Get Out of My Room

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!!!!!!!!!!

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".

Cheech and Chong's Get Out of My Room is the last thing the duo wrote, directed, produced and composed together (not acted though, they have teamed up in After Hours, Ferngully, Far Out Man, an episode of Nash Bridges and a very memorable and funny episode of South Park). And while this is the type of film that might let down those C & C fans that always toke up before the film (to say this critic does that would be incriminating, but just to save face I'll just say I know where you C & C fans are coming from), it is still funny. Sure not as funny as the triumphs Things Are Tough All Over, Nice Dreams, the uncompromising Up in Smoke and even the very worthy effort Next Movie, but it is still a trying and satirical approach to music videos that accomplishes it's task for all those about to watch. Really big flaw is that it is a set-up to be made fun (actually, Beavis and Butt-head did that already). Various stars make cameos in Spinal Tap style documentary between videos; Born In East L.A. is the definitive brainchild of Cheech. B

There's something strange about the antisocial sentiment you can find in some Cheech And Chong material. One of the songs in Up In Smoke, well, I often wish more songs these days began that way. But in this excuse for a video, the stoner duo are showing us the videos for four songs from their album of the moment, also titled Get Out Of My Room. You hear a voice-over during the opening credits in which some anonymous producer describes the record as being a novelty recording that will just take up room on the charts. Unfortunately, this opening voice-over hits the nail right on the head.

Most music recordings endorsed by the RIAA seem to keep to a rule of putting the best material early in the album. Often, when one gets past that first song, the discerning listener notices that the recording has little, if anything, to hold their attention. Bands that defied mainstream convention, on the other hand, often saved their best material for last, or at least spread it evenly throughout the disc. In this case, Cheech And Chong appear to have decided to hedge their bets. The opening piece, Get Out Of My Room, is a hilariously-themed song with an incredibly bad video. Many a viewer of a 1980s music video will find the sloppy direction somewhat nostalgic. Cheech's conception of British punk is also incredibly funny.

Where it all goes downhill is the second number, I'm Not Home Right Now. Nothing kills interest in a song quite like repetition, and it's tough to get more repetitive than this aural turd. Honestly, one feels the urge to slap Cheech in the face and tell him that we get the idea, he isn't home right now, so please move on. The next song, along the theme of love being a strange thing, is the absolute rock bottom not only for this collection, but for Cheech And Chong in general. It's almost as if this song was made for the sole reason of padding out the album's running time.

Fortunately, the stoner duo saved the best for last, but it is also curious to note that Chong is completely absent from this cut. Born In East L.A. is a simple number based upon the old Bruce Springsteen number that mocks Reagan's view of multiculturalism. As one is regaled by Cheech's tale, one has to wonder how many poor schleps who couldn't speak a word of Spanish were deported to Mexico simply because their skin wasn't bedsheet-white. Racism was an integral part of America's culture in 1985, and it remains so today. If anything, it has gotten worse, so one has to wonder what Born In East L.A. would be like if it were written in the current era.

Unfortunately, two cuts does not an album make, especially when there is so much boring filler between them. The interviews before Get Out Of My Room, for example, are quite funny. Not side-splitting like much of Up In Smoke, but funny enough to justify their existence. Unfortunately, the two middle songs are reflected in their making-of footage. Boring song makes boring filler. If you cut out the middle half-hour of material from this video, you'd have something substantially better.

I gave Get Out Of My Room a three out of ten. They are earned by the first and last video. I'm pretty certain that the stars look at material like this today and wonder what they were thinking.