Have you seen the movie, MaryAnn? It's actually a satire of racial stereotypes and the state of the country today. A satire disguised with weed jokes, which allows it to get away with some pretty sharp gags. I don't particularly blame you for not expecting anything other than disgustingness and exploitation based on the title, but I have a pretty low tolerance for mindlessly offensive humor and I didn't see much of it in this movie. It's far from perfect, but I think you might even like it, if you give it a fair try.

Oh, Jesus Christ, SHUT UP. Just SHUT... UP.

Liberals can't even laugh at liberal humor anymore. Watch out, Jon Stewart!

Yeah, it's a satire - not a very sharp one, but then it's not intended for a sharp crowd. The whole point, though, is to point out and mock the racism, duplicity and ineffectiveness of the War on Terror. I can't see how anyone could read it straight.

Yeah, and remember that old Kubrick movie that made fun of nuclear war? What's so funny about everyone dying? Nothing, that's what. I can't believe people think these things are funny.

Sorry, but I think the vast masses of homophobia cancel out the rather weak, toothless political satire. Feeble effort, guys.

If I had to sum up the mindset behind Gitmo and the "War on Terror", I couldn't do much better than to call it "human idiocy". Horrible as it all is, a lot of people don't have a problem with it, and a good satire (not that Harold and Kumar is a good satire, but it's an attempt)is a good way of pointing out to those people that the whole thing is STUPID. From there, it's a pretty easy leap to discovering that it's also immoral, racist, etc., and an abomination.

Agreed: Gitmo and the War on Terror are excellent examples of human idiocy. But slapping the term "satire" on something doesn't make it so. Anymore so than having Harold and Kumar visit a concentration camp would automatically be satirical.

First, what kind of respectable film critic bashes a film they haven't seen?...

Oh yea, we are talking about MaryAnn here

You haven't seen it?

I assumed you had, since you were discussing content, especially since you linked the article to your "recent screenings" list.

It was unclear to me, yes. And I didn't see any mention of that in this article (I looked before I posted), except in one of the responses.

I'm not making an accusation - sorry if it came across that way - just providing some feedback, FWIW. With hindsight, I should have used email.

I have already seen the film, and I'll admit that does color my perception. But I have honestly tried very hard to imagine how someone could view the ads for this film and reasonably conclude that it approves of Gitmo and the War on Terror. I ultimately concluded that I couldn't really see it because I wasn't that freaking stupid.

You've beginning to sound like one of the conservative bloggers you often oppose, MaryAnn.

I'll admit this movie isn't exactly my cup of tea, either, but it seemed obvious from the trailer that the movie is making fun of racial profiling and the type of kneejerk jingoisim that would see Harold and Kumar as a threat just because of their ethnic background.

And there are more than a few people on the Libertas site who hated the trailer for the exact opposite reason you did: because they felt it trivialized the War on Terror.

So you had no problem with "Juno" making fun of Asians who talk funny but you had a problem with this?

You're usually better than that, MaryAnn.

Spend the $10 bux to see this film and you'll find out MJ, that this movie isn't worth the effort you put into typing that.

It's only half as good and funny as WhiteCastle and seeing as you hated that film, you'll REALLY hate this one.

Trust me, even potheads like me didn't like it.

And by the way, they spend less than 4 mins in Gitmo.
Nothing but raunchy jokes. Absolutely no satire.

Oh, there most certainly is satire. Not very good satire, but it's there, and it certainly tries very hard to demonize the Bush administration, but only in the most obvious, heavy-handed way. It's not very funny. But it's certainly anti-Bush administration (but not, weirdly, anti-Bush).

It also ends with Kumar declaring his love to his ex-girlfriend in the middle of her wedding. This needs to stop. I'm sick of supposedly raunchy stoner comedies that turn out to be chick flicks at heart (lookin' at you, Apatow. You too, "Wedding Crashers").

Sock it to 'em MJ. The losers that try to dismiss you as a ranting liberal looney are, of course, much more insidious. 'Cause they're ignorant. Those that argue HKEGB is the sort of movie that lampoons the problem and therefore gets people thinking about it is completely absurd. Wake up fools, this is your country... and people like Australia and UK citizens (yep, do your research) are being used in Bush's sick campaign to motivate people against any kind of ideology and free speech, and that hoary ol' chestnut, promoting political goodwill and inclusiveness. Phew. You guys probably didn't understand any of the above. This liberal is going to sleep now. :)

"Maybe the film is trying to be anti-Bush, but it's not being marketed that way."

Okay, trying for civility on my part. Anyway, the trailer shows Harold and Kumar being thrown into Guantanamo by moronic, hysterically racist government stooges. I do not see the part that leads to the conclusion, "but everything else about Gitmo is fine."

Tim Duncan: You seem to be missing some kind of transition between your third and fourth sentence that would make your message coherent. Also, I'm a Knicks fan, so go to hell.

I don't think Harold & Kumar trivializes Guantanamo Bay BECAUSE it spends such little time there. While that sounds like it blows it off, had the movie staged long, drawn-out set pieces inside the prison, surely that would make more of a joke of the place than spending five minutes there and mentioning it by name in the title.

And the joke IS about human idiocy, the idiocy of the character played by Rob Corddry, who undermines Americans at every turn in an attempt to make the country terrorist-free. More to the point, it's definitely not at the expense of civil rights and human decency, because the whole idea is that everyone deserves to have it.

On the other hand, it IS a gross-out movie and I doubt you would enjoy it but I would say its crimes against current events are less than you would expect.

OK, so I pretty much hated most of the Zap-Ow! movies, but this one...this one...

was hilarious in the silly way they are - I'm still shouting "Fuck you! Donuts are AWESOME!" in meetings..

yet, it was seriously uncomfortable, in the bone-deep uncomfy way that all the serious Brat-Pittish movies were not. It was a stoner movie that was uncomfortable from the neurons down. The setup jokes fell flat in a way that I haven't experienced in any documentary or CRASH or whatever movie of the week and I have the sneaking suspicion that the jokes in this movie weren't really meant to be funny - because they were not funny.

I have to say this was the weirdest experience I've ever had in a theater. It started out as a bunch of people showing up for a silly movie, and we all sort of shot the shit beforehand that could have come right out of a Kevin Smith movie (a dialog about Scarlett Johansson, virginity, girlfriends, time and soul) and ended up a silent draw.

And then the movie started and we laughed - but not very often.

The best part was that it acknowledged the sexual power of intelligence - in the end, the guy wins the girl because he's written a poem about - of all things - love and math. Love and math. If only all things were so weird and awesome! When was the last time you saw a movie where a woman was won over via a combination of poetry and math? And Kumar recites it with crazy passion. It's heady nerd nirvana.