Forced to review another damn hippie-fest — Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in! — I’ve been avoiding finishing the slog for months now. I wasn’t going to start 2008 with that particular simian still on my back, though. So here it is, Pip, damn your eyes.
Click on the poster to go to the review…if you dare!!!!
#1 by lyzard on January 1, 2008 - 12:01 am
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Ahem. You know, I rather like Zabriskie Point. I dunno….something about the combination of colour, and movement, and plastic lobsters, and Roy Orbison. Of course, as far as that goes, I also rather like Billy Jack. I guess I’m just one of those Dukakis-hugging moon maidens you hear about.
#2 by Ken Begg on January 1, 2008 - 5:18 am
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Billy Jack actually isn’t a bad film, it’s just undisciplined. However, all its faults were magnified like the Amazing Colossal Man in the two remaining sequels, while its strengths were largely ignored entirely.
As for ZP, yes, some of the compositions are lovely–as I noted, Antonioni had an eye–but otherwise we’ll have to disagree on this one. Damn hippies.
#3 by lyzard on January 1, 2008 - 6:51 am
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I always think of Billy Jack as being Laughlin’s Under Siege: that is to say, the last film with a little distance, the one before he completely bought into his own fiction.
#4 by Blake Matthews on January 1, 2008 - 1:08 pm
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I noticed that the user rating on the IMDB is relatively high. Does that mean that hippies have taken over the internet or that time has been kind to this film?
#5 by Ken Begg on January 1, 2008 - 1:27 pm
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There has been a critical softening over the years (which I think unwarranted, obviously), but yes, most of the people seeking it out obviously would be friendly towards it. The Billy Jack reviews are surprisingly positive, too, even for Trial.
#6 by lyzard on January 1, 2008 - 4:10 pm
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It’s also a question of whether they’re being judged as cinema or as philosophy, which isn’t necessarily going to give you the same outcome.
#7 by Ken Begg on January 1, 2008 - 8:29 pm
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Well, as cinema the movie sucks (In my opinion, obviously). It’s pretty, but demonstrating the human potential for boredom on screen by beating on every point (such as they are) at stupendous length is going to annoy the hell, I’d imagine, out of the vast majority of viewers. Scenes just go on, and on, and on, and then nowhere. The acting sucks. It’s pretentious and silly and rather smug. And yes, it is driven by a remarkably juvenile and corrupt philosophy, to the extent that so coherent a term can be employed here.
Like any weird (or unique) film, there’s a very specific vibe here that I’m sure can strike the occasional viewer just right. However, for the rest of us, the film is just awful. A director’s eye can only buy so much. I can see somebody enjoying it, but I think its a stretch to go farther and call it a good film. I can think of movies I didn’t personally like that I thought were great; this isn’t one of them.
Per: Billy Jack being Laughlin’s Under Siege (or Norris’ Code of Silence), I don’t think it’s quite that good, but otherwise that’s spot on. That calls the mind the sitcom Roseanne, which started as a very blue collar, kitchen sink program–that was its schtick–and went increasingly insane as its star did, and as she accrued more power. When she divorced Tom Arnold, that seemed to be the very last person who could say ‘no’ to here. The show’s last season is fascinating as a reflection of the messy place Roseanne’s head was at that time. Hilariously, one episode allowed Roseanne to play an action hero, beating up and killing a bunch of women-hating terrorists (you can pretty much accurately guess how accomplished she was at martial arts). This took place on a train, and obviously was a nod to Under Siege 2, in that Roseanne would occasionally call up the spirit of Steven Seagal (!!!), who played himself. It was a unique cultural moment, to say the least.
#8 by lyzard on January 1, 2008 - 10:16 pm
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Ah, now – I didn’t say it was good: I said I liked it, which is a very different matter. I don’t want to regurgitate the beginning of my Exorcist 2 piece, but what I said there applies here, and more and more over time, I find. There’s so much soulless, committee-driven, paint-by-numbers film-making around that I find something as, yes, pretentious, and silly, and smug as Zabriskie Point to be oddly reassuring. It certainly isn’t a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with what these films say; or even whether they’re good or bad. It’s just the fact that something so pig-headedly individualistic could exist at all that gets me; so that no matter how wrongheaded these films are, no matter how batshit insane their personal philosophies, I can’t help giving them a sympathetic hearing.
(Here’s a question for you: would you rather watch Zabriskie Point or Dirty Love?)
I agree that Billy Jack isn’t as good as Under Siege, but I think that its very roughness and lack of professionalism is part of its appeal. It is such a weird mixture of a film. There are bits of it that are just awful, and bits that are surprisingly good. I think its attitude to the people that it is supposed to be representing, or defending, or whatever, is simply appalling. On the other hand, the handling of the rape is quite mature and sensitive. Two things about it always stick with me, neither of them the “big” stuff: Bernard’s topless girlfriend – “Are you going to look at me?” “Yeah, probably.” – which I think is the very last moment that Tom Laughlin ever acted like a normal human being. And (I blush to admit it) that resigned sigh, that shake of the head, that weary, “Now, look what you did, you made me hafta kick you in the head” gesture. Heaven help me, it cracks me up every single time.
#9 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 8:39 am
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“Here’s a question for you: would you rather watch Zabriskie Point or Dirty Love?”
Talk about a Hobb’s Choice! But you’re point is taken. My inability to digest bad comedy is well established.
I will say, though, that Zabriskie Point *was* corporate product (and there was plenty like it at the time), although obviously the movies hadn’t been as de-soul-afied back then as they are now, which is largely the contention of my belief that they don’t make entertainly bad movies much anymore. Battlefield Earth might be the only truly classic bad movie of the twenty-first century. And I still think it funny that in all the dunning shots of signage, there was not one instance–in LA!!–of a movie billboard being featured.
And again, my problem with ZP isn’t solely the philosophy of it. Easy Rider is a pretty great little movie, for example. I don’t agree with that one, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a vastly better film.
The handling of the rape is so much better in Billy Jack than in Born Losers (in which Billy is so disgusted by a group of cowardly men that he say *they* deserve to have their women raped as punishment–on them!), that I have to wonder if Laughlin’s wife wasn’t having a lot more influence on the screenplay. Interesting.
I like the roughness of Billy Jack, too, but if you could cut out half an hour of council meetings and improv classes and street theater skits, the film would be significantly better. Of course, at least there such stuff didn’t completely overwhelm the movies, as they did in the subsequent Billy Jacks.
#10 by Blake Matthews on January 2, 2008 - 9:35 am
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You never found any of Uwe Boll’s films to be classic bad movies?
#11 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 9:48 am
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Nah, they’re dumb, but they don’t really hit me in that sweet spot.
#12 by Blake Matthews on January 2, 2008 - 10:06 am
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Does the sweet spot include a realization that the filmmakers were making something profound or meaningful…and then botching it at nearly every turn?
#13 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 10:17 am
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Well, that is the sweetest part of the sweet spot, I must admit.
#14 by KeithA on January 2, 2008 - 10:46 am
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Weird that I’ve been having so many Billy Jack conversations lately. Anyway, I like Billy Jack well enough, less now than I used to when i believed in things. I never made it more than half an hour into TRIAL and saw no reason to venture beyond that point. At the end of the day, and given the fact that I died inside a long time ago and don’t want to learn more about the Freedom School or watch Johnny Fever to improv experimental theater, I prefer to watch THUNDER WARRIOR, which is basically Billy Jack without the hippies and with more guys jumping motorcycles over explosions.
On Zabriski Point — I’ve never seen it but have always wanted to. Pretentious though he may be, Antonioni has always been one of my favorite directors. I don’t so much enjoy his films as I enjoy studying them, if that makes sense. My relationship with hippies is complicated. Loathe the lazy, self-important urban hippies (so, so many of you in NYC), but I like the sinewy, adventure sport partakin’ hippies. And I like those cats James Coburn hangs out with in THE PRESIDENT’S ANALYST.
But I’d still rather see Billy Jack just kick corrupt fat guys in the face than have him tell me about the Freedom School again.
#15 by KeithA on January 2, 2008 - 10:55 am
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Oh, and the final scene in BILLY JACK, with him walking out under arrest while all the freaks give him the “down with The Man” power salute and “One Tin Soldier” plays — that’s good cinema. I love that scene. If the series had ended right there, it would have been great.
Oh, thanks, commenters. Now I want to watch BILLY JACK again. Thanks a lot.
#16 by The REv. D.D. on January 2, 2008 - 11:00 am
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Who’d have thought a film like Zabrieskie Point would create a B-Masters Algonquin-type discussion? That alone justifies its existence.
I’m just in awe at the points and depths you all can wring from films like this. It’s like magic, it is.
And completely kicks to death the idea that I should try and do this sort of thing myself, or at least expect anything of the caliber you all produce. 🙁
#17 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 11:03 am
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President’s Analyst is a *great* little movie. I was very pleased when that hit DVD.
#18 by Tom Meade on January 2, 2008 - 12:10 pm
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You have bashed so many hippies, and yet The Fountainhead remains unmolested.
I do not understand Gary Cooper.
#19 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 12:31 pm
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I’ve never seen The Fountainhead. Is it bad? It is out on DVD…
Yeah, Cooper’s never been my favorite star either. He takes tactiturn a bit too far.
#20 by Blake Matthews on January 2, 2008 - 12:38 pm
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WHAT? Your not huge fans of Gary Cooper? Why I…you…how could…ah, who am I kidding? I enjoyed him in “A Friendly Persuasion” and “Sergeant York.”
#21 by JessicaR on January 2, 2008 - 1:05 pm
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Hey now! There will be no smacktalking The Cooper on my watch! Here’s a bat however, if you want to go after Ayn Rand.
#22 by KeithA on January 2, 2008 - 1:29 pm
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Rev DD — part of the reason I like Antonioni, and part of the reason he’s so incredibly useful in a film class, is that his films are tailor made to be dissected and over-analyzed. Even the worst of them can provide hours upon hours of pretentious philosophizin’. Got me through many a term paper back in the 1990s.
#23 by Tom Meade on January 2, 2008 - 1:35 pm
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He always looks sleepy and confused! I want to dislike him but I keep feeling sorry for him in the same way that I pity frightened children.
The Fountainhead is well-made, but utterly bizarre on almost every conceivable level.
#24 by lyzard on January 2, 2008 - 1:57 pm
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I’m with Tom on this one. In this context, I’d be very interested to hear your views on The Fountainhead, Ken (which is out on DVD). No, it isn’t bad, but is is “pretentious”, “silly”, “smug”, “wrongheaded” and, yup, “batshit insane”. And, hey! – if you like your sexual symbolism applied with all the subtlety of a Tom Laughlin boot to the head….
#25 by Ken Begg on January 2, 2008 - 2:01 pm
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You people are just trying to get me killed by a gang of disgruntled Randians!
So…if it turns out I can’t post my review in exactly the way I want, does that mean I have to blow up the Internet?
(Ha, I haven’t read any Rand, but I have just enough surface knowledge to make a purportedly knowing quip.)
#26 by JessicaR on January 2, 2008 - 2:06 pm
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My favorite Rand bashing is the fake quote attributed to her on the back of America: The Book “Like my work it is sure to make anyone an asshole for at least a month after reading it.” It’s funny because it’s true, oh so true.
#27 by lyzard on January 2, 2008 - 2:22 pm
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Oh! Ah! Sorry, I’m just having another Billy Jack moment: the ice cream parlour – “I….just….go….BERSERK!!” My brother and I once went through a whole summer saying that to one another. Ahhh, dammit, dammit, now I have to watch that film again, too.
#28 by Nathan Shumate on January 2, 2008 - 9:38 pm
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Do they come in any other flavor?
(This comment inserted into the dialog mainly because I’ve seen none of the Billy Jack movies, and was feeling left out.)
#29 by Matthew Fudge on January 3, 2008 - 3:44 am
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I haven’t seen Billy Jack either, but I’ve always hated the Grateful Dead if that counts?
#30 by The Rev. D.D. on January 3, 2008 - 7:28 am
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Are there even enough Randians to form a gang?…
All those jam bands (GD, Phish, etc.)…just can’t get into ’em. Unfortunately, someone I’m around pretty often does. Makes car rides…interesting, to say the least. “OK, one hour of Phish…yes, I know that’s only two songs, too bad…and then one hour divided between Satyricon and Rammstein. Deal?”
#31 by John Doe on January 3, 2008 - 6:47 pm
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I never did see all of the “Trial of Billy Jack”. Two buddies and I went to see it in the theatre when it was first released, but just about the point where he started on his vision quest and the guy with feathers on his arms was jumping around, this drunk redneck tried to start a fight with one of my friends and the ushers came and got us. They kicked the redneck and his friends out and I wanted to go back and watch the rest of the movie, but my friends were too freaked out by it and since one of them drove I had to leave with them.
#32 by PCachu on January 4, 2008 - 11:42 am
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There may not be enough Randians to form a gang, but there are apparently enough Objectivists to make the best damn superhero movie ever.
#33 by KeithA on January 4, 2008 - 11:56 am
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John Doe: That sounds like a Billy Jack movie!