Cannabis 101

am i the only one who thinks that this movie is great? there's just something about it that really gets to me. that scene with alec baldwin teaching his son how to tie a tie? all the great one-liners? the fantastic soundtrack? amy smart? i'm probably gonna get alot of s*** for this, but please, if anyone else out there loves this movie, please tell me so i don't feel like i'm taking crazy pills!

Director: Michael Corrente, Script: Peter Farrelly (Novel), Michael Corrente, Bobby Farrelly, Cast: Shawn Hatosy, Tommy Bone, Alec Baldwin, Amy Smart, Jon Abrahams.

Coming of age film about a group of stoner friends from the poor neighbourhood in the blue collar town of Pawtucket, R.I. The film is told from the point of view of Timmothy Dunphy, an underachiever whose main goal in life seems to be how much dope he can smoke. His mother committed suicide when he was just a small boy so it is just him, his disabled little brother and his father. One night while high on dope Tim smashes his car into a parked cop car! His old man has to bail him out of jail. In an attempt to turn his life around, old man Dunphy makes his son cut his hair and forces him to go to a strict boarding school in Connecticut. So here we have a poor kid at a rich prep- school. While here, he meets a rich, smart, preppy co-ed totally the opposite of himself but of course, they fall in love!

This film has many funny as well as serious parts. During periods without dialog we hear many great rock songs from the 60's and 70's. The film was set in 1974. The 'bad guy' in the film is Mr. Funderberk (Timothy Crowe),the strict resident adviser or whatever you want to call him. Although a comedy, the film does have elements of drama. The scene with Tim talking to his old man about his mother is sad. His girlfriend Jane (Amy Smart) gets accepted to Brown but she gets accused of something she didn't do so her acceptance gets reversed as a result. Tim goes to Brown University and tries to see the Dean but the secretary told him he was booked the whole day and that he would have to make an appointment. Tim manages to get into the Dean's office through the window. He then proceeds to tell the Dean the truth about Jane.

This movie was based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Peter Farrelly. The Farrelly brothers are from Rhode Island and many of their movies are filmed there. I wonder how close this film parallels his real teenage years. It would be interesting to read the book.

Alec Baldwin has finally made another good movie with this little gem. Alec's great as grumpy Old Man Dunphy and this is good, but not great, story about his son's coming of age at an expensive prep school.

If you like flicks like this with great 1970's soundtracks, see Outside Providence. You'll definitely dig it.

It turned out that there was a lot more to this movie than I was anticipating when I decided to watch it. I watched it largely on the basis of Alec Baldwin, who's a pretty good actor. But at the same time I knew that the basic plot revolved around a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, who gets sent to a snooty prep school after getting in some trouble at home. I figured this would turn out to be a pretty typical teen-style comedy, with the "bad kid" heading off to the "good school" and turning it upside down, with the movie becoming little more than sex and drugs. It's true that there's a lot of weed in this, but much to my surprise there's no sex and not even a hint of nudity. It actually turns out to be a fairly complex study of relationships and commitment and the importance of taking responsibility for your actions.

Shawn Hatosy was Tim Dunphy - the kid who gets sent off to this school. We find out early on that he has a troubled home life, loyally devoted to his wheelchair bound little brother Jackie (Tommy Bone) but with a distant relationship with his father, who's played by Baldwin, and who seems to have time to do little else but play poker with his buddies. (As an aside, dad's "buddies" are played by a pretty decent cast of actors, including George Wendt and Richard Jenkins.) For much of the movie we know nothing about Tim's mother, except that she isn't there. When her absence finally gets explained, it resolves some of the issues about what's going on between Tim and his dad, and perhaps explains his dad's emotional emptiness.

The prep school part of the story is also more interesting than expected at first glance. There's some "teen cliché" stuff going on, but really less than I expected. Yes, as I noted, there's a lot of weed smoked over the course of an hour and a half, and there's the requisite "evil" adult character, in this case represented by My. Funderburk, played by Timothy Crowe, but even Funderburke (while a bit ridiculous at times) is less over the top than most similar characters in teen movies. As I said, there's neither sex nor nudity in this, but there is a surprisingly well portrayed romance between Tim and Jane (played by Amy Smart) - a girl from the right side of the tracks. It's one of those unlikely and somewhat unbelievable romances that nevertheless worked in this case, and I thought that Hatosy and Smart were good together. Ultimately, of course, what hijinks there were at the school leads to problems, and Tim has to decide whether to take responsibility for his actions or not, and the revelation of why Tim's mother is absent even leads ultimately to a sort of warming in the relationship between Tim and his dad.

This actually turns out to be a much more interesting movie than one might anticipate. In fact, although it's set in a prep school and is at times humorous, I wouldn't really call this a teen comedy at all. It's got too much going on for that; it raises too many issues to be dismissed as just that. It's surprisingly well done. (7/10)

Outside Providence seems like just another low budget, goofy high school comedy from the preview, but it is really a good movie. Timothy Dunphy is the lovable high school screw-up whose father sends him off to boarding school after he is involved in an accident with a parked police cruiser while smoking pot with his loser buddies. He develops an unlikely romantic relationship with the stunningly beautiful Jane Weston (Amy Smart) at the repressive school while fighting off the disciplinary excesses of the school faculty. This seems like the premise of the kind of ridiculous high school comedies that characterized the 80s (Screwballs, Ski School, etc.), but Outside Providence works well because it has heart.

Timothy Dunphy is sent off unwillingly to this hellish school, and it turns out to be a really eye-opening experience for him. He develops a lot of insight about himself, his friends, his romantic endeavors, and his family. The story is not exactly something that is entirely original, but the presentation of the film and the acting are extremely good, and the end result is a great comedy. Alec Baldwin delivers a hilarious performance as the emotionally closed-off father, regularly referring to his own son as "dildo." He steals every scene he is in, and he should be particularly noted for his ability to give such a convincing portrayal of an emotionless, macho father and still be convincing in the emotionally tense scene between him and Timothy where he describes Tim's late mother. That scene in particular is unexpectedly intense.

Outside Providence is a good comedy. It does not resort to tasteless sexual fourth-grade humor to pull it along (which is one of the biggest problems with teen comedies lately - American Pie, Scary Movie (there was no hope for that one from the beginning), There's Something About Mary, and Road Trip, which should have been a great movie). Instead, Outside Providence focuses on character development and a good story, and tops it all off with a healthy amount of comedy in the form of the cast, the characters, the script, dialogue, and pretty much everything else. Probably one of the best elements of this movie is that it is not a relentless comedy. It doesn't grab desperately for a laugh every second of the way, but instead it rounds out the content with drama, romance, skillful comedy, as well as good writing, directing, and acting. Outside Providence is badly underrated and should not be missed.