Pot Brownies are Having a Cinematic Moment


Is "old people eating pot brownies" the new "old people saying swear words"? It is, if this summer's movies have anything to say about it! Whether it's the biggest action blockbuster or the smallest video-on-demand indie, there's nothing more "now" than menopausal movie moms getting baked off of baked goods. Grab a bowl of Doritos and consider the evidence!

The trend was kicked off in high style by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was so subplot-stuffed, it might as well have bore the pledge "Deleted scenes already included." Among those diversions was a fairly pointless sequence that focused not on robots or Megan Fox's ass but instead on the mother of our hero, Judy Witwicky (played by Julie White), as she proceeded to lose her shit after accidentally eating some pot brownies. This was scripted and went on for several minutes!

Before Transformers, if you'd been lucky enough to snag a particularly perverse projectionist, you might have sat through the trailer for this week's Taking Woodstock and had yourself a veritable mom-and-pot-brownies double feature. In that teaser's climactic moment, the previously uptight mother of our hero (this one, played by Imelda Staunton) accidentally dug into the marijuana-laced brownies and got so high that wild, rain-soaked dancing with her family (pictured above) was an inevitability. In fact, if she'd just tugged her blouse down to expose her matronly breasts, I think we would have had a sequence from every True Blood episode this season.

Three is a trend, however, and so we would be nowhere if Bobcat Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad hadn't come along. In the dark comedy, Robin Williams bonds with his elderly neighbor (Mitzi McCall) over zombie movies, yet only gains entry into her apartment if he promises to bring over pot brownies. For some reason, though, these tainted goodies do not turn the neighbor into a lusty cougar, nor provoke her to practice her booty pop as loud rap music blasts from a nearby car. What gives, Bobcat? You've harshed my buzz.



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