dead
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead
In Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, the namesake hero (Simon Pegg) and his weed-dealing, slacker pal, Ed (Nick Frost), battle a wave of hungry zombies to keep their life of pub drinking and video gaming safe for posterity. The sheer inventiveness of the film’s premise and the ingenuity by which it twists and turns its way through the horror genre have made it a cult classic and inspired Monkeys Fighting Robots to joke, “Edgar Wright must have smoked something wonderful when creating this.” In many ways, its crackerjack comedy and laid-back vibe make it something that Shaun and Ed would have stayed home to watch. “It had a rapid pace, with quick cuts, biting dialogue, and throwaway gags we’re pretty sure we still haven’t caught all of. Shaun of the Dead is the slacker’s manifesto, it seems,” Comingsoon.net writes.
The official trailer for Kajillionaire
Evan Rachel Wood, Debra Winger, and Richard Jenkins in Kajillionaire
Kajillionaire
With Kajillionaire, writer-director Miranda July uses her unique and wild imagination to transform a con-game heist into a delightful story of human connection and new beginnings. As the adult child of a pair of low-rent grifters (Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger), Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) perceives the world through her parent’s scams and petty crimes, until Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) shows her how to see herself and the world in a new way. As a filmmaker, July also comprehends the world in astonishingly unique ways. In the production notes, producer Dede Gardner explains, “She just sees the world through a different lens and I think it permits a tone that I don’t see very often.” Screen Daily explains that the “beautifully bizarre film…is further proof of writer-director Miranda July’s ability to bend reality to her will.”