Super High Me

Determined to find out the true effects of marijuana on the human body, stand-up comedian and former Stoner of the Year Doug Benson documents his experience avoiding pot for 30 days and then consuming massive amounts of the drug for 30 days. More than just an amusing story of one man's quest to get super high, this documentary also examines the hotly contested debate over medical marijuana use. Although the film is inspired by a joke which was inspired by Super Size Me, don't expect to see the same dramatic reactions. Morgan Spurlock's documentary about the dangers of excessive unhealthy eating was shockingly unhealthy for the filmmaker.

Super Size Me (2004)

This is Spinal Tap

In 1982 legendary British heavy metal band Spinal Tap attempt an American comeback tour accompanied by a fan who is also a film-maker. The resulting documentary, interspersed with powerful performances of Tap's pivotal music and profound lyrics, candidly follows a rock group heading towards crisis, culminating in the infamous affair of the eighteen-inch-high Stonehenge stage prop

Craig and Chris discuss a potential hit series starring Geoff and the Dalek

WOODSTOCK, AUGUST 1969

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All images by Bill Eppridge

Pickstarter: Our Favorite Crowdfunded Projects

by Brian Walton on MAY 6, 2012

Welcome back to another edition of Pickstarter, in which we highlight our favorite crowdfunded projects on sites like Indie-gogo and Kickstarter, where people are turning to the consumer for help making their dream projects a reality.

Pick #1 – An Educational Colorimeter Kit 

A colorimeter is a tool used in labs around the world to measure a solution’s properties by how much light passes through it versus how much light it absorbs. It’s a handy tool with a number of different applications. The folks at IO Rodeo are looking to make an affordable kit for educators to allow students to build their own colorimeter and lead them through experiments with the finished build. Consider this the first step in a young person’s quest to make the urine cleaner from Waterworld a reality.

Pick #2 – Reading With Pictures: The Graphic Textbook 

As comic lovers, we’ve known for years how engaging a graphic novel can be. Last year, a study at Northwestern University backed us up in a study that said children retain information better when presented with graphical depictions. Reading with Pictures is teaming with top talent from the comics industry, as well as educators, to create a textbook for grades 3-6 in a variety of topics. Maybe if we had this book when we were in school we wouldn’t have felt the need to doodle in ours.

Pick #3 – Fairy Quest

One noticeable bonus of the advent of crowd sourcing is artists being able to bypass publishers entirely and take their books directly to the people. That is exactly what comic pros Paul Jenkins and Humberto Ramos are doing with their latest, Fairy Quest. Let’s be honest, fairy tales are all the rage right now, and normally we’d start to back off the trend, but when it’s created by this team, you have to give it a second look. Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf rebel against their story and start uniting the fairy tale world against whoever has been orchestrating their fates. This hardcover will look amazing next to your collection of Fables and Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales. Now if only someone would make the Humpty Dumpty/Guantanamo Bay hybrid we’ve yearned for. “You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns… And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!”

CHICAGO, 1949, BY STANLEY KUBRICK

"Before he started making movies, Stanley Kubrick was a star photojournalist. In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called “Chicago City of Contrasts.”
- Chicago Tribune

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All images from the Library of Congress

HOLY ROBIN!