Up in Smoke (1978)
Directed by Lou Adler
An unemployed pot-smoking slacker and amateur drummer, Anthony Stoner ditches his strict parents and hits the road, eventually meeting kindred spirit Pedro de Pacas. While the drug-ingesting duo is soon arrested for possession of marijuana, Anthony and Pedro get released on a technicality, allowing them to continue their many misadventures and ultimately compete in a rock band contest, where they perform the raucous tune "Earache My Eye."
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What critics compared Up in Smoke to
It's also the best drug comedy since Cheech and Chong's salad days in Up in Smoke (1978).
As these things go, "Pineapple Express" is fitfully amusing but not up to the level of, say, Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke."
The overall story is a paranoia-fueled, anti-drug tale; but after expending most of its length trading in stoner comedy, the feeling generated is about on par with watching Cheech and Chong follow up a screening of their Up in Smoke (1978) with a PSA on the evils of marijuana.
Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye is an obvious influence here, but so is Up in Smoke.
Imagine the spirit of "Chinatown" crossed with the impenetrability of "The Big Sleep" -- with hints of Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke" wafting through every frame -- and you've got some idea of what's in store with "Inherent Vice."
The movie Scorsese has made from the book overflows with unzipped braggadocio, self-exposure that’s at once aggrandizing and incriminating, and drug comedy that does for coke and Quaaludes what “Up in Smoke” did for doobies.