Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Doug Benson
Sarah Silverman
Dave Navarro
Patton Oswalt
Brian Posehn
Bob Odenkirk (Better call Saul!)
Directed By:
Michael Blieden
I don't know about you, but Morgan Spurlock's movie SUPER SIZE ME is the sole reason why I order my McDonald's super sized now. The point he was trying to make by gorging himself with fast food has been single-handedly brushed off by McDonald's sponsored two times Olympic silver medalist Alexandre Despatie who said on a talk show: "I don't care, I eat McDonald's whenever I want but I never abuse it like that guy did. Abuse of anything and you will get sick". BAM! Checkmate, Morgan Spurlock. Now, the interesting thing about SUPER HIGH ME is that it's not trying to prove a point about weed, but rather to disprove the argument that marijuana is a drug that ruins people's lives. While it's not even remotely close to being scientific, it's a lot more clever than its junk food counterpart.
Here's the catch. Doug Benson is a very successful comic. He's also very fucking high all the time. SUPER HIGH ME is his attempt to calculate the parallel in between those two variables. To achieve this, his method is to spend thirty days absolutely weed-free and spend thirty days as high as he can. This project takes about seventy percent of the movie and for the rest of the time, the director Michael Blieden exposes the issues that is facing the ever expanding Californian marijuana culture. As you might know, there's a State law that's been passed over there to legalize marijuana consumption for medical issues. So since its been legal, "dispensaries" have been blooming. Legal, licensed businesses where you can buy pain soothing marijuana products. But State laws aren't recognized by the federal laws and those business owners often have to deal with the DEA that busts in once in a while, because it's easier to bust a legal business owner than a well armed drug lord, right?
Michael Blieden is a very clever director. While the series of before/after test that Benson undertook were not very significant (except for for Sperm count who got ridiculously high after the month of smoking weed), Blieden has filmed Benson's comedy throughout the sixty days journey and it radically changed from the sober month to the very high month. So what's the lesson here? First, pot doesn't damage the body that much. It does, but it's not significant. It's a myth that it make you sick as much as the cigarette. Tobacco mixed with chemicals emits a very toxic smoke, as a natural herb emits smoke yes, but it's a herb. The major effect of marijuana is behavioral and it affects everybody differently. While it does turn some people into losers, it turned Doug Benson into this hilarious guy and it never really had any effect at all on yours truly. The point of SUPER HIGH ME was to stress the personal responsibility of taking marijuana and while it's a little carefree in its approach, it is a documentary example of a high achiever on drugs.
Not everybody will watch SUPER HIGH ME with almost no opinion on the subject, like I did. Some will see Doug Benson as an irresponsible asshole and some will see him as an heroic champion of marijuana. I think he's neither of that. The main problem of the argument in SUPER HIGH ME is that it's not showing any examples of people who are negatively affected by the drug. But the concept of SUPER HIGH ME is a spin-off of SUPER SIZE ME and it might not have been as pertinent. But still, I would have love to see Benson have a face to face with a slacker pothead and even better, have one going through the same trials as he did. SUPER HIGH ME isn't perfect, but it's a smart way to make an argument for weed and and scrub some of the prejudices against marijuana off.
SCORE: 79%