Why was I sorry to miss SXSW yet again? Not because it means missing this, this, this or this. But because it means I didn't get to be at the premiere of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay last Saturday.
This week I've gotten called on my reluctance to give up my "critical distance." Well, I've listened, and I am now willing to own up to my unreasonable, uncritical and undistant crush on Kal Penn, who I love not for his serious work or even his recent dip into academia, but for his thoroughly sophomoric work.
I've tried turning on several friends to H&K Go to White Castle. Some bite, some wonder if I haven't smoked too much herb. But I think it's one of the smarter movies on race I've seen in the past few years.
The sequel's plot -- Harold and Kumar are mistaken for North Korean and Arab/Muslim terrorists on a flight to Amsterdam because they had a bong -- is pretty delicious and even the few bits in the trailer skewer U.S. racial hysteria in a way that may be even sharper than the first movie.
There is the danger that all the hype means that this sequel can't reprise the genius goofiness of the stoned cheetah chase through mid-Jersey or Neil Patrick Harris' performance. But I'm willing to take the chance. Only six more weeks till it hits a theater near me. (Be warned: the version of the trailer posted below is NSFW).
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