Aaah, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. You know the movie – two Asian American protagonists get really stoned, look for a White Castle, and somehow find Neal Patrick Harris and ride a cheetah instead. The movie did relatively poorly in the box office – only $27 million at the box office – due to no one wanting to watch a movie with Asians in it a poor plot “model”. That being said, it IS a stoner movie, and the stoners DO love watching the DVDs. So much so that it made $30 million in DVD sales, thus deeming it a cult movie. A cult movie, ready for a sequel.
For years, I thought the name of the movie was going to be Harold & Kumar Go To Amsterdam, which makes sense – more weed! More hilarity! But the events of the last couple of years seem to have made the movie take a political bent, and the movie is now called Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.
The interesting thing to me is this – while White Castle was just a movie about two stoned guys who happened to be Asian, Guantanamo Bay plays up the “two minorities look like Al-Queda” race card, especially in the trailer and the movie posters. I don’t know how I necessarily feel about that. A stoner comedy is a stoner comedy, however, so if it has the necessary jokes about bongs and Neil Patrick Harris and cock sandwiches, it should drive the stoners and the folks into stoner movies into the theaters or at least buying a DVD. For the people that are going to watch to support their fellow Asian-American actors? Not so much, but hey – it’s not like we do anyway.
