sxsw film pass day one

It has begun. Last night was the opening night of the SXSW Film Festival (the only part of "South By" that I care about). S went with me to see Film #1: Super High Me, a documentary based on, believe it or not, a joke by stoner stand-up comedian, Doug Benson, who I'd never heard of before this movie. His joke was that the stupidest movie to see when you're stoned is Super Size Me -- the Morgan Spurlock jewel in which he eats nothing but McDonald's for thirty days to see how it affects his body -- because, he said, "I'm thinking right now a Nugget sounds real good!" Doug Benson jokes in the movie (onstage) that he'll make a movie called Super High Me, using the same premise except substituting being high 24/7 for the McDonald's. A fan (I suppose) or maybe a friend who happens to be a filmmaker decides to make the movie. They decide that in order to "clean out his system," he won't smoke pot for thirty days prior to the over-indulgent thirty-day period. The documentary covers the whole sixty days.

It was actually better than I could have hoped it would be. It showed Doug Benson onstage almost every day during the thirty days without and the thirty days of constant highness, but there was also a subplot of the medical marijuana advocates in California, the "dispensaries" and their dealings with the DEA "illegally" breaking in and shutting the places down and the protests, etc. It also showed a not-too-pretty version of the man as he buffooned his way through his daily life, going to doctor appointments, taking S.A.T. and psychic tests. (He had someone driving him around during the film, which is probably a good thing, but probably didn't truly test his ability to be high around the clock and function.) A cautionary tale? Not exactly. But it has some really funny moments, particularly the live-taped stand-up stuff, which doesn't always stand up in a film, so to speak, and here it did. For a second there, I considered giving the film (and all the ones to come) a score, 1 to 5 or something like that. But my brain's a little foggy this morning -- because of the experimenting I did around going to see the movie last night -- and coming up with a scoring scale would hurt me right now.