There are some books that transcend the ages and generations to strike a chord with the youth of society. Baked Potatoes: A Pot Smokers Guide to Film and Video is one of those books. It will never get the recognition of Kerouac or Thoreau, but it’s worth taking a peek at, if only for a good laugh.

First and foremost, the recommendation of this book is not condoning smoking pot. In fact, if you read the book, you don’t have to light up a dubbie to know what viewing a movie would be like if you were baked; it does it for you.

Baked Potatoes opens with a letter to President Clinton. Authors John Hulme and Michael Wexler decided to solicit guest reviewers and, for obvious reasons, thought Clinton would be a good candidate. They state in the letter that they hope Clinton’s review would lend their “scholarly novella” the legitimacy it needs.

Needless to say, a review by Clinton does not appear. But other notables contribute to the pages of Baked Potatoes. Ben and Jerry, ice cream gurus, give their insights as do Donal Logue (the MTV cab driver guy) and Wavy Gravy (a baked potato icon) to name a few.

The hilarity of this book, though, comes in its organization.

From the chapters, to the rating system to the movies themselves, Hulme and Wexler have more or less pin-pointed the very essence of the twentysomething culture just by collecting these movies into one body of work.

The chapters of Baked Potatoes divide the movies into five categories: “The Goes-Without-Saying List,” “Reliable Sources,” “Unsung Heroes,” “Risky Calls” and “Bad Seeds,” respectively.

Chapter one is merely a list as the title implies. The authors note these movies are “a group of classics that anyone who’s reading this already knows are essential. They need no review.” Among the reviewless flicks are Blazing Saddles, Monty Python’s Holy Grail, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, you get the picture.

The introduction provides a key to the rating system of Baked Potatoes and instructions how to use the book; “get high, read movie reviews.”

Movies are rated on a system of pot leaves, five being a “masterpiece.” The “bad seeds” are marked with an explosive and a warning of “toxic, may result in permanent dysfunction.”

Further notations are added to help readers. You can find out in advance if a “good couch seat” is mandatory, if there is “group effort recommended” or if the movie may cause “emotional trauma.”

Each movie reviewed has a brief synopsis written in the authors’ own altered style. For instance, the black-comedy Heathers is paraphrased as “Ozzy Osbourne made me kill all my high school friends and eat live monkeys.”

No movie is spared. Oscar nominated films (A Clockwork Orange: “I went to rehab and came back a prairie dog”) and children’s classics (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: “Baked guy runs chocolate factory, surrounds self with midgets”) all take a hit. Even sports fans can find reviews of such all time favorites like the “1983 NCAA Final Four Semifinal, Louisville versus Houston.”

Baked Potatoes will probably never make it to the pocket-sized portable like most classics do these days, but then again, its readers need the larger print.

Taken with a grain a salt, it’s one of the few books that keeps you laughing, no matter what your state, out loud.