Bongwater

I have a soft spot for the Stoner genre - I can't help it. And, unlike some of the posters about this film, I really enjoyed "Half-Baked" - it was good-natured and humble. Though the cover for "Bongwater" gave me impression of those indie movies given a shamelessly misleading advertising "angle" by companies eager to earn back even a third of the money they spent on it, I took a chance because I like Jack Black and Luke Wilson and there's always room for one more stoner movie. Bad idea. Not a stoner movie (the drug sequences are uniformly embarrassing), not a comedy, and never affecting, "Bongwater" stinks; blighted with a strained script, unfocused direction, and the kind of nebulous yet righteously sadistic morality that belongs in a Joel Schumacher opus, not an indie film. Even more disturbing, this movie shook up my opinions about actors I'd always thought I liked. Luke Wilson, so laconically charming in Wes Anderson's movies, is wooden here, the usually amusing Andy Dick is boring, and comic god Jack Black appears in only one scene that even begins to make proper use of him. And then there's Alicia Witt - I liked her OK in "Cecil B. Demented," but her performance in "Bongwater" is so excruciatingly pretentious, bratty, and shrill (she must have attended the Liza Minelli school of acting) that I pledge to never again watch another movie in which she appears.

Bottom line: I'd take the most braindead of stoner comedies over this tone-deaf, small-minded, and almost utterly unfunny movie. Even if you're a Tenacious D completist, think hard before you spend money on "Bongwater."

I saw a screening of this film in its uncut version 3 months ago... (I intern at the company that aquired it and is going to distribute it.) It has some great *realistic* caricatures of potheads and all other sorts of drug users and such... Luke Wilson is okay, but his subtlety doesn't quite work here. The story is as meandering as its subject matter, much like the finer, non-Hollywood stoner films. Amy Locane is pretty good, (why didn't her career ever fly?) Other cast are frighteningly familiar caricatures of neo-hippy-ites. Final cut will probably be better than what I saw, as I hear that many long, boring segments are being cut from the film. People in on the scene, or stoned at the time, will enjoy the film a lot. Doesn't, however, have mass-audience appeal at all.

When I first saw the trailer for Bongwater, I thought, "This will be the best movie of all time." I really did think that. This could not be further from the truth. Quite frankly, I'm not quite sure what I saw. I would analogize it to cotton candy(or Chinese food, just hear me out). I ate a lot, but it just kind of dissolved. I know that I watched this movie, but what was it that I saw? Was I too deep for it or was it too deep for me?? Unfortunately, this is another case in the grand tradition of "Mr. Wrong" and "Dude, Where's My Car" where a trailer writes a check that it's ass simply cannot cash. My advice is to watch the trailer continously- it's hilarious on so many levels. Watch the "Mr. Wrong" one as well to really get a taste of unbridled potential gone horribly awry.

Seemed to go nowhere in particular. Though, the 80s party at the end was hilarious. Get your groove on Jeremy! The rest of the movie was somewhat hopeless and the end with the spaceship. Give me a break! Why would he ever go back to that Serena any way.

Saw this at the Temecula Valley Film Festival last week. One of the best ones there. Luke Wilson is great, Alicia Witt is *tops*. Looking for more of her as soon as possible. I know someone exactly like the character she plays here. Very funny, very cool movie.