Get Out of My Room

Cheech and Chong made a handful of rambling hysterical movies, many featuring unknown actors who later became famous (PeeWee Herman for one).

This is not one of them.

In fact, for the most part, this movie appears to be totally adlibbed with more misses than a Miss America pageant.

I guess they lost their mojo somewhere along the way.

To be fair, this film is something of a vehicle that wraps around four songs they were releasing. They don't write good songs either.

I counted only one funny line in the entire thing. It doesn't work in print because you need the visual. It's a scene where Cheech is talking to this guy and asks him how much he makes. He says, "Four dollars a day, but it's alright, man. No one else will hire me because I don't have an upper lip."

This movie is a mix of music video clips (some that were shown on TV at the time of it's creation) and interviews with the boys.The interviews are funny in a weird sort of way and very easy to lose the plot of. The clips are funny and inventive. The lyrics were good and the visual entertaining. Four songs are featured they are : "Get out of my room" - The clip has Cheech as a english rock star playing a guitar shaped like a bird, whilst he is wearing shoulder pads and a viking helmut with cow horns. The clip is inside a gym that is being used by an aerobics class and some basket-ballers at the same time as the two stars are doing the video. "I'm not home right now" is run on the joke that an answering machine can't be answered because of various actions happening on screen. "Love is Strange" features aliens watching the boys do silly things on screen. "Born in East LA" is the best of the four and has Cheech sent over the Mexican border and getting back.

Not a bad show but not really what you'd expect if you had wanted "Up in Smoke" or "Nice Dreams".

The film definitely feels like a behind the scene documentary of the comedy duo Cheech and Chong. It's a very random movie - random things going on. I like it - it's different. Not the duo's best, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Get out of my room is not a stage comedy act, nor is it one of the feature films. A few of their insane songs are sung in this crazy movie.

I will say this is a film for diehard Cheech and Chong fans - it's not something for the general audiences.

Watch the movie if you like Cheech and Chong - otherwise pass on this one.

Pairs well with any of Cheech and Chong's movies.

8/10.

Get Out of My Room (1985)

** (out of 4)

Fair mockumentary from Cheech Marin has him directing and co-starring with Tommy Chong as they play themselves being followed by a "reporter" doing a story on their new album. We see interviews with them, interviews with fans and there's also four music videos. GET OUT OF MY ROOM really isn't a good or entertaining picture and I think for the most part it's mainly going to appeal to C&C fans who have to see everything the duo did. With that said, it's certainly far from a "bad" movie but at the same time the duo simply has so many better pictures to watch over this one. I think the highlight of the film is the video for "Born in East L.A.," which is obviously a take off on Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.." I think fans of C&C as well as Springsteen will get a kick out of the video as it spoofs the city and Marin growing up there. The weakest aspect of the film are actually the fake interviews with Cheech and Chong as they simply aren't that funny and in fact they're not nearly as entertaining as some of the questions aimed at the fans.

Lets face it, Cheech and Chong were never that funny. Don't get me wrong, I liked 'Up In Smoke' a lot, and for me it's still the quintessential smoking film, but they pretty much plundered their albums for a lot of the material and I guess just kind of ran out of comedy mileage afterwards, since they didn't really produce anything else worth watching for the rest of their careers. Ok, maybe 'Things are Tough all Over' deserves another look, although those arabs got old real fast (and not in a Beetlejuice way, sadly), but 'Next Movie and Nice Dreams' are very mediocre and the abysmal non-movies 'Still Smokin' and 'The Corsican Brothers' (shudder) deserve only to be shown to convicted War Criminals.

This was the last project they wrote together, and it looks like the parting of the ways came not a moment too soon. Essentially it's a documentary style film of C&C farting around on absolutely no budget (the studio execs were obviously getting a bit wary), interviews with some C&C fans (a worrying lack of basic cognition here), and some truly dreadful music. The gimmicky 'Born in East LA' (which became the basis for a FILM ITSELF, my Godfathers) is the best song to be found, but be prepared to spin through Cheech's ever infurating Ian Rotten character and the truly, truly dire 'I'm not home right now', a strong contendor for both the worst song of the 1980's (and thats up against some pretty stiff competition) and the worst Music Video OF ALL TIME. Flee, Flee, Run Away!!!!!!!!!!