While many people look to 1990’s Home Alone as the height of John Hughes’ Hollywood power, I look to the next year, filled with unsung flicks like Only the Lonely, Dutch and, at the top of my list, Career Opportunities, directed by TV’s Bryan Gordon; don’t worry, I haven’t heard of him, either.

The ultimate hipster by today’s standards, Jim Dodge (Frank Whaley) is the ultimate loser: Although over 21 years of age, he lives as home, is the town liar and, worse, starts a job at Target as the overnight janitor. As expected in these studies of arrested development, he goofs off at work, mostly by roller-skating in his boxers while wearing a wedding veil.

This all changes when he meets the alarmingly beautiful Josie (the alarmingly beautiful Jennifer Connelly), an emotionally impoverished rich girl who, apparently, fell asleep in the dressing rooms. Against all rhyme and reason, they fall in love. (Hey, it was the ’90s.)

The movie kind of falls apart in the third act when we’re introduced to two redneck crooks who are there to rob (?) the Target. As annoying as that might be for those who missed the pristine Hughes of the ’80s, it’s easy to forget the coasting Hughes of the ’90s, when comical crooks were a must.

Regardless, I’ve always loved this movie; even though it proved to be a Home Alone for the Gen X crowd that, obviously, had no time for it. Still, much of it worked, mostly due to the likable presence of Connelly and the sheer hope that, if I worked at Target, too, maybe I’d meet a girl like her.

Sadly, I worked at the local library instead, missing my chance. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Even though I am not a pot smoker and more than likely never will be, I have to admit I find marijuana comedies pretty dang funny.

Growing up on the starter drug of Cheech and Chong movies when I was a toddler, I have found the predicaments and solutions by cinematic stoners and their kind bud to usually be one of the seven rings of true comedy, with 1997’s Half Baked fitting in there nicely, a truly stupid film packed with truly stupid laughs.

Thurgood Jenkins (Dave Chappelle) is the quintessential weed enthusiast with a janitorial job and a circle of bros who practically stay stoned. When one of his crew gets arrested for accidentally killing a police horse, they decide to become drug dealers themselves, thanks to a special strain of sativa they get from Thurgood’s job at a laboratory.

Becoming the hottest dope dealers in the New York City area, they soon gain the unwanted attention of notorious criminal Samson Simpson (Clarence Williams III), leading to an absolutely minor gang war — the kind that’s probably expected in a movie like this, i.e., the pot-influenced equivalent of a Three Stooges pie fight.

Produced by Robert Simonds (the money man behind SNL-related classics like Billy Madison, Joe Dirt, and, uh, Corky Romano), Half Baked is definitely a product of the illegal times. With legalization only blocks from my house now, it seems almost quaint; still, the scenarios, some 20 or so years later, bring the laughs.

Although, I imagine if I did smoke weed, I’d probably be one of the pot archetypes in the movie, finding all of this stupid — and not in a good way. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Allan Arkush is most known as the director of the late-’70s cult hit Rock ’n’ Roll High School, one of my favorite films of all time. But, in 1983, he made an even cultier flick, one that barely got released, despite a great cast and an even greater soundtrack: Get Crazy, also one of my favorite films of all time, if not more so.

Some have called this a sequel, but while it’s not a literal continuation, it’s definitely a spiritual one, featuring a group of regular shmoes who chaotically run the historic Saturn Theater as they go up against the ruling class of moneymen who wish to not only destroy the Saturn, but own the world with their dollar bills. Think Ms. Togar on a sleazier scale.

While the story of stage manager Neil (Daniel Stern) and his crazy crew taking on the slimy Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr.) might seem like a routine one, the comedy is very much in the same vein of Rock ’n’ Roll High School, filled with plenty of sight gags; here, even the drama is played for silly laughs, an artform that seems to be lost.

The music undeniably makes the movie so good, featuring (mostly) famous singers in faux roles, such as King Blues (Bill Henderson), Nada (featuring Fear’s Lee Ving) and the surprisingly hilarious Lou Reed as the reclusive Auden, who scores big with a transcendently gorgeous tune that plays as the credits roll. Best of all is the incomparable Malcolm McDowell as the Jagger-like prick Reggie Wanker, a veteran rocker so wrapped up in his self-importance that, when he’s accidentally dosed by the shadowy drug dealer roaming the theater, his most prized possession becomes his turgid conscience, showing him the error of ways — complete with a British accent.

While Arkush is still a director (mostly for television), it truly is a shame he never became as big as contemporaries like Spielberg and so on. As you watch Get Crazy, though, you realize it’s probably because his eye for truly bizarre and outlandish comedy was so far ahead of its time, they had no idea what do with him and, honestly, probably still don’t. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.