HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

Written and Directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Starring John Cho, Kal Penn, Rob Corddry, Roger Bart and Neil Patrick Harris


Harold: It’s not funny, Kumar. It’s not fucking funny.

Going to White Castle need not be a particularly challenging endeavor. For Harold & Kumar (John Cho & Kal Penn), two perpetual stoner best friends, it proved to be the most monumental of achievements. Still, no matter how difficult the terrain became en route toward 30 burgers, four large fries and countless free refills of soda, they never lost hope. They overcame ignorance, confidence issues and Neil Patrick Harris to get what they most desired and solidified an already rock solid friendship in the process. Picking up at exactly the same point HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE left off, HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY finds the boys packing their bags for a spur of the moment trip to Amsterdam and the jokes about perfect pubic hair and messy bowel movements follow suit. Nothing has changed essentially (except for perhaps Kumar, who looks as though all that burger weight went instantaneously to his face), but it feels somehow different. Somewhere within the first few frames, maybe when Kumar ejaculated on to his face, I don’t know, the high times come crashing down into a sobering and painfully unfunny trip.


Do you know what else works about two stoners determined to reach a burger joint destination? It’s plausible. It’s two ordinary guys in an even more ordinary situation that must surmount a series of extraordinary obstacles. The fact that they’re stoned the whole time only adds to the ridiculousness of it all, especially if you’re also stoned at home watching. Although I have yet to test the theory, I’m fairly certain watching Harold & Kumar’s second caper high might make the whole mess that much more tedious. And while I’m on the subject, where was the weed in this movie? Sure it isn’t all that likely that they would be able to find weed in Guantanamo Bay but scoring would be no less believable than their being there in the first place. Now we have a stoner movie where no one is getting stoned. What we’re left with instead is a dulled teen raunch movie designed for the mind of the adolescent male, the one at the back of the class sketching boobs and penises because he isn’t getting any action with either, when he should be paying closer attention to the history lesson being given.


I resigned myself to my fate when the expected groans grew from the groins of all the teenage boys in the audience at the thought of Harold & Kumar having to eat a cock-meat sandwich while in prison. If you’re wondering what kind of delicacy this sandwich might be, don’t. The name is self-explanatory. Naturally, the boys attempt an escape from Guantanamo rather than bite the sandwich, risking an almost certain death in the process. My hat is off to you for proving yet again what the obvious choice is between homosexual experimentation and death. With that, the gays are the first to be insulted by this horrifically ignorant film. While the film tries to expose the American population’s generalized views of minorities, it does so in such a ludicrous fashion that it actually reverses upon itself. Tempting Jews with loose change or making a black man in street wear a credible witness by arguing that he is actually an orthodontist are examples of the writers asking us to laugh at and not with the characters. Seeing as how the jokes are dead long before the punch arrives, the audience is given a lot of time to think about just how unfunny a Korean guy and an Indian guy in Klu Klux Klan garb actually is.


Two hours and I think I only laughed once (Thank you, NPH!). Harold & Kumar themselves barely seem to like each other so seeing as how they’re not having any fun, it sure isn’t easy for us to have any. Stepping up their game from just writing last time out to both writing and directing this time around proves to be too much at once for Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. Their script is aimless and rehashes a lot of the same shtick from the first film. Their style is … well, they don’t actually have one. The cult love Harold & Kumar found in the years since its initial release has gone directly to their heads and now they seem to live in this delusion that no effort is necessary and that they just have to show up to get the same results. Hmm, deluded, aimless and only funny to the guys telling the jokes, I guess it is a great stoner movie after all.

THE NAMESAKE

Written by Sooni Tarapolevala
Directed by Mira Nair


Ashoke Ganguli: My grandfather always said that’s what books are for, to travel without moving an inch.

THE NAMESAKE is a true treasure. It is a film that honours long-established convention and meaning by maintaining its own traditional approach. All too often, filmmakers take sides when telling a story about a culture taken out of context. Either the old is just plain too old for its own good or the new is entirely empty. Director Mira Nair begins this story of one family’s history by drawing her own conclusions but allows the film to learn the error of its ways at the same pace as its characters. The Ganguli family must learn to meet each other in the middle of its own extremes. Once there, they must learn to breathe soft and slow to allow both sides to hear each other and learn from what they are hearing. By finding a similar breathing pattern to establish its pacing, THE NAMESAKE is able to criticize and question the Americanization of other cultures while never losing focus on what matters, the experience and heart of the Ganguli family.


Giving history its due, THE NAMESAKE opens in Calcutta. A young girl by the name of Ashima (played by Tabu) returns home from singing lessons to find a male suitor waiting to ask for her hand in marriage. She does not run from what is expected of her nor does she go towards it blindly and obediently. Instead, she approaches with caution and an open mind. Before she even meets Ashoke (Irfan Khan), she is drawn to the exotic possibilities he can offer her when she finds his American shoes by the door. She slips the shoes on, seemingly trying to feel what kind of man wears these shoes and what kind of weight wears them down. It is a simple moment, one of many to follow, that both gives the film its charm and connects Ashima and Ashoke to each other. Theirs is a marriage arranged in the most traditional sense yet a great love grows from this beginning. The newlyweds travel to New York to start their life together while getting to know both each other and their new surroundings. The tenderness of their relationship is a moving testament to the importance of listening and comprehension.


The wide spectrum of colour that runs rampant through Calcutta is reduced to nothing in New York. The city is covered in snow and only the drab concrete manages to poke through. Before long, Ashoke and Ashima have their first of two children, Gogol (Kal Penn). With his birth, the central conflict is also born. As Gogol grows older, he grows further away from his heritage but more importantly, he grows further away from his parents. All families face these kinds of challenges. In the case of the Ganguli family, it is easy for the children to rebel against their cultural backgrounds as it is the most obvious target that will certainly hurt their parents. The parents had to adjust to the American way of life while the children were born and raised within it. It is difficult to reconcile the differences, which leads to the feeling that they are barely a family at times.


THE NAMESAKE is about healing and understanding. It does not focus on any one family member more than any other but rather on their shared similar experiences of happiness and loss. And though its visual basis is specific, its messages are much more universal. Never letting go of the past will never allow you to see your future. Still, refusing to acknowledge the past will leave your future just as hollow. If you’re not too stubborn though and you realize that everything that comes before you makes you who you are today and who you can be tomorrow, then you will learn to resolve both past and future to enjoy your present and the family you are fortunate to have surround you.