HARVARD?

One of the best things about DVDs is their capacity for all kinds of cool shit above and beyond the movie. Behind-the-scenes docs with stunt people and FX geeks are awesome, because anyone who has spent any time in the arts knows that the techies are the people you want to have a beer with, not only because they know how to do cool shit, but because they've got all the good stories about dipshit creatives. They don't generally share those on the DVD features promoting the movie that's paying their beer budget, but their enthusiasm for blowing shit up or breaking the Guinness record for most times flipping a car makes for a well-spent fifteen minutes watching their featurette.

My favorite innovation wrought by the DVD, though, is the audio commentary. Sure, there are a lot of lame-o commentary tracks out there, with Dane Cook or Shaun Levy rhapsodizing about what craft services had for lunch the day they filmed that scene, or just yammering generic platitudes about how the crew of Big Momma's House 2 are true professionals etc etc etc. But hey, if you listen to the commentary track for shit like that, you fucking deserve to hear a bunch of crap.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as “good movies have good commentary tracks,” because that's not always the case. Generally, for a good commentary track, you'd like to have the director him/herself onboard, provided said director is good with the verbiage. Kevin Smith, for instance, gives good commentary track because he's a really funny guy and very smart. Francis Coppola's commentary tracks for the Godfather trilogy are gold, because the man may be nuts, but he's fucking brilliant. PT Anderson, ditto, nucking futs, really smart.

Steven Soderbergh does something I like, where he brings in either the writer or some random dude like Mark Romanek and they sit there and have a really good conversation about movies while the movie they're supposed to be talking about plays almost unnoticed in the background (the greatest moment in Soderbergh commentary track history happened when Lem Dobbs went apeshit on Soderbergh for deviating from the script to The Limey while Soderbergh insisted with beatific smugness that his not following the script actually made the movie good).

John Carpenter, too, he just sits there with Kurt Russell, smokes cigarettes, drinks whiskey, and lets you know about MEN AND HOW MEN DO THINGS BECAUSE BY THE BRIGHT NORTH STAR THEY ARE MEN. I need to get more John Carpenter DVDs just to listen to the commentary; all I still have is the VHS.

Occasionally, the director can't do the commentary. Some, like Orson Welles, play the old, stale “I'm dead” argument, leaving it to Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Ebert to do separate commentary tracks for Citizen Kane (amazingly, even though Welles lived in Bogdanovich's house, Ebert's track is still better. Don't fuck with Roger Ebert, now). The Wachowski brothers hired three film critics who hated The Matrix sequels to do commentary tracks for the box set, and got two philosophers who loved the trilogy to do another one (I sure hope Cornel West and Ken Wilber didn't lose their tenure for being so high on that damn track . . .)

Sometimes, dangerously, they let the actors do the commentary. That usually ends in disaster, because without the proper programming, judicious application of tasers, cajoling, blackmail, and bribery using cocaine and hookers, actors are not mammals. (Hey, it's okay, I can talk about my own people this way.) The occasional actor, usually one with writing, producing, directing, or some other useful skill, acquits himself fairly well. This, however, is rare, making it very odd that the greatest commentary track in the history of awesome was done by two actors.

Method Man and Redman (aka Meth and Red, Meth and the Funk Doc, Tical and Funk Doctor Spock, Shakwon and Reggie, Starsky and Hutch, et al) first became acquaintances due to some smartass at Def Jam noticing that their names both ended in “man” and sending them out on tour together. The two marijuana enthusiasts became fast friends and before long were making an album together. Blackout! is a good God almighty party record, featuring nimble flows from the terrible twosome as well as from an army of guest stars, backed by sharp, pop-savvy beats. And, of course, as one would expect from Meth's Wu-Tang background, the skits are great. The album was very popular, and in fairly short order some doofus at Universal decided, hey, let's put these guys in a movie.

How High—named after the first song Tical and the Funk Doc wrote together—was released in 2001 to atrocious reviews and near-complete indifference to all except massive stoners and huge fans of the stars. As the latter, I was intrigued by the prospect of the movie, but as the former, I forgot it had come out. I wouldn't have thought any more of it except a few months later, I (bizarrely) had $20 I could blow on an impulse buy and picked up the DVD.

The movie really sucks. Meth isn't a terrible actor. He was pretty good on Oz, and he was pretty tremendous as Cheese on The Wire, but he isn't quite good enough to have anything other than a few isolated moments in How High. Doc, however, really ain't much of a thespian. He has a lot of weird energy, which makes for a few funny moments, but most of the legit comedy is provided by the supporting cast. Dudes like Obba Babatunde, Fred Willard, and Hector Elizondo know what to do in a shitty movie, from extensive experience, and they're all solid. Everybody else pretty much sucks. And, I'm sorry to be That Guy, but the goddamn movie takes place at Harvard and they shot it at UCLA. You're tellin' me Red and Meth can't blaze one on the Charles? It was directed by Bob Dylan's kid, which is a legit weird credential, but not enough to make this a Good Bad Movie.

However. The commentary track is tremendous. It is as simple as this: sit down two potheads who make their living arranging words cleverly, whose rep as a duo is that they're funny, and let them rip on that dumbass movie their agents talked them into making. And make sure they've got weed.

“Yo, this is Method Man right here.”
“And yo, this is Redman right here. Turn the lights down in this motherfucker.”
“Bout to light this weed up and get into this How High shit, this commentary if you will.”
“So sit back, enjoy, and smoke a fat one with your boys!”

The lads introduce each of the supporting actors, with a gnomic “no comment” from Meth re: Jeffrey Jones. Redman observes that the first scene really shows Meth's range, causing some laughter. When their friend who later dies and provides the ashes that they sprinkle on their weed to make them smart enough to pass their entrance exam (don't ask) shows up, Meth gets off a good one for anyone who remembers back in the days:

“With a fucked up haircut and a unibrow . . . no disrespect to Al B. Sure, but ya know.”

They talk a lot of shit about stuff like hitting marks, continuity annoyances, the number of takes Jesse Dylan shot, and incompetent background players, which would be boring as hell from just about anybody else. Especially anybody else as fucking lit as Meth and Red are. But something about the track feels like you're hanging out with the two of them watching the movie. (And not worrying about whether they think you're lame). You also, don't get this kind of candor from most commentary tracks:

“Nigga spillin his drink on me in the club, nigga, I didn't write the script, motherfucker, I didn't have nothin' to do with that shit.” --Meth

“All that weed is fake as a fuck too, in case y'all wonderin'” --Meth, his voice dripping with disgust
“We still tried to smoke it . . .” --Red, plaintive.

“I really farted too, but that wasn't the real sound.” --Red
“Nasty mahfucka . . .” --Meth

“We're not actually thespians or whatever.” --Meth

“This is the part I was discussin with Doc the other day, and say I'm a ghost ghost ghost . . . and then when we get to the end of the scene he tries to walk throught he car and he can't walk through the car, and he don't know, he ain't figured it out yet . . . that . . . my . . . never mind, I forgot where I was goin with that shit . . . but just so you know, if he's tryin to act like he's a ghost, how come he don't know that my friend is a ghost? And that part right there looks mad cheesy when the bus hit his ass.” --Meth

“They wouldn't let me say 'white people' . . .” --Red, sighing

“There was a lot of white girls with big asses up there,” --Red, talking about UCLA.

“Look at the size of . . . the melons,” --Red, referring to breasts

“How you gonna call somebody a Sammy Davis haircut Junior havin' ass motherfucker?” --Meth, critiquing Red's ad-lib skills

“That's as close to white as I can sound, man.” --Meth

“This guy right here, I seen him in a new video for, uh . . . somebody . . . uh . . . Dave Matthews Band, as a matter of fact. Dude was killin' it too.” --Meth, talking about some co-star

“Look at the chemistry, we didn't even look at each other when we said that shit. You better come with these next scripts, and stop playin' with your frogs, man.” --Meth

“And in comes trouble.” --Meth, as he and Red walk into the room onscreen

(There's also, about 5000 contenders for “worst joke in the movie”)

“Now I studied four years at Julliard to learn that slap!” --Meth, after a particularly stilted slap

“He was shootin this shit a whole lotta times . . .” --Red, bitching about the director again

“Everybody be quiet now, this is where I show my intelligence.” ---Meth

“Now that cough is fake is a fuck, Doc.” --Meth
“Yeah, but you the only one who could tell.” --Red
(Laughter)

“There was supposed to be more to this scene, the paintings were supposed to come to life, but there wasn't the budget for that shit.” --Meth

(Meth tells a long-ass story about how the first idea they came up with was about smoking a blunt with someone with a cold sore and not wanting to pass it to him.)

(About a scene with his love interest) “This really shows range [note, this is about the 10,000th time the word “range” has been said] and I feel like I should get a love scene with Halle Berry, where I could stick it to her. You know, with all due respect to my wife and shit. Shit, if I was a woman, I'd give me the pussy right here!” --Meth

“I want to give the guys who did the props mad props!” --Meth, self-aware about how dorky that sounds

“I wish I could do this scene again so I could really hit my head on that table. I would knock myself the fuck out just give y'all a good laugh.” --Meth

“That shit ain't funny to me.” --Meth, about some joke.

“I couldn't even wear a Yankee cap because the Yankees didn't want to associate themselves with a weed smokin' movie.” --Meth

“Now this lady here is dope as hell, you can catch her on the Reba McEntire show. She done got herself a job!” --Meth

“Cypress Hill showed up for one day, smoked the whole set up, and broke the fuck out!” --Meth

“A lotta brothers out there assistant pimps . . . a lotta fake-ass pimps out there.” --Meth

“That coughing you hear in the background is not sound effects or special effects, ladies and gentlemen, that's actual coughing.” --Meth, explaining him and Red coughing on their latest commentary joint.

“That fuckin donkey would not lay still for SHIT.” --Meth
“That's why the girl had to lay with it.” --Red
“We almost went into overtime on that shit.” --Meth

“Everybody wanna be politically correct with a weed smokin' movie. How you gonna be politically correct with a weed smokin' fuckin' movie?” --Meth

“This shit was fuckin' DISGUSTING right here.” --Meth, referring to a scene where someone, sloppy high, eats something gross

“And now we come to the last leg.” --Meth, at the beginning of act three

“They changed that scene up so much, I'm just lost right there.” --Meth

(Later) “We had so much trouble filmin this shit, because we didn't have an ending. So pretty much all the dialogue you're hearing now was written there that day. That was some Town and Country shit. Warren Beatty? I feel your pain, baby.” --Meth

“I think I was high, I don't know.” --Meth, explaining how he drew a blank on his character's motivation

“That's when I was like, Jesus Christ. Bong? For real? Son of a bitch, where's my $8.50? For real.” --Meth, in re: his movie girlfriend's archeology project turning out to be an 18th century bong

“Who are these motherfuckers?” --Meth, reading the credits.

(Final words)
“I hope you paid for this shit, you son of a bitch.” --Meth
“And smoke a whole lotta weed, ya fuckers.” --Red
“Now hit the fuckin rewind button or bring it back to menu and hit 'play movie' ya fuckin idiots.” --Meth
“And take a shit. Now send some weed to Jersey Films!” --Red

And with that, they're done. Now, I'm willing to entertain the possibility that to properly appreciate this commentary track, one needs to be high too. But I don't know. The movie itself is the kind of thing you need to be high as shit to appreciate, but this commentary track is meta brilliance. Two guys smoking weed and talking shit about a movie where they play two guys who smoke weed and talk shit. And, in a weird way, some insight into the process by which hack piece of shit movies are made is derived.

So, sure, it's not one of your Criterion commentary tracks that's like trying to swallow an enyclopedia without chewing. But it's fun, and any commentary track that's better than its movie is impressive in my book.