Last night at a special screening for The Wackness, as part of the Diesel Box Office at the New World Stages in NYC, the rambunctious and fashionable crowd applauded and whooped every time a character displayed some "fuck Giuliani sentiment" (the film takes place in 1994, when the new mayor was power-washing the streets of whores and derelicts). And every time Sir Ben Kingsley’s psychiatrist character took a hit from his bong -- or even took it out of his drawer -- they cheered like he just saved the planet. When director Jonathan Levine stepped on stage afterward for a Q&A, he and others fondly recalled the days when you could buy a dime bag on the street and escape with just a ticket. Charlatans. They deem it as square, but the yuppies in attendance last night love the cleaned-up New York they live in; most of them were too young to remember it otherwise. I even saw a few of them geeking out in the Hershey’s store in Times Square after the screening.

The latest phenomenon to take over the silver screen is not a budding actor or actress. It's just bud. According to Time.com, despite the perenially raging war on drugs, marijuana has been lighting up (pun intended) the screen a lot recently, making frequent appearances in movies and TV shows. Having a TV show (Showtime’s "Weeds") take on its namesake seemed to served as a launching point for pot’s acting career, and the progression to movies was only natural. After being featured in films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, pot is now taking on starring rolls (homonym also intended) in the upcoming movies Pineapple Express and The Wackness, both opening this summer. Whether or not you are part of the 6% of Americans who actually smoke it, pot can now be experienced by anyone checking out the latest stock of THC-filled comedies. To find out more about Mary Jane’s onscreen appearences, check out the full article at Time.com.

A pill-pushing shrink meets a dope-dealing teen in The Wackness—a new take on the coming-of-age genre. Meanwhile, the horror film Baghead is just another fumble from the “Mumblecore” movement.

Take the intergenerational friendship of Rushmore, the unchecked adolescent mischief of KIDS, and the romantic yearning of any dozen teen movies, and you get The Wackness. Almost. The Wackness is greater than the sum of its parts, a genuinely thoughtful, infectiously charming, coming-of-age gem that might be more aptly called (to use its own dated urban patois): The Dopeness. New York City, Summer 1994. Luke (Josh Peck) deals weed. He’s an Upper East Side kid with Brooklyn sensibilities: hates his much-more-affluent schoolmates, loves Biggie Smalls. His only agenda for summer is to work, visit his shrink/client/friend Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), and hopefully score with Squires’s too-cool stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby).