Up in Smoke

Two men meet in Los Angeles, drive to Mexico and come back across the border in a van made entirely of cannabis without realising it. That is the whole plot. The narrative lines up scenes almost as sketches, because the pair had been doing these routines on stage for years and the film is that stage act carried to camera. It is Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong's first film. Made cheaply, it did unexpected business and started an entire strain of comedy after it. Who it's for: those curious about the counterculture comedy of the nineteen-seventies. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a constructed story; the film is built on drug jokes and has no other concern.