i actually watched the first segment of that...whatever it was. i dont know how you get to part 2. i suppose it's like part one: a long buildup to nowhere. ya know, based on the commercial - which was a mess - you gut to assume the movie, being longer, is going to be even worse. tom laughlin is the biggest enigma in history. he's like the pyramids: they dont really do anything, but there they are. you look at 'em and you scratch your head. tom laughlin's like that.
To anyone who doesn't know who Tom Laughlin is, which is not likely among the four dilapidated, endentulate, ossified fossils reading this blog, Tom Laughlin is the guy who made and starred in Billy Jack: simultaneously, and for the entire running time, the coolest and lamest movie in all history. This is a unique achievement, being BOTH simultaneously, for the duration. For the whole movie. No other movie can make that claim. 90 minutes of great nausea, running head to head, neck and neck, from start to finish, nausea and cool, nausea and groovy, a dead heat between two totally opposed.....things. It's never been done before and it's never been done since. And Tom Laughlin did it. HE thinks it's a great achievement, so great that he's never been able to let go of it. If I was a Scientologist I would say he was "stuck in a win." The "win" in this case, being a huge box office. It rattled the hinges and shook the rafters. Even though it sucked. Because, simultaneously, it rocked. It was an astounding achievemnet, to be so retardedly awful and yet be so fantastically bitchin' at the same time. Nothing has ever equalled it for sheer befuddelledinglyness. And nothing ever will. And in the middle of it all, bad movie and good movie, was Tom Laughlin, a vaulting screen presence reciting abysmal, trite, imbecilic, rubber room dialogue with the on screen magnetism of Marlon Brando. I have barely scratched the surface on the phenomenon of Billy Jack - phenomenon being used here not in a good way - of this movie.
Actually, JJ, I'd suggest that Laughlin is in the same class as Ed Wood, but you're right...rarely has someone so inept managed to strike such a chord. BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON clearly wasn't enough. As a kid, I sat through BILLY JACK and the rerelease of BORN LOSERS, but never chose to subject myself to the DC opus...and now, this. The first woman who ever took an interest in me loved this film, and I wondered if that was a bad sign. Wondered too much.
She, who was beautiful and kind and smart (and therefore too good for me, I was sure), loved BILLY JACK, that is. Dunno what she might make of this new eructation.
I'd vote for Billy Jack. Or, as I have said many times, ANYONE but Hitlery.
Is Billy Jack the movie any worse than a million other chop-socky films of that era? Lousy dialogue, plot, continuity, and acting, but great kung-fu, which is why we watch them in the first place. He was just one of the few Caucasians to do it, and so became a national hero, able to stem the yellow peril with one timely ax kick.
10 comments:
yer jokin', right?
Me, joking?
i actually watched the first segment of that...whatever it was. i dont know how you get to part 2. i suppose it's like part one: a long buildup to nowhere. ya know, based on the commercial - which was a mess - you gut to assume the movie, being longer, is going to be even worse. tom laughlin is the biggest enigma in history. he's like the pyramids: they dont really do anything, but there they are. you look at 'em and you scratch your head. tom laughlin's like that.
I watched the first video, too. And it's certainly like that.
To anyone who doesn't know who Tom Laughlin is, which is not likely among the four dilapidated, endentulate, ossified fossils reading this blog, Tom Laughlin is the guy who made and starred in Billy Jack: simultaneously, and for the entire running time, the coolest and lamest movie in all history. This is a unique achievement, being BOTH simultaneously, for the duration. For the whole movie. No other movie can make that claim. 90 minutes of great nausea, running head to head, neck and neck, from start to finish, nausea and cool, nausea and groovy, a dead heat between two totally opposed.....things. It's never been done before and it's never been done since. And Tom Laughlin did it. HE thinks it's a great achievement, so great that he's never been able to let go of it. If I was a Scientologist I would say he was "stuck in a win." The "win" in this case, being a huge box office. It rattled the hinges and shook the rafters. Even though it sucked. Because, simultaneously, it rocked. It was an astounding achievemnet, to be so retardedly awful and yet be so fantastically bitchin' at the same time. Nothing has ever equalled it for sheer befuddelledinglyness. And nothing ever will. And in the middle of it all, bad movie and good movie, was Tom Laughlin, a vaulting screen presence reciting abysmal, trite, imbecilic, rubber room dialogue with the on screen magnetism of Marlon Brando. I have barely scratched the surface on the phenomenon of Billy Jack - phenomenon being used here not in a good way - of this movie.
That's the best review of the movie I've ever seen.
it's probly the first review of it ever written. it defies analysis. so it's probly also the worst review of the movie you're ever read.
Actually, JJ, I'd suggest that Laughlin is in the same class as Ed Wood, but you're right...rarely has someone so inept managed to strike such a chord. BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON clearly wasn't enough. As a kid, I sat through BILLY JACK and the rerelease of BORN LOSERS, but never chose to subject myself to the DC opus...and now, this. The first woman who ever took an interest in me loved this film, and I wondered if that was a bad sign. Wondered too much.
She, who was beautiful and kind and smart (and therefore too good for me, I was sure), loved BILLY JACK, that is. Dunno what she might make of this new eructation.
I'd vote for Billy Jack. Or, as I have said many times, ANYONE but Hitlery.
Is Billy Jack the movie any worse than a million other chop-socky films of that era? Lousy dialogue, plot, continuity, and acting, but great kung-fu, which is why we watch them in the first place. He was just one of the few Caucasians to do it, and so became a national hero, able to stem the yellow peril with one timely ax kick.
Post a Comment