How High?

Matthew Preston | January 15, 2002
More like "how many curses can you fit into one movie?" This is insane.

I frequent the site of kidsinmind.com. They give quick reviews of films on what is wrong with them based on three catergories. (Sex/Nudity, Violence, and Profanity). I saw the list of profanity on the film "How High" and it floored me.

PROFANITY 10 - 100 or so F-words and derivatives, 3 obscene hand gestures, 59 scatological terms, 12 sexual references, 65 anatomical terms, 65 mild obscenities, 8 derogatory terms for African-Americans (twice by non-African-Americans), 3 derogatory terms for Caucasians, 4 slang terms for prostitutes, 8 religious profanities, 6 religious exclamations.

That totals 333 profanities. Given that the movie is only 91 minutes long, that is nearly 4 curses per minute (3.659 to be precise). I had no interest to see this movie before, but damn, maybe it would be worth it to see this in action.

Note : I wanted to see if there was a movie that actually had it beat. The only one I could find was "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." ringing in at 466 profanities! At 95 minutes running time, that's 4.9 curses a minute..... phew!

Scott Hardie | January 15, 2002
I understand that some people see obscenity as indecent (Jesse and I had this conversation), but I just do it because it's fun. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. See?

Matthew Preston | January 15, 2002
Oh I agree that is funny, and I myself am quite the potty mouth. It's just that sometimes I am so shocked to find out a movie has so many profanities in it.... because I have seen it and I don't remember it that bad! Rounders, one of my favorites has 240 f-words in it, and Pulp Fiction has 250! I don't remember them being that bad.

On the other hand, I seem to remember The Blair Witch Project as having a great deal of profanities in it, (maybe because I watched it with my parents) but it didn't break 200. I guess it's all on the point of view.

Scott Hardie | January 16, 2002
Mostly it's in placement. In Rounders and Pulp Fiction, the swear words flowed with the dialogue, because Tarantino and whoever wrote Rounders understand pleasant speech rhythms. The actors in Blair Witch made up their dialogue, a lot of which was stilted swear words screamed at each other in front of the camera like an unbleeped Jerry Springer episode. Not rhthymic. We notice.

P.S. Fuck.