Lou Adler

In a career spanning five decades, Tommy Chong has twice had the dubious honor of serving as a cultural barometer for troubled times. Most famously, he was one half Cheech and Chong, the satirical, pot-smoking Grammy-winning comedy duo whose humor captured the turned on, tuned out and far-too-stoned-to-really-care zeitgeist of the comfortably numb 1970s. Then in May 2003, at a time when one would think the justice department would have had it hands full fighting George W. Bush's war on terror, the 65-year-old Chong came to symbolize a national nightmare: the law-abiding businessman victimized by a paranoid government on a misguided moral crusade against its own citizens. In the early morning hours of February 24, a 10-man SWAT team, helicopters and all, descended on Chong's Pacific Palisades home as part of "Operation Pipe Dreams," a massive search-and-seizure offensive aimed at taking down purveyors of drug paraphernalia. In addition to Chong's home, the feds also raided the headquarters of Chong Glass, seizing the entire stock of pipes, bongs and related paraphernalia Chong had been selling over the Internet. Chong and his staff, which included his son, Paris Chong, had been very careful not to ship any of their products to states where selling such smoking paraphernalia was prohibited by law, but that didn't stop Mary Beth Buchanan — an ambitious U.S. attorney from Pennsylvania whose career got a boost when United flight 93 crashed in her district — from trying to further her career by busting a celebrity. Through methods that could only be called entrapment, Buchanan's team spent eight months badgering Chong Glass into shipping a huge order of pipes to Beaver Falls, Penn. Chong Glass finally relented, and the upshot of this ridiculous tale is that Tommy Chong wound up spending nine months in a minimum security prison outside of Bakersfield, Calif. Filmmaker Josh Gilbert followed Chong and his wife, Shelby, through the weeks leading up to Chong's incarceration and tells this story with as much sobriety as once can muster in the face of such Kafka-esque absurdity. Gilbert also reconstructs Chong's childhood as an Asian-American teenager in the Pacific Northwest, his early career as a Motown recording artist — Tommy and the Vancouvers, anyone? — and the early days of performing with Cheech Marin in a Vancouver strip club, where together they created a kind of underground comedy-burlesque out of sheer necessity. Throughout his ordeal, Chong maintains an almost Zen-like calm, and the irony of the whole situation is that in trying to make an example out of Tommy Chong, the U.S. Justice Department might have only succeeded in turning him into a folk hero. Moreover, they've helped make pot smoking once again seem a perfectly valid response to such troubling times. Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.

Written by Peter Guralnick (Lost Highway) and narrated by Jeffrey Wright, Sam Cooke - Legend is a stirring look at a singular talent. Produced for VH1 but expanded from the original broadcast, this tuneful documentary can't possibly examine every detail of the late singer-songwriter's life in a mere 70 minutes. Nonetheless, Guralnick, who has overseen the reissue of several Cooke CDs, has put together a surprisingly thorough biography. Destination points include Cooke's gospel roots, groundbreaking career decisions, and forays into the civil rights movement. The story is fleshed out by vintage performance and interview clips (the chats with Dick Clark are particularly insightful). Commentators include family members and fellow performers like Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, and Bobby Womack, while musical highlights include Cooke's version of Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" (a song he wished he had written) and a breezy duet with friend Cassius Clay (soon to become Muhammad Ali). Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.

This epic depiction of thirty years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles focuses on a teen named Santana who, with his friends Mundo and the Caucasian-but-acting-Hispanic J.D., form their own gang and are soon arrested for a break-in. Santana gets into trouble again and goes straight from reform school to prison, spending eighteen year there, and becoming leader of a powerful gang, both inside and outside the prison, while there. When he is finally released, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world much changed from when last he was in it. Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.

Following on from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", this musical is set several years later in Brad and Janet Majors' hometown - which has become a giant TV station; residents are either participants or viewers. They are married now, but their romance has fallen on the rocks. Ostensibly to fix their marriage, Brad is imprisoned on the program "Dentonvale" (the local mental hospital) while Janet is conscripted to become a new star. As Janet is entranced by the high life, she forgets Brad. Who is trying to woo her away? Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.

Cheech and Chong meet up by chance on the highway somewhere in California. They go in search of some dope and are accidentally deported to Mexico where in their desperation to get home they agree to drive a van back to the States so they can get back in time for a gig they are due to play. Unaware of the properties from which the van is constructed they make their way back having aquired a couple of female hitch-hikers whilst all the time avoiding the cops whom they are not even aware are following them. Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.

What do a Transylvanian transvestite, a cryogenically-preserved motorbiker and a Frankenstein's monster wearing golden underpants all have in common? They're all crucial parts of Rocky Horror Picture Show, the comedy cult classic which is at once hysterical, indispensable and truly disturbing. Innocent young lovers Brad and Janet are stranded when their car breaks down, so they are forced to seek refuge in the castle of the bizarre Dr. Frankenfurter, who is having a gathering of some kind... What ensues is an unforgettable night of music and madness where, like a circus act, you never know what's going to come next. Adding to the madness is the narration of the soporific Professor, who, in omnipotence, recounts the whole story from the comfort of his genteel study. Of course, there are pre-designed spots for audience participation - from being doused with spray bottles to throwing popcorn at the screen to getting up from your seat and dancing along to the incomparable "Time Warp". By the end of the night, fantasies will be realities, men will be women and everything will be explained - or will it?!?!? Watch Movies Online for Free on 10StarMovies.