Nice Dreams

1981 "The story of two enterprising young men who make an amazing amount of money selling ice cream."
6.1| 1h28m| R| en
Details

Nice Dreams - it rhymes with ice creams. And that's what Cheech and Chong are selling in this thoroughly wacky comedy. The outrageous, permanently spaced-out duo sells enough of their "specially mixed" ice cream to take the cash and realize their fondest dreams: new guitars, islands in the sun and beautiful women. But, of course, not everything goes as planned. While celebrating their wealth in a new wave Chinese restaurant, Cheech meets his long-lost love Donna, and promptly escorts her to her posh penthouse. He soon learns, however, that Donna's boyfriend, an ex-con named Animal, is on his way to her boudoir. Meanwhile, Chong has unwittingly exchanged all their money for a worthless bank check - and the only way to get it back is to escape into a nearby insane asylum.

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Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Portia Hilton Blistering performances.
Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Lee Eisenberg If you've seen other Cheech & Chong movies, then you can probably figure out what sorts of things happen in "Nice Dreams". In this outing, the stoner duo runs an ice cream truck that serves marijuana-based ice cream, with the eventual aim of having an island where topless women serve them. As can be expected, the cops are after the nutty twosome, but the marijuana is having an unusual side effect on Sgt. Stedanko (Stacy Keach).Other than that, there's a cocaine outing under a table, and even an appearance by Timothy Leary. I nearly died laughing during the sequence in the apartment building.No, it's not the best C&C movie, but there's definitely no shortage of laughs in "Nice Dreams". Also appearing are Paul Reubens, Evelyn Guerrero, Peter Jason, Linnea Quigley, Sarah Bernhard and Tony Cox.
tedg These guys made a terrific movie in their first try. It was an accident, but what happened was a combination of things. There was cool self-reference and the perversion of the buddy road movie. It has a looseness to it that was new to "mainstream" movies in those days. Yes, part of the charm was that this was a mainstream movie and it treated dope smoking as a trivial amusement. It was in a way, the "Thin Man" of dope.Afterwards, these guys made nothing but drek, sort of a demonstration of the dullness that dope brings. These things aren't even watched any more by the doper crowd because market forces have moved to supply them with hipper, more supportive fare. So if you are considering watching this for almost any reason, you'll find better elsewhere.That is, except for the appearance of Timothy Leary. In those days, there really were distinct drug cultures. Pot was originally a Black Jazz thing, appropriated by kids. LSD was for the spiritually ambitious. Coke for bored celebrities, Heroin for the ghetto. Speed for the fringe biker crowd. Sects formed around these in the 70s and they became icons for different "life style" choices, though that silly term would be invented later.This movie was the first C&C that threw all drugs in the same barrel. Pot, coke and acid, all the same.That last makes its appearance here, ushered in by Leary. I'm convinced that the world would be a radically different place today if he weren't so inadequately suited for the role he adopted: prophet of synthesized enlightenment. By 1980, he was a joke and already exploiting his celebrity status to earn a living.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
CelluloidRehab Cheech and Chong return as incognito ice cream men, selling a particularly potent flavor of ice cream (Mary Jane) out of a crazy ice cream truck (with a giant clown head on a spring). While this is going on, the incompetent 5-0 are on their tail in a sting operation (Narcothon). This is all due to their discovery of a new kind of weed that turns the smoker into a lizard. Thats the plot.The rest consists of the outrageous interactions between Cheech, Chong and everyone else. Imagine an entire evening of constant bar hopping, for reference. The major difference between this movie and the other good C&C movies (Up in Smoke, Next Movie) is that C&C are quite wealthy due to their ice cream sales. Their lavish incomes can afford them luxury dreams such as : 1) sipping pina colonics, on their bought island, where they have topless slaves that worship them and are referred to as the Sun Kings.2) a theme park called Vatto Land, with Guitar Land in it. (guest gangs, everyone gets to do their own graffiti walls,etc.)This is by far the craziest set of circumstances out of all the good C&C movies. It is also, I feel, the funniest of all the C&C movies. Paul Reubens (this is Pee Wee's 2nd appearance in a C&C movie) and Timothy "I have the key right here" Leary are amongst the famous cameos. Stacy Keach also reprises his role from Up in Smoke, as Sgt. Stedenko. Even Sandra Bernhard makes a brief cameo as one of the nuts.There are numerous scenes of hilarity in the movie. The funniest of these has to be the scene at the Honk Kong restaurant where the guys meet Cindy the Agent (Chong is mistaken for Jerry Garcia), followed by Cheech's Quaalude reunion with his high school sweetheart Donna (who was going to be a nun) and her date, the Hamburger Dude (a.k.a, Paul Reubens), bearing Koka-Kola (original version). The other funny scene is Cheech's death-row trip, complete with Michael Winslow (a.k.a Larvell Jones, who also makes his second appearance in a C&C movie). Of course this wouldn't be a C&C movie without a musical number. Nice Dreams gives us "Save the Whales". This is an absolute can't miss for fans of Cheech and Chong and a perfect remedy for the munchies, blood-shot eyes, cotton-mouth, late night insomnia and cancellation of Dave's show.-Celluloid Rehab
John Foster Cheech and Chong's first movie, Up in Smoke (1978), was the most successful and it set the scene for the five other films which were to follow. Nice Dreams (1981) is movie number three. Nice Dreams is a very good film for laid-back old hippies like me who enjoy romanticising the 70s. Gone are the flower-power days of the 60s and life seems to have degenerated into sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, and this movie has its fair share of each.My favourite scene is at the Chinese restaurant where Chong is mistaken for Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. And then there is a welcome cameo appearance from the enigmatic LSD guru Dr Timothy Leary. One of my favourite supporting roles is the police sergeant who has the tongue of a lizard and believes "the only way to catch a doper is for you yourself to become a smoker." The quirky soundtrack and slapstick comedy helps to keep the movie moving along nicely...Even though Cheech and Chong sold millions of records in the 70s and had a major success with Up in Smoke, I would not call Nice Dreams a mainstream movie. I would suggest it is a movie with a cult following although I've never seen it on any "cult film" lists.If you like this movie you may also like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Withnail and I".