The Stoned Age

The Stoned Age is a 1994 American comedy film directed by James Melkonian, set during the 1970s, about two long haired stoners named Michael Hubbs and Joe Connolly and one night cruising Los Angeles' suburbs looking for alcohol, parties, and girls.

Not to be confused with the film National Lampoon's Stoned Age.
The Stoned Age
movie poster for The Stoned Age
Directed byJames Melkonian
Produced byDavid Heyman
Neal H. Moritz
Written byJames Melkonian
Rich Wilkes
StarringMichael Kopelow
Bradford Tatum
Clifton Collins Jr.
China Kantner
Production
company
Distributed byTrimark Pictures
Release date
December 1994
Running time
90 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

The story takes place in Torrance, California, sometime in the late 1970s.

A pugilistic ex-convict known as "Crump's Brother" is picked up by a local teen while hitchhiking on the freeway and informs him about two women he intends to party with in Torrance Beach, across from the Frankie Avalon house. The teen then informs his friends about the situation, but no one wishes to anger Crump's Brother by worming his chicks. Except for Tack who Doesn’t care and goes to find the chicks.

Joe and Hubbs, 2 long-haired stoners, drive around town and look for chicks on a Saturday night, all they have in their inventory is a half bottle of peppermint schnapps and a half joint of skank weed, but Hubbs is confident it will be enough. as they drive around town in their 1973 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback, "The Blue Torpedo," looking for drugs and women. They come across Tack, who informs them of the girls and makes a deal to shown them where the girls are for a ride their with them. They stop at the gas station and talk to their friend Crump, the gas station attendant, who also tells them of the girls and says there are only 2 of them and that they’re his brothers chicks. Joe and Hubbs lie to crump that there is another party going so they can distract crump and Crump’s brother from the chicks so they can get there first. They leave Tack at the gas station because the girls are not Tack’s chicks and head for Torrance Beach to the chicks .

They arrive at the house and find an extremely attractive girl named Lanie who sends them off to a liquor store for alcohol. When they return, they find the homeowner's daughter Jill, a jaded hippie girl who is Lanie's friend. In the meantime, Tack conscripts his nerdy friend Norm "Snot-rag" Hankey to take him to the beach. They arrive at the house and after a brief scuffle, Tack entices cooperation with news of a party in Palos Verdes, much to Joe and Hubbs' chagrin.

At the house party, Muldoon, the party host, lets the girls in but shuts everyone else out. Lanie leaves following an altercation with Muldoon and drafts Joe to take her swimming in a neighbor's pool. The police shut down the party, and Hubbs and Jill locate Joe and Lanie next door. Lanie is smitten with Hubbs' aggressive nature, much to Joe's chagrin, and the two walk upstairs for sex.

Having lost their beer to the police, Tack and the others raid a liquor warehouse for beer, and head for the house. Joe and Jill partially reconcile but return to find Tack and the Guzzlers converging on the home. A fight breaks out between Joe and Tack and Jill runs inside, eventually letting Joe back in and locking the door.

After getting stoned, Hubbs tells Joe he has arranged for Lanie to give him fellatio as a "birthday present". Joe finds that Lanie asleep, covers her up, and walks out; he finds Hubbs with Jill making out on the couch; Joe is upset but learns that Jill was the instigator. They are interrupted when Crump's Brother arrives outside and begins to break down the door. They flee to the kitchen but shortly afterwards, they hear the commotion dying out; Jill's father, Warren, has returned from a college reunion and beaten the entire crowd of kids—including Crump's Brother—to unconsciousness with great ease. While Hubbs manages to escape by jumping through a window on the upper floor, Warren retains Joe and holds him hostage awaiting the arrival of the police. It also appears that Warren is very overbearing and emotionally abusive towards Jill. Eventually, a condescending lecture provokes a fight where Joe stands up for Jill against Warren and his rather cruel treatment of her, and Joe and Hubbs dramatically escape just ahead of the police. Enamored with Joe, Jill gives him her full name and geographical location ("north") so he can look her up later.

The police arrest the entire crew of drunken teenagers, and Joe and Hubbs escape in the "Blue Torpedo". Hubbs jocularly chides Joe for his apparent cowardice in moving on Lanie and Jill, and dismisses Jill as a viable partner. Joe, no longer tolerant of Hubb's attitude, wrestles a surprised Hubbs into submission while driving and forces him to capitulate that Jill is "cool". Joe then places the Blue Öyster Cult 8-track tape into the deck and plays "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". The song plays as the Blue Torpedo drives off through the night.

Following the credits, Joe and Hubbs are offered Blue Öyster Cult concert T-shirts outside a convenience store by two men, but Joe refuses because the shirts are bootlegs, and not official. The scalpers are played by actual Blue Öyster Cult band members Eric Bloom and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser.

Production

The film is based on a short film, "Tack's Chicks", directed by James Melkonian at AFI in 1991, co-written by Melkonian and Rich Wilkes. Michael Kopelow also starred as Joe in the short. The feature script was written by Melkonian and Wilkes in 1991 and was shot in February 1993.

The producers initially titled the film Tack's Chicks and then Teenage Wasteland, before settling on The Stoned Age.

The Stöned Age was produced by David Heyman, who went on to produce the Harry Potter film series.

The film was originally conceived with Led Zeppelin being Joe's favorite band, including "Trampled Underfoot" as the main title song, "In the Light" as the song that would accompany Joe's concert flashback, "Heartbreaker" and "The Lemon Song" as the songs that would introduce Lanie, and "Tangerine" as the "pussy" song. However, the rights to Led Zeppelin music were not available, and several other bands were considered, including Yes, Jethro Tull, The Who, The Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd, before Blue Öyster Cult was decided on.

Melkonian acknowledges that there are a number of continuity problems, which are probably due to the low budget. In the kitchen scene, the faces of some crew members can be seen reflected in the front of the microwave oven. Also, there are various instances of things during the movie that didn't exist in the 1970s being clearly visible (or heard, since the Blue Oyster Cult song "Burnin' for You" wasn't released until 1981). For example, there are many points when the kitchen scene takes place near a busy road, in which cars from the 1980s and 1990s are clearly visible. There is also a point in the movie where a sign for the crafts store Michaels, which didn't exist until 1984, is also clearly visible. The fashion trends of the 1990s are clearly visible in the movie as well: for example, Joe and Hubbs are seen wearing sweatshirts tied around their waists and Joe wearing ripped jeans, which are reminiscent of grunge fashion.

Cast

Soundtrack
gollark: Why ship an XML parser? Just use regexes.
gollark: No, it does NOT do that, thus run program.
gollark: Yes, that would be ridiculous; like I said, it is NOT libevilpotatos OR obfuscation to disguise NONEXISTENT evil parts.
gollark: No, rewrite C in Perl.
gollark: Defensive programming for non-evil components.

See also

References
  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/movies/dont-fear-the-reaper-blue-oyster-cult-creepy-tune.html
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