Guns & Weed: The Road To Freedom (MVD DVD)/Mac & Devlin Go To High School: The Movie (2012/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)/Square Grouper: The Godfather Of Ganja (2011/Magnolia DVD)

 

Picture: C/B-/C+     Sound: C/B-/C+     Extras: D/D/C     Main Programs: C-/D/C+

 

 

Ever notice for all those complaining about drugs being illegal, you always get laughs and grins from those who are advocates of marijuana every time they try to argue for its legality.  Medical uses aside, people will find and use all of its variant versions as much as they can get away with it and afford it, but as a culture, it is beyond played out and obvious beyond belief in its counterculture place.  The 1970s are over, so any “celebrations” seem retro and tired, like a user overdoing it, as the following shows.

 

 

First we have the propaganda film Guns & Weed: The Road To Freedom co-directed by Michael W. Dean and Neema Vedadi, making the argument of why it should be legal.  The amount of excuses to use and silly arguments with silly footage makes this a spoof of itself immediately and never stops.  I was bored, unconvinced and never cared for one moment as this rambled on and on and on.  Just go do what you’re going to do and leave the rest of us alone.  An unnecessary, 11.5 minutes Making Of featurette is also included, but is as boring as the rest of this mess.

 

 

Even worse is Dylan Brown’s would-be comedy Mac & Devlin Go To High School: The Movie (2012) which is really, really bad and has some of the worst jokes on the subject ever, but yet keeps toping itself in awfulness throughout as new wrap star Wiz Khalifa is joined in “high” school (get it?  Yawn!!!) by Snoop Doggy Dog back to school as a student at about 50 years old???   No wonder our education system is failing us, but this is a bigger failure as Khalifa seems to want to commit career suicide (his actual high school altered its name since he left) and Dogg tries harder to be hip than Madonna could ever be accused of being.

 

You had better be using the highest-grade of drugs in the history of ultraviolent gang wars to even begin to find this worth your time, as Mike Epps and the rest of us are wasted in a while other way throughout.  This Blu-ray should be used for skeet shooting.  An audio commentary (one of the worst ever) by the director and two leads trying to explain this mess is the only extra.

 

Wow!  This is Bad!!!  (And NO, not in that likable way.)

 

 

Finally we have Billy Corben’s Square Grouper: The Godfather Of Ganja (2011) about the smuggling culture of the 1970s and how no wars or violent gang fights had erupted yet as only a few calm, smart people controlled the growing illegal industry.  The title is about the square bundling of the drug was packaged in this heyday a not so long time ago.

 

It is informative and tells us some major stories of how this somewhat underworld worked then, but it only has 100 minutes to do so and only covers so much.  It is well done, but cannot and does not includes some other key stories about the secret history of the drugs rise in use and popularity are thoroughly as it could.  It is still well done and the only watchable thing on this list.

 

Extras include Music Videos (?), Deleted Scenes, trailers for this and other Magnolia releases, two featurettes on the music here, Touring The 10,000 Islands and a feature length audio commentary track by Director Corben and Producer Lindsey Snell.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Guns is weak, badly taped, has flaws and imperfections throughout and can be sloppy, while the same on Grouper is more professional, but has more than its share of vintage analog tape footage and even a little archival film.  The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Devin is far from the best Blu-ray you will ever see and has no demo shots, has bad digital effects and some of the worst animation in HD history.  What a waste.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 on Guns is the weakest here as well with endless audio location issues, distortion and bad sound editing throughout, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Grouper is well edited, but has more than a few monophonic moments and less location audio issues, yet is more professionally finished.  It is closer to what we expect from a documentary, however.  The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on Devin is better by default, but not by much as the recording is flat, restricted and with audio too much in the center channel and the mix towards the front speakers, there is a surprising lack of soundfield for a project staring two names usually known for music.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo