BY TODD GARBARINI
Cheech
and Chong’s Next Movie, which opened on Friday, July 18,
1980, had stiff competition at the box office: Airplane!, The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Friday the 13th,
The Blue Lagoon, The Big Red One, Dressed to Kill, Fame, and The Blues Brothers were all in major
release at the time. While Next Movie
and did respectable business, it went on to gross even more moola when
Universal released is on a double bill with John Landis’s beloved Blues Brothers later. The film picks up
sometime after Cheech and Chong’s maiden cinematic outing, Up in Smoke, left off two years earlier. Written by the slapdash
and seemingly always high dynamic duo and directed by the latter of the two, Next Movie plays out like their comedy
album routines (“Dave†from their self-titled 1971 debut album is one of their
best-known and funniest bits) which is exactly how Abbott and Costello’s early
film appearances were scripted (in their case they were based on their radio
routines). Next Movie was shot in
1979 as evinced by the appearance of North
Dallas Forty and Being There on
Los Angeles movie marquees in the distance and concerns two struggling potheads
who go through a series of (mis)adventures while attempting to start a rock
band. They siphon gas out of a truck into a refuse-filled garbage can with
explosive results. They have an ongoing feud with their neighbor who is fed up
with their antics. Their house has been condemned and they find themselves at a
welfare office. Cheech’s girlfriend Donna (Evelyn Guerrero), one of the welfare
workers, has an off-screen tryst with him while Chong sits next to a very young
Michael Winslow who makes some truly funny sound effects that would make him so
popular later in seven Police Academy
movies. The scene goes on a bit too long, but it’s a great showcase for Mr.
Winslow’s considerable talents. Donna’s boss reprimands her for her momentary
lapse of reason under Cheech’s spell and they make a run for it. Later,
Cheech’s cousin Red (also played by Mr. Marin) blows into town and, while also
financially impecunious, fights with a hotel receptionist (Paul Reubens) who is
carted off by the cops while shouting Al Pacino’s famous “Attica! Attica!†mantra
and ends up jailed after assaulting the men.
The boys are then invited
to a party by a roller-skater (when was the last time you saw one of those
onscreen?) which takes place in a whorehouse in a sequence that elicits
laughter as Cheech watches and reacts to some action outside of one of the
rooms. They scare off the clients by playing back audio on a boombox that they
recorded earlier of the hotel altercation. This is a cute tactic that has
worked to comedic effect in everything from the aforementioned Abbott and
Costello to Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on
Elm Street (1984). The clients spill out onto Sunset Boulevard in a frenzy
and end up at the house of one of the girl’s parents, who are in a constant
state of hilarity, and the action moves to a comedy club wherein a fight breaks
out. Paul Reubens reappears here in a very early appearance as Pee-Wee Herman.
The film eventually ends with a strange bit of “far-out†silliness involving
pot, flying saucers and animation. The message of the film, if there is one, is
that “life’s a partyâ€. If you’re a fan of the titular doofuses who are funny
and amiable, you’ll enjoy the film. Some of the episodes go on a little too
long and it makes one wonder if the filmmakers simply expected the audience to
be stoned while watching the film!
Like Shout! Factory’s
recent release of Universal’s Car Wash
(1976), Next Movie is a film that was
drastically altered for its television airing which included different scenes
and music. While it would have been nice to have had this alternate version on
the new Blu-ray, Cheech and Chong fans will appreciate the new and colorful
transfer which is much clearer than previous home video transfers. Shout!
Factory has done another bang-up job with the image looking very bright and the
colors vivid. Los Angeles, like New York at the time, had a look and feel and
character all its own which is now gone thanks to corporate America. The
brothel that they leave is on a street that has lost its integrity much like
the most memorable and colorful establishments that appear in Martin Scorsese’s
New York in Taxi Driver (1976).
The Blu-ray contains
these extras: a theatrical trailer, radio sports, and a roughly 20-minute
onscreen interview with Cheech Marin,who discusses the making of the film..
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