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Times of London: Super High Me reveals the secrets of a rolling stoner

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Last week, Steve Jelbert profiled Super High Me for The Times of London, highlighting the Roll Your Own Screening program. The article, titled Super High Me reveals the secrets of a rolling stoner, opens with the choice teaser:

For once the heads have got it together. A documentary that began life as an offhand gag from America’s “second-best pot comic” (as rated by the toker’s bible High Times) has made a tiny bit of cinema history.

Steve has an interesting background for a journalist, and talking with him was a gas. The article has some great POV from Doug on the background for the film.

Benson […] plays Super High Me for laughs - and all his antics are actually legal in California. “It would be difficult for anyone who has obligations to do,” he says. “So I wouldn’t break the law. I didn’t operate a motor vehicle for the 30 days of filming. The crew drove me everywhere. It’s a showbusiness thing. Someone outside showbusiness should try it and see how it works for them. But not a brain surgeon. There may be car mechanics that are already doing it, though.”

Steve grasped on to the idea of Roll Your Own as an exercise in “motivating the supposedly unmotivated.”

The film holds the record for the widest documentary opening ever. It was shown in more than 1,000 venues on the holiest day of the smoking year, April 20, 4/20 in American parlance. Supposedly named for the after-school meeting time of a gang of Californian teen-agers in the Seventies, 4:20 is now a universal smokers’ code. Knowing that the film could not get television advertising or a wide release, the producers approached the indie marketing and distribution specialists b-side, which simply made screening copies available to anyone who wanted one and could offer premises.
[…]
From college campuses to comedy clubs, sympathisers joined in. An Illinois couple showed the film at their wedding reception. A San Fran-cisco “guerilla drive-in” outfit projected it on the wall of a local store.

Check out the full article here.

Asides

  • Due to popular demand, Super High Me has been held over in San Francisco and Portland through 4/20. #
  • At 9:45am CST 4/20, "Super High Me" is currently the #29 most-searched term on Google. The top 10 includes 420, 4/20, happy 420, and april 20. No question what's on America's mind today. #

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