Super High Me: Skip the Movie, Score Your Own Laughs

Red Envelope/Screen Media

His doctor (right) looks in vain for some Super jokes in Benson's throat.

Details

Runs at Admiral, Fri., April 11–Thurs., April 17. Rated R. 89 minutes.

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More About

• Doug Benson
• Morgan Spurlock
• Zach Galifianakis
• Documentary Films
• Medicine

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Stoner comic Doug Benson is nothing if not scrupulous about crediting the inspiration for this cold-turkey/baked-turkey documentary—Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me. From an offhand joke is an herbal premise born: First he'll quit toking for a month, then he'll wake and bake for 30 days straight—abetted by a kitchen device called "the Volcano," which resembles a coffee grinder attached to a vacuum-cleaner bag—and maintain his buzz during all his working, waking hours. (He performs at Bumbershoot 2006 at the midpoint of this THC odyssey.) Of course his job is being a stand-up comedian, not operating heavy equipment, so how difficult can this challenge be? With a nod to Spurlock (who had legitimate points to make), Benson takes various medical tests with bud and without, not changing much in mental acuity. Stumbling toward political relevance, he visits a medical-marijuana dispensary made possible by California's Proposition 215 but targeted by the D.E.A. Even so, though he interviews a few deserving, pain-afflicted subjects, Benson is hardly on the barricades of this debate. He doesn't specify if some physician actually wrote him a prescription, when his chief medical complaint is that he's not very amusing, stoned or not. Meeting his more famous colleagues backstage (Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, etc.), they're too polite to say the obvious: "You're still beating that Super Size Me joke to death? Dude, that'll never get you an HBO special." Neither will this documentary. Next time, Benson would be advised to try the great white drug that fueled the '80s comedy boom. Cocaine might actually help him score some laughs.