In honor of 4/20: My favorite cinematic trip is '2001'

The supposed "trippy-ness" of movies can often be an unbearable cliche. I have not (yet) watched The Wizard of Oz set to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I have never, quite frankly, tripped while watching a film -- so perhaps I haven't really lived.

Still, it being 4/20 and all, I figured I would indulge this aspect of the filmgoing experience, especially since some have argued that it can enhance of detract from viewing something, depending on your point of view. When I have been, let's say enamored, I have not tended to go for the comedic fare -- although I will say that it struck just the right balance for me to enjoy both Hot Tub Time Machine and MacGruber, two ridiculous movies that I contend are just as funny if you're sober.

And tonight I am partaking in one of Cheech and Chong's best Nice Dreams, but really more as homage to their legendary status than as a drug-fueled excursion.

No for me I like to go cerebral and there is no film in recent memory that gets my brain firing on all cylinders quite like Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's not even my favorite Kubrick film, that'd be The Shining, but his epic sci-fi meditation keeps getting better and more profound each time I see it, and I remember it being particularly arrested that last time I watched it, when I was in a particular state of bliss.

This is not like a groundbreaking observation. The film's success when it first came out back in 1968 was due in part to the stoner culture's embrace of it, it did not get rave reviews from most mainstream critics who found its cold detachment and unorthodox storytelling off-putting.

But, just like all of Kubrick films, it has become widely embraced now as one of the greatest films of all time, routinely ranking near on within the top 20.

Why has the movie help up so well? I think it has a timeless quality. The special effects are still really awesome, and the film's empty spaces -- which confounded 1968 audiences -- can and have been filled with all sorts of hidden, deeper meanings by audiences which have obsessively consumed it.

It's a movie that makes you think -- not just about what you're watching -- but the nature of the universe, about the inherent violence of man (and whether it really is inherent) and the future of our world. I have no idea what quite a bit of it really means, but that is part of the fun of it.

I get chatty when I am under the influence -- I love to get into impassioned, if not entirely articulate, debates about subjects both profound and perfunctory. 2001, despite its minimalism, feels like a profound movie -- it's not pretentious at all either -- just grand in terms of its ambition, pacing and symbolism.

Not only was the film ahead of its time in terms of predicting our technological advances -- it also takes subtle shots at our burgeoning culture of cold commercialism and the tension between automation and humanity.

When I'm in that state I like to have my mind stimulated and blown, and if you are celebrating this faux holiday today I couldn't recommend this one more.