Pubdate: Fri, 19 Feb 2016
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2016 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Pat Padua, The Washington Post

HALF-BAKED DOCUMENTARY ON MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION

The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and the 
District of Columbia has led to a so-called green rush of prospectors 
looking to cash in. Can the commercial potential from this newly 
sanctioned vice revitalize a newspaper industry struggling in the Internet age?

Documentarian Mitch Dickman's "Rolling Papers" follows Ricardo Baca, 
marijuana editor at the Denver Post since 2013, to find out. Yet 
despite slick production values, this look at the intersection of two 
potentially fascinating subcultures - journalists and stoners - 
yields only halfbaked results.

Denver Post editor Gregory L. Moore picked Baca from the ranks of his 
music writers, confident that he would be equally at home with pot. 
This logic points to one of the film's weaknesses. "Rolling Papers" 
is scored with a variety of pot-friendly music, from stoner hiphop to 
reggae. Unfortunately, the cues come off as increasingly flip when 
the film turns from its recreational subject to more serious matters, 
as when shots are fired at an outdoor cannabis festival.

Even as Baca assembles his team of writers, the film devotes less 
time to writing than to product photography of pot varieties with 
names like "Death Panda." "Rolling Papers" is tailor-made for viewers 
who inhale. But those who don't (and even some who do) may not find 
all of its subjects equally compelling.

One of the more intriguing people in the film is the strait-laced 
journalist who declines to partake of his subject, and who is 
eventually taken off the beat. Writing about pot may require a 
balance between obsession and detachment, but too much of the latter, 
it seems, gets you expelled from the club.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom