Tag Archives: Cheech Marin

Cheech and Chong’s The Corsican Brothers (1984)

Posted on April 8, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Feeling pain from sibling.

In France during the 1840’s two brothers, Luis and Lucien (Cheech Marin, Thomas Chong), are orphaned when their fathers die during a duel. Over time they realize they can feel the other’s pain and then split up and go their separate ways at age 9 after they accidentally burn down their house. 20 years later they meet up but find that their personalities are quite different with Lucien upset about the treatment of the pheasants and hoping to start a revolution while Luis wants to avoid all confrontations. Both of them draw the ire of the Queen’s henchman Fuckaire (Roy Dotrice) forcing them go in disguise in order to visit the Queen’s two daughters (Shelby Chong, Rikki Marin).

If there was ever a movie idea that cried out impending disaster during the planning stages it was this one and how it ever went into full-fledged production is a mystery, but far more interesting to explore than anything that’s actually in the film. Possibly the two got the idea after having brief cameo’s in Yellowbeard, another period piece parody, but the red flags should’ve gone up immediately. The whole reason Cheech and Chong became such a hit was their stoner caricatures and without that there’s nothing to watch. The two have proven in previous installments of the film series to be very good at playing different characters, but they were always in support. It was the stoner comedy routine that made it a hit and getting completely away from that and even changing the time period to the 18th century was too extreme and fans of the duo’s earlier work rightly stayed away.

The only possible chance it could’ve had would’ve been if the stoners had found some sort of time machine and went back into history where their mentalities would clash with those from the different culture though even this could’ve backfired, but at least it would’ve kept some slim thread from the other films in the series versus this way where there’s no connection. Yes, it still has the two stars, but their roles here just aren’t funny or engaging. Clearly their egos had them thinking it was all about them, but it really wasn’t and without the right material these two really struggle with a lot of the attempted humor coming off as strained.

The running gag dealing with their ability to feel the other’s pain runs out of steam fast and outside of that there’s really no laughs with many of the bits seeming better suited for a TV-sitcom if even that. The ending scene where Cheech imagines what the women he’s about to marry will look when they get older is the only unique moment with everything else being borrowed from some other movie, or show, which in almost all cases did it better than here. Only Edie McClurg and Dotrice have anything that is even faintly memorable, and their presence help keeps it slightly afloat.

It’s also fun to see Rae Dawn Chong, Tommy’s daughter, in a small bit as a gypsy that they meet while at a restaurant. Rae has always seemed to have a much different mentality than her father who’s predominantly goofy while she comes-off as serious, so I liked the idea of them sharing some scenes together but wished it hadn’t been so brief and that she’d been given a bigger role.

The only good thing to come out of this is that it finally became clear to everyone involved that it was time to put the whole thing to rest and both men decided to split-up and go their separate ways. The reason for this came when the two had a falling-out during postproduction when Chong decided to dub Cheech’s wife’s lines with a voiceover expert. Both were able to find success individually and finally reunited to bring back their stoner characters in an animated film in 2013.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: July 27, 1984

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes 

Rated PG

Director: Thomas Chong

Studio: Orion Pictures

Available: DVD, 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Parody

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Still Smokin (1983)

Posted on April 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stoners travel to Amsterdam.

Cheech and Chong (Cheech Marin, Thomas Chong) travel to a film festival in Amsterdam dedicated to Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Along the way Cheech gets mistaken as Reynolds and afforded the luxurious hotel room that should’ve been for him. The two take full advantage of it by ordering expensive dinners and drinks while signing it off on the hotel bill to be paid by the promoters. The promoter (Han Man in’t Veld) learns that the real Burt and Dolly won’t be showing up leaving the entire festival in shambles, but then the two stoners decide to save it by agreeing to do an improv comedy routine live in front of an audience where the Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will be present. 

While the two may still be ‘smokin’ the film series has by this point completely lost all of its fire. My biggest complaint, which I’ve had with all of the previous installments, is that there isn’t enough story going on and had there been it would’ve been funnier. For instance, instead of the movie starting out with the two already celebrities it should’ve shown how they got into improv and learned the craft. Maybe it could’ve been because their drug dealing was no longer feasible and they were tired of constantly being harassed by the cops, so someone suggested improv as a side hustle. The two might’ve resisted at first, but then with nothing to lose decide to go on stage and try it out. To their surprise they become a hit, and this would then lead to fame and offers. Had it been done this way we would’ve at least had a plot and character development, but instead we’re just informed that they’ve become stars already, which makes it disjointed from the previous installment where they were driving around in the desert, still employed by the Arabs who wanted them to get into the adult film business.

The routines are flat almost shockingly so, as I’ve been involved in improv since moving to Austin 10 years ago and to be honest total amateurs stepping onstage for the first time and just coming up with a bit on the fly are far funnier than anything these supposed pros do here. I’m still impressed with their ability to change characters and speak in different accents, but their interplay doesn’t go anywhere. The skits as they are deals with an undercover cop (Chong) trying to arrest a drug dealer (Cheech), there’s also a gun debate between the two, a wrestling match where the two try to take on an opponent who’s invisible and yet another where they’re gay men trapped in a sci-fi movie, which may be deemed as offensive by today’s viewers as it relies heavily on gay stereotypes and mannerisms.

I remember in our improv group, like with most, somebody would usually yell out ‘scene’ when it was deemed that it had gone on too long and needed to end and I felt somebody should’ve been jumping into this movie and doing the same thing. The set-ups are okay and have potential, but don’t go anywhere that is interesting, or even slightly amusing. There are also certain bits that have no payoff at all but could’ve really used them. The best example of this is when the two continue to ‘sign-off’ on all of their elaborate room service expenses, but by the manager’s own admission, runs out of money, so who ends up paying for all those lavish meals and luxuries? I was fully expecting some moment to come where a massive bill showing of what they owed to come back to haunt them and their eyes getting all big, which could’ve been humorous, but it never happens proving how poorly thought the whole thing is. 

The final 20-minutes relies solely on concert footage of the two reenacting past skits that had been made famous from their record albums. These I found gross as the humor focuses too heavily on body fluids and stuff that would amuse only a seventh grader. I can be game for a dirty joke, if it’s clever, as anyone and have never been accused of being a prude, but when you have two grown men onstage crawling around pretending to be dogs who go through the motions of taking a shit and then smelling it, is when I checkout. Yes, the audience in the movie appears to be enjoying it, but I believe that was more from the shock value as back then some of this stuff was still considered pushing-the-envelope, but by now the edge has worn off and will be passee for many of today’s viewers. 

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 6, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Thomas Chong

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, PlutoTV, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity, Sequels

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Things Are Tough All Over (1982)

Posted on March 30, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stoners on the road.

Cheech (Cheech Marin) and Chong (Tommy Chong) have moved to Chicago and are working at a car wash, but when they accidentally destroy a customer’s car they are fired. The owners of the car wash Mr. Slyman (Cheech Marin) and Prince Habib (Tommy Chong) hire the two for another job, which is driving a limousine across the country to Las Vegas. The two stoners think it will be an easy task but are unaware that the seats of the vehicle are stuffed with illegally collected cash. The boys though are given no money for gas, so each time they have to fill up the tank they’re forced to do away with a part of the car as payment forcing them to eventually have to drive down the road with only the vehicle’s main frame left. However, along the way they give up the seat with the money in it to an old-time gas station owner (John Steadman) and when the Arab owners find out that the money is gone, they set out to kill the two, who have become lost on foot inside the burning hot desert.

Cheech and Chong’s fourth installment is a definite improvement thanks mainly to the fact that it wasn’t directed by Chong, but instead the reins were handed over to Tommy K. Avildsen who had worked as an editor on their previous two movies. The pacing is much better, the gags come about in a more rhythmic order and the scenes don’t seem to go on forever. Avildsen’s editing background clearly helps keep the pace going and it’s nice to have a bona fide plot versus just trying to string together a bunch of comedy bits like in the first three films. Here there’s a better structure and focus. Things are still quite zany and surreal, but at least weird stuff don’t just get thrown in for no reason. 

Of course, there’s still the issue of why these guys are suddenly in Chicago. When we last left them, they were hanging out in East L.A., which served as the duo’s cultural and atmospheric background. If they are to move to a different city then we need to see if occur in the movie and not just between installments and there needs to be a reason why, which is never given. As I’ve explained before in my reviews of their past movies having each new film change the settings and their living circumstances so drastically makes it seem like we’re not really seeing sequels that’s progressing things forward, but more just starting things over from scratch. Same goes with Cheech suddenly having to do voice-over narration, which they had never done before, and in this instance added little and could’ve been skipped. 

However, it’s at least funny. Watching these guys shivering in the snow is a good change of pace from they’re pampered beach surroundings. The way they destroyed the car as it goes through the wash had me laughing as did the dismantling of the limo. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, with Steve Martin and John Candy, is the most well-known movie for having two guys riding down the highway inside a skeleton vehicle, but this movie did it first and in just as hilarious way. A couple of other comic highlights are when the stoners pick-up Donna (Evelyn Guerrero), who’s hitch-hiking, and she brings along a bunch of Mexican illegals who crowd into the limo like they’re stuffing themselves into a bus. The scene where the two sit in a movie theater and watch themselves star in a porno film, that was captured without them knowing it, is another great moment. 

The best thing about the movie though is that it features C&C in dual roles as they also play the rich Arab businessmen and it’s really impressive how these two can get into other characters and speak in completely different accents. They play the stoner parts so well that you start to believe that it’s really them and they’re not acting until you witness how seamlessly they can morph into other roles. Chong had me especially surprised as for a while I didn’t think it was him, he puts on a prosthetic nose that completely changes his appearance when he plays the prince, and it took me awhile before I caught on. Having them play the so-called heavies gives the movie a much-needed bump of energy and the only thing that’s missing is seeing all four in a scene together with some sort of over-the-top confrontation between them in the desert, which could’ve easily been done using trick camera work. 

This is also the first C&C movie where the drug use gets played down. This was apparently Chong’s idea as he felt it had become too much of a prop and they needed to challenge themselves and prove to audiences that they could still be funny without it. I also liked how Chong goes through a bad drug trip while inside a restaurant as the negative side of taking drugs had never been shown in any of their previous movies, but here does at least get lightly touched upon, which helps create a better balance especially for young and impressionable viewers.  

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: August 6, 1982

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Thomas K. Avildsen

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies that take place in Chicago, Road Movies, Sequels

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Nice Dreams (1981)

Posted on March 25, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Ice cream side effect.

Cheech (Cheech Marin) and Chong (Tommy Chong) have become rich by driving around in an ice cream truck that appears to be selling ice cream, but in reality, it’s marijuana and the side effect of taking too much of it is that it can turn people into lizards. Sargent Sardenko (Stacy Keach) who has been on the two’s trail since the first installment has been smoking the weed for a while in order to get into the mindset of a dope user and thus better able to figure them out, but in the process, it has turned himself into a stoner and no better than the people he’s chasing after. When he takes Cheech and Chong’s stuff the lizard side effects become apparent, and he tries to conceal from his two deputies (Tim Rossovich, Peter Jason) who become increasingly more suspicious of his bizarre behavior. Meanwhile the duo’s fortune takes a bad turn when Chong, under the heavy influence of cocaine, signs away all of his fortune to Howie (Paul Reubans), a mental patient. In an effort to get their money back they track him down to the hospital where he resides, but Cheech gets mistaken as being a fellow patient and is soon strapped into a strait jacket and locked into a cell. 

The third installment of the series made a lot of money, $35 million at the box office, but the majority of that was in the first 2-weeks where loyal fans flocked to it, but it leveled off after that making it apparent that for general audiences it wasn’t received as well. The biggest problem for me is that it’s too disjointed. The surreal effect worked in the first two, but here it gets in the way and a more conventional storyline was needed to make it compelling. Case in point is the fact that it starts out with the two already in the business and making cash while residing in a posh, oceanside pad. I liked the messy, rundown shack that they lived in in the second film and kind of wanted to see them stay there as its extreme cluttered state made it bizarrely eye catching and like a third character. If they had to move that’s fine but show that occur in the movie as well as them attaining their newfound fortune versus them already in the new lifestyle when the film begins, which doesn’t make it seem like a continuation from where the second left off, but instead a completely new story altogether. 

I didn’t like the way the Sardenko character got portrayed here at all. In the first film he was the main source of the energy and his almost insane passion to catch the two and his by-the-book brash manner made him a fun heavy and somebody you liked to see get rattled. He was also the perfect overblown caricature of how the counterculture viewed cops during that era, so his presence had a definite point, but here all of that gets thrown out by having him just laying around smoking pot and behaving like every other stoner out there. The irony of him becoming who he despises is lost, had we seen the transition during the course of the film where he at least starts out the way we remembered him from the previous movie and then became a stoner by the end, it might’ve worked better, but as it is it seems like a whole new character connected by name only and isn’t half as fun to watch. 

There are still some funny moments like when Chong gets mistaken for Jerry Garcia while eating inside a Chinese restaurant and when Cheech runs around a hotel naked while trying to escape the clutches of a jealous boyfriend, but there’s no momentum as the plot doesn’t really seem to be progressing anywhere. Part of the reason for this is that the two relied heavily on storyboarding while keeping the script to a minimum, which in fact was only 3 1/2 pages in length and Cheech stated in interviews it was only this long because it was double-spaced. 

Improv can be wonderful if done right and there are moments here when it hits the mark, but the slow bits in-between hurt it. Had it been tied together inside a more cohesive storyline it would’ve really helped and just coming up with wacky scenarios on the seeming fly starts to wear thin.  The climactic scenes inside the asylum don’t work at all and the cameo by Dr. Timothy Leary, a friend of Cheech’s, is more annoying than funny especially with his incessant laugh and monotone delivery. Yet because this one made money, they continued to make more with their next film, which will be reviewed next, being a definite improvement. 

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 5, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 27 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tommy Chong

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980)

Posted on March 23, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Chong meets Cheech’s cousin.

Chong (Tommy Chong) and Cheech (Cheech Marin) have moved in together in a decrepit place that puts new meaning to the word pigsty. Chong doesn’t have any interest in finding a job and spends his days playing his electric guitar at an ear-splitting level that disrupts the rest of the neighborhood. Cheech does work but gets fired forcing the two to go to the unemployment office where Cheech meets-up with his old girlfriend Donna (Evelyn Guerrero). The two get-it-on inside her office, which soon gets her fired. She then calls Cheech later on and the two agree to a date at his house. To get Chong out of the way Cheech has him get together with his cousin Red (Cheech Marin). Red is getting kicked out of his hotel room for nonpayment, so Chong helps him get his stuff out including a 20-pound bag full of marijuana (in the edited TV-version it’s described as a bag full of ‘diamonds’). The two then spend the rest of the night meeting up with different people and attending various nightclubs before ultimately being kidnapped by some outer space aliens while Cheech sits home alone dreaming of his rendezvous with Donna, who to his knowledge, never gets there.

This is, in my opinion, the best installment of the Cheech and Chong film series and an upgrade from their first film. This one has the same cinema vertite approach as that one but is able to tie it in better with a more consistent atmosphere that at times becomes almost surreal. Chong travels with Red late at night and the goofy people they meet along the way becomes very similar in theme to After Hours, or at least the Los Angeles version of that and had it been amped up just a little more it might’ve been just as good and memorable but just misses the mark yet kooky enough to keep it engaging. Thomas Chong’s direction is leisurely paced, which helps add to the offbeat vibe and his character is more engaged. In the first film Chong was strung-out most of the time making him boring and giving all the funny lines to Cheech, but here it’s more equal, making it a true buddy movie. The drug use isn’t emphasized as much either and doesn’t come off like it’s promoting the use of it like in the first one.

Some of the set pieces are impressive especially their messy house, which is so dirty and unsanitary that it’s almost like an art form the way the production team got it to look that way. I’ve seen some cluttered places before in movies, but never in quite the authentic way as here as it seems great care was taken to give it a legit look and making the scenes shot inside the place both fun and jaw-dropping at the same time. There’s no doubt though that had slacker stoners with no cleaning skills moved in together it would end up looking very similar to the place here. I also enjoyed seeing their neighbor’s place, played by Sy Kramer, who’s overly efficient ways are a far cry from theirs and the confrontations between them needed to be played-up more especially after the two steal and destroy his car and while his vehicle does get returned to him it’s in a highly damaged state, but without seeing his reaction shot we miss half the comedy potential.

It’s fun seeing Cheech play dual roles, speaking in a voice that sounds entirely unlike his own and proving he’s a much more talented actor than one might initially suspect. Edie McClurg gets one of her best roles as a rich uppercrust suburbanite who with only a few drinks becomes increasingly ditzy as the night wears on. Paul Reubens is entertaining as a no-nonsense hotel desk clerk and Michael Winslow has some engaging moments doing ‘sound effects’ while inside the unemployment office and old man John Steadman laughing at every single thing Winslow does.

This film also supposedly is the final onscreen appearance of veteran actress Mary Anderson, who is probably best known for her work in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Lifeboat. Here she has an uncredited bit as an old lady inside a music store, but the woman is seen for less than two seconds and within a group of other people making it hard to fathom why she’d come out of retirement, her first acting work in 15 years, just to give off an annoyed expression for a brief second and then call it a day. The woman doesn’t really look like her either making me think that since Mary Anderson is a very common name, they got the wrong one and it’s a different actress entirely.

I also can’t end this review without mentioning a glaring continuity error in which the car that Chong and Cheech are riding in goes out of control and ends up crashing into somebody’s front yard but the fence surrounding the yard remains intact. However, for the car to have gotten onto the lawn it would’ve had to have crashed through the fence, so showing it with no damage at all makes no sense.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 18, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Tommy Chong

Studio: Universal Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Crude Comedy, Cult, Movies with Nudity, Offbeat, Sequels

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Up In Smoke (1978)

Posted on March 21, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Two stoners become friends.

Anthony (Thomas Chong) is told by his father (Strother Martin) that he must find a job, or he’ll be kicked out of the house. Anthony then hitches a ride with Pedro (Cheech Marin) and the two quickly become friends based on their mutual interest of getting high on drugs. Soon they’re involved in many adventures including being shipped off to Tijuanna. In order to get back into the country they agree to drive a van that unbeknownst to them, is made completely of hardened marijuana, which gets them quickly put on the radar of Seargent Stelko (Stacy Keach) who along with his crack team of incompetents chases the two relentlessly in order to haul them into jail and make the country’s streets safe again. 

Cheech Marin was trying to avoid the draft when he went to Canada in 1969, which is where he met Thomas Chong, already a Canadian citizen who was starting up his own improv called ‘City Works’ after seeing Second City improv in Chicago while touring as a musician. The two became a comedy team who would come out to warm up audiences before concerts, but in many cases were more popular than the bands they were introducing. This then caught the attention of producer Lou Adler, who signed them to a contract to create record albums, which were so profitable that they graduated into making a movie, which Adler directed, that recreated many of the same skits they had used during their stage routines.

The movie upon its initial release with its open drug use was considered quite controversial and lead to many critics at the time to condemn it but nonetheless proved to be a big money-maker grossing $104 million on a $2 million budget.  Today the film is seen in a much softer light and in 2024 was elected for preservation by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

I remember watching this when it came out and laughing at much of it particularly the car scene where the two smoke a giant marijuana cigarette and then get pulled over by the police. The film also does a terrific job of showing the East L.A. vibe possibly better than any other movie out there. You feel immersed in the culture and get a vivid feel of the era and setting especially at the end when the two go onstage and take part in the Battle of the Bands at the Roxy Theater. The film also has a leisurely pace, much like a French film, where it doesn’t feel the need to have a highly structured plot like in most American films and putting the emphasis more on atmosphere, which is a refreshing change of pace. Some of the supporting players, including Strother Martin who refers to his son as the ‘anti-Christ’ and Stacy Keach as the hardnosed police detective as well as his loyal, but bumbling deputy, played by Mills Watson, but without his patented mustache, who later went on to play the same type of role in the TV-show ‘The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo’, are all perfect and help add to the fun.

On the negative end the two leads and their interactions, are poor. Cheech never even bothers to learn his buddies name and just continues to refer to him as ‘man’ for the duration of the pic, which might be the intended comedy, but offers no character development. They never grow or change and instead are paralyzed in a permanent caricature. Marin is funny, and in fact the only source of the humor, but Chong is underdeveloped. He spends most of the time strung out on drugs, or going through a bad trip, to the point that he seems catatonic and allowing all the energy to go to Marin, which is fine as he makes the most of it, but it barely seems like a buddy pic when it’s only one guy getting all the laughs. 

Without sounding like somebody’s old-fashioned parent I must agree with the initial sentiment that found this movie to be glorifying drug use and thus toxic to the day’s youth. The film acts like using drugs is just harmless fun. The scene involving actress June Fairchild, who later became homeless due to her own real-life addictions, where she sniffs some Ajax by mistake thinking it’s cocaine, but has no bad reaction to it and instead gets just as an enjoyable high is a problem. Granted I realize it’s supposed to be ‘funny’, but I could see a parent being concerned that it’s sending the wrong message to impressionable teens. 

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: September 15, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 26 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lou Adler

Studio: Paramount Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Buddy Movies, Crude Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Road Movies

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