Movie Night #101: Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

     Movie Night 101:  Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (2004)
     Director:  Danny Leiner
     Cast:  John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
     Plot:  Harold (Cho) is a hard-worker and is easily taken advantage of by his co-wokers, who trick him into doing their work for them over the weekend while they (unknown to him) go out to party.  Kumar (Penn) is his roommate, and complete opposite.  Together, the two of them get high and embark on a quest to find the nearest White Castle so that they can satisfy their craving for greasy food after having baked themselves on pot.  Along the way they run into racist cops, stoner college students, wild animals, crazy red necks, and Doogie Houser’s NPH (as himself)! 

The flick is one of my guilty pleasures, and I really laugh every time that I watch it.  I describe it more as a National Lampoon-like flick than a Cheech and Chong, which is what it’s often compared to.  The characters are very entertaining and compliment each other well on the screen.  Cho and Penn have great chemistry, and you just don’t want to look away from them.  It’ll be interesting to see them brach off out of comedy and into more dramatic roles (Penn having a minor role in Superman Returns and Cho playing Sulu in the new Star Trek flick coming out in 2009). 

The flick also served as a free national advertising campaign for White Castle, who later became one of my clients while working at JWT / Mindshare.  The level of exposure to the very first fast food burger joint was amazing, and brought in sales previously unseen.  Since the company is family owned, their growth potential has remained small – opting for regional distribution instead of national (or international, like a few more famous fast food places with killer clowns for spokespeople).  It’s unfortunate that White Castle passed at being involved in the sequel to this flick, as that could have helped them out of a sales slump and repositioned them as a burger joint with culture – who can poke fun at themselves a bit. 

If you’re in the mood to watch something light, simple, funny, and sometimes a little gross, be sure to check out this flick. 

This night (which was a few months back) marked the celebration of Scott and my’s birthdays.  Since people were rather intoxicated, we decided to put in something that you didn’t have to pay a lot of attention to and could easily laugh at (unlike my botched attempt at entertaining people two years previous by showcasing Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Seven Samurai).  It was a good choice.