Sometimes, you end up awake much later than you intended, whether it’s because one of the kids are sick, or you’re sick, or you just can’t sleep, or the gremlins in the walls won’t stop with all the damned racket, or well, [insert insomnia excuse here]. Whatever, you get the idea. Traditionally, whenever I find myself in such circumstances, I go looking for a movie. Specifically, one of two kinds: a) the kind that’s only good for a casual relationship, that won’t have you sitting at the edge of your seat or mad if you dose off and miss something, or b) the kind that you’ve seen so many times, you don’t have to really watch it to know what’s going on.
For example, I napped through “The Hunt for Red October” so many times in college, I can still quote it twenty years later*.
Anyway, for whatever reason, last weekend I found myself in the Late Night Holding pattern. I’d already watched the “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter“** Blu-ray that Netflix was kind enough to send, and should have been right off to bed. But bed wasn’t in the cards for me.
After a quick rundown of the channel Guide in search of something, anything that might entertain me for a brief period, I found “Your Highness“. My understanding of this little nugget was that it was a kind of raunchy stoner romp through traditional adventure quest tropes. I remember thinking, when it was at the theaters, “Why would anyone pay theater prices to see Harold and Kumar go to Middle Earth?”
But then I don’t know why anyone pays theater prices to see Harold and Kumar do anything, so I guess there’s that.
Long story short, I hadn’t seen Your Highness and had largely no intention of ever seeing Your Highness. But at 2:00 AM on a sleepless Saturday night, what could it hurt?
Your Highness
Your Highness is exactly the movie I expected it to be, and not at all that movie. Sure, it’s “Stoners Go-A-Questing and Learn Lessons While Trying Bring the Ha-Ha.” Turns out, the immature filmgoer of my youth is still with me, because I was entertained. Disturbed occasionally, but entertained, dick jokes and all. Also, for a stoner joint, the cast! James Franco (not A-list, but a money-maker), Zooey Deschanel (everybody <3’s The New Girl), and Natalie-frakkin-Portman (um…she has an Oscar). Dunno how, but the casting hooked me long enough to realize the movie is just stupid enough to be alright.
If you’ve got some time to waste, perhaps in the wee hours of the morning, I can think of worse ways to waste it.
Pud’n
*”I would like to have seen Montana”
**I intended for Abe and the Bloodsuckers to get the 100-words treatment next, but Your Highness stole their thunder. Fear not, I’ll get to them soon enough.
Puddintopia 