"Tack, you cack!"
The Story:
Word on the street is Crump's brother (Michael Wiseman), well known across town for almost killing a Samoan dude, is back in town... and he's got some ladies lined up down by the Frankie Avalon place in Torrance Beach. As the story spreads like wildfire, two long-haired stoners named Joe and Hubbs (Michael Kopelow and Bradford Tatum) cruising their Blue Torpedo Volkswagon learn from a goofball named Tack (Clifton Collins Jr.) that these chicks aren't just any chicks... they're fine chicks! After hitting Tack up for his share of gas money (all of it) and immediately ditching his ass at the station, the boys hit the road in search of the fine ones. Little do they know that a new word is passing through the grapevine and the tough as nails Crump's brother has found out these scruffy high school kids are trying to worm his chicks!
The Review:
Joe and Hubbs are the misfits that cause the central tension to unravel, while sharing their bond that ensures they'll always be best buds and everything will be all right 5 minutes after Hubbs releases the headlock. The similar, yet contrasting personalities show a typical, boozin' and crusin' night in conflicting lights. Hubbs is the animal and Joe is more mellow and respectful, which leaves him with the shit end of the stick while Hubbs gets the deadly, slutty girl, Lanie (Renee Allman). Joe longs for a more respectable type, and he manages to find what he thinks he's looking for in Jill (China Kantner) before his outlook goes from something special to the aftermath of a Montreal GNR show in the blink of an eye. They're not the cool, ass-magnet badasses by a long shot, but they're patriarchal to the long-haired Asian metal heads and the chubby guy sporting "No Fat Chicks" hoodie types. The Review:
The laughs are bountiful as Joe, Hubbs & co. encounters the usual setbacks of being underage - notably the daunting task of securing a bottle of 151 when their skankweed and gallon jug of schnappster fails to impress the babes. The supporting cast gets into the fray during a daring liquor heist in which cases of Ox .45 (Colt .45 refused their likeness to a film that featured underage drinking) are smuggled out of the window of a warehouse only to be returned by the thieves. Stolen malt liquor or not, give them talls or give them death! There truly is honor amongst thieves.
The Stoned Age came out a year after Dazed and Confused and was unable to emerge from the shadow of cinema's greatest throwback film to the seventies. Dazed triumphed to the top of the video store rack and The Stoned Age quietly rested at the bottom, sun-beaten and faded, but proud. I was about 10 when I rented it for the first time, attracted mostly to a critic's quote the cover art boasted proudly that hailed it as better than Dazed and Confused. Even as a kid, I knew this was likely next to impossible, but the Blue Torpedo drew me in and the film fried itself into my brain like I'd been hit by a laser beam at a Blue Oyster Cult concert. (Brett H.)
Tale of the Tape:
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