That Lucky Touch

That Lucky Touch

United Kingdon - 1975

Director - Christopher Miles

Video Treasures, 1987, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 33 minutes

Busted Up

Busted Up

United States – 1986

Director – Conrad E. Palmisano

MCA Home Video, 1987, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 33 minutes

If you’ve ever wondered why the hero so often makes a boneheaded deal with the villain, one that contradicts what we’ve been let to expect by the last hour of the movie, then film theorists have an answer for you. Movies are like dreams they say, offering us a vision of the impossible or improbable fantasy. Continuing in this vein, later critics rely on the Freudian psychoanalytical assertion that dreams are a manifestation of subconscious desire.

I suppose that this makes sense considering that the hero’s bargain flies in the face of logic and lived experience (both his and the audiences) which tells us that “might makes right”, that he is good because he wins. Instead, these movies proffer a reflection of that in the claim that right makes might, that the good guy wins because he is good. (Or at least normatively. He should have even if he doesn’t, therein lies “tragedy”, that generic leakage of reality into fantasy that seems intent on capturing our trust.) It’s a rather large leap to expect that devious characters we’ve just been led for the last hour and a half-plus into despising will suddenly be humbled into keeping up their side of the bargain. A roller coaster ride of emotions going from hate to trust in less time than it takes to digest your corn-nuts, but that’s the point. Not only does it make for some compelling tension and storytelling but it also feeds our more modern, more secular (Democratic) desire to believe that for the little guys (us!) whose reality is far too often dictated by the whims of Capitalist might) there really is an inviolable and objective moral justice out there, somewhere.

Such is the fantasy of Earl Bird, an ex-con, single father, amateur boxer who wants to believe, has to believe that adherence to a simple moral code will bring him absolution. Boxing has always been a sport imbued with blue collar mythos, and indeed, for Bird, boxing is just a fucking job, but this particular job just happens to be the foundation of an old neighborhood. When the gym he co-owns with his partner/trainer Angie (Stan Shaw) is threatened with a hostile buyout, Bird agrees to wager the fate of the entire neighborhood on a single fight. Presciently named “The Foundation,” the gym serves as a literal community center for a parade of old-timers and troubled kids, and as a metaphorical anchor in a neighborhood suffering economic decline. And, in case the drama wasn’t tangible enough, in steps Bird’s “ex-old-lady” Simone (Irene Cara,) a failed pop singer doing a low rent Irene Cara act in a strip club and now demanding Bird’s retirement and the foundation of a cozy family life.


And oh what a feeling it is now that the fate of an entire demographic hinges on a single boxing match. The battle between Bird and Tenera (who, thorough unexplained flashbacks we are led to understand killed Bird’s pal in prison) although mined for second act tension and inspiring montages, is only a distraction. The real conflict is between flannel and denim community struggling for survival and (white)wine-swilling, classical music-listening capitalism intent on gentrification and “progress.” Couching this class war in the very contemporary economic depredation of the Reagan dynasty, firmly places it in the fantasy world where issues of great moral import can be decisively resolved through acts of personal heroics. Busted Up’s simpler more subtle narrative calls to mind the extreme jingoism of another 80’s "boxing" movie, 1989’s Robot Jox (Stuart Gordon) in which the Soviet Union and the USA not-so-symbolically pummel each other into spare giant-robot-parts. Humbled by Achilles’ victory and moral constitution Alexader is “saved,” and the Cold War is resolved with a friendly man-hug. If in the course of dissecting the socio-cultural symbolism of a low budget movie, I am ever again accused of reading too much into it, of expecting too much from what is claimed to be “just a movie,” I shall say; “No, this movie is expecting too much of me.”

In 1986 things turned out well for Bird’s demographic, but by the end of the decade writer/producer Damian Lee had apparently lost hope. 1989’s Boxcar Blues (aka Thunderground) found Bird (played again by Coufos) fallen on Hard Times, utterly destitute and riding the rails in the deep south, boxing for booze money. Busted Up could probably be dismissed and forgotten as a cheap, three-sequels too late Rocky knock-off with an unnecessarily jazzy score, or a less priaprismic pre-make of Bloodsport minus the screaming. Despite its grandiose trappings, Busted Up is not a grand-scheme type of movie. There is no glory, no celebrity for Busted Up’s humble, blue-collar protagonist Earl Bird, but for all its humility, the implications are nonetheless universal.

Boxcar Blues

United States - 1989

Director - David Mitchell

VCII Home Entertainment, 1991, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 36 minutes  

Band of the Hand

Band of the Hand

United States - 1986

Director - Paul Michael Glaser

RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1986, VHS

Run Time -1 hour, 49 minutes

Band of the Hand is a somewhat forgotten classic of the mid-80's. Having been conceived as a television show by the creators of Miami Vice, the pilot went on to become this film when the idea wasn't picked up.Wikipedia has more to say about this than I care to add to, it should be noted however that it features an early performance by John Cameron Mitchell the writer,director and star of Hedwig and The Angry Inch, and a relatively early appearance of Laurence Fishburne (when he still went by Larry.)
As noted before, Band of the Hand is also an instance of a couple of notable phenomenon rolled into one; the Vietnam Vet and the Medicine Man. And look, one of those cool side-loader boxes from RCA/Columbia!

A Gun in the House

 Full box scan at bottom

A Gun in the House

United States – 1980

Director – Ivan Nagy

VCII, 1983, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 40 minutes

Unfortunately no matter how many times we’re told, or how often we see it on TV, we don’t seem to realize that good hardworking Americans have been left to their own devices, vulnerable and out in the cold. Our traditions have been effectively disenfranchised and our cultural righteousness stripped away by decades of so-called social “progress.” Unfortunately, it oftentimes requires a very personal encounter with terror for people to realize that in the hands of liberals our nation has effectively been emasculated by degrees.

The Cates family finds themselves in precisely such a vulnerable position. With her airline-pilot husband frequently away for extended periods, Emily is left alone with her daughter in that fragile suburban bubble that is the imperiled “average.” Without a reassuring man in the house, Emily opts instead for his symbolic replacement. Just in time too. Moments after completing her last shooting class, two hoods break in. Just as it looks like she is going to be violated, Emily escapes to the bedroom where she retrieves her cold steel surrogate man and kills one of her attackers. You would be justified in thinking this was the end of Emily’s ordeal, but you would be wrong. This is not that kind of revenge film.

Instead, an overworked, understaffed and totally impotent police force are at a loss to pursue, much less prosecute Emily’s assault. Instead, lacking any evidence to corroborate her claim to have been attacked at all, (clearly she seduced him right) Emily herself is arrested for the murder of her attacker and forced to go through the institutional humiliation usually reserved for a lower class of people. And so, the Cates’ ideal averageness is hung out to dry by a "justice" system so burdened with  ridiculous notions of due process and habeas corpus that it cares more for protecting the rights of the accused than in actually punishing them. It's been a problem since the 60's when longhaireed barefoot hippies and feminazi's have waged an unrelenting war on our national traditions, emasculating the American Dream with social programs and "rights." Thank God for the Second Amendment and frontier justice.

Fresh from her gig as the naïvely optimistic Gloria Stivic on All In the Family, Sally Struthers is the perfect symbol of dewey-eyed liberalism to dangle over the abyss. Combining all the best reactionary ranting of the 70’s into one succinct package, A Gun in the House is a ray of powder-burned redemption beamed into a darkening world. It is a lesson to all of us to be prepared lest we care too much about anyone else. If we go on believing that we’re somehow immune to the growing epidemic of predatory savagery seething just on the other side of the tracks, we’ll find out the hard way exactly how precariously perched our fragile bubble of suburban quietude really is. As Harry Calahan and Paul Kersey knew; one day soon these liberals are going to be begging us for protection. Once they realize they've legislated themselves to the edge of a cliff and their rainbow world of hugs and group therapy can't save 'em, they'll be wishing there was a gun in every house.

Helter Skelter

Helter Skelter

United States - 1976

Director - Tom Gries

Key Video, 1985, VHS

Run Time -1 hour, 59 minutes
(cut by nearly an hour from its original TV length)

The time honored tradition of Hippy hating was born mere moments after its target. Twinned from the plaid-jacketed, buzz-cut mid-century Company Man, the Hippy was an ideal scapegoat for an isolationist generation. Representing social rebellion, the Hippy also promised an escape from that same stifling society. The Hippy was the repressed desire of a frightened culture. Having spilled itself from the television screens of the nation for nigh on a decade, Vietnam had poisoned the cultural pool and a populace addicted to the visceral lunacy of social breakdown was jonesing for their next fix of televisual carnage. Based on the bestselling book of the same title, this 1976 TV epic was perfect. Written as it was by Vincent Bugliosi, the attorney who prosecuted the case against Manson, Helter Skelter is an exemplary case of spectacular polarizing demonology.

First our competing protagonists, each inseparable from the other for each is a negative image of the other. The Tate/LaBianca victims constitute the America we admire and envy; rich, famous and beautiful socialites, as clean and untouchable as they are unattainable. They are essentially the American Dream promised. Contrast this with Manson and his “Family,” a pack of unwashed, filth encrusted, fatherless maniacs inspired by a group of drug-taking foreign musicians to do the unthinkable: literally and figuratively puncture the barrier between the dream and the nightmare. Manson was the leakage of sin (the fringe, poverty and non-conformity) into the blinding promise of salvation (the center, success, comfort.)

The irony is that, though the film is cloaked in the trappings of secularity and rational legal procedure as the machinations of justice move inexorably onward, the puritanical framework of the whole debacle can’t help but reveal itself with handwringing glee. Consisting of roughly two halves Helter Skelter first uses an appeal to visceral emotion to elicit an endorsement of the preeminence of judiciary law.

The crimes and their lead-up are presented in classic TV true-crime expose fashion complete with time signatures at the bottom of the screen and stern narration provided by that icon of objective justice, the prosecuting attorney. One of the great selling points of the movie was that it was filmed on location at the actual crime scene using actual pieces of evidence as props. Friends of the victims are shown weeping and vomiting at the sight of the dead bodies that litter the yard of the lavishly furnished home. The proximity of the holy artifacts, the imaginary irrational inspires in its audience (both TV and actors) a visceral reaction and a rapturous appeal to the logic of legal justice.

Yet in the second half of the film when it transitions to the trial (again recreated but ‘present tense’)  it is the very idea of justice elicited by the sin/crime that now demands the condemnation of emotion. The crushing normalcy of modern culture is what inspired Charlie and his cohort to ecstatic messianic prophesying. Now that the film has elicited our emotional endorsement of the rational, it uses that rationality to condemn ‘irrational’ emotion.

Ending with the threat of further spectacle, Helter Skelter reminds us that in just two years time (1978) Charlie, and by proxy his transgressive ‘vision’ would be up for parole. Listening to Charlie’s courtroom ranting as delivered by a young Steve Railsback one can’t shake the realization that he’s right, the culture that condemns him is the same one that created him. The world loves to hate a Hippy because s/he is a necessary illusion, a foil for our own normalcy.

Innumerable serial-killer and real-crime films and television programs have come since, but Helter Skelter was exceptional because it kicked down the gate. Hippys were the perfect scapegoat because like Commies, they were easily painted as outsiders, not because of what they were but for what they represented; opting out, rejection of the establishment. In that case Charlie Manson, at least insofar as Television was concerned, was the perfect Hippy. He transformed secular right and wrong into religious good and evil merging marketplace and mythology and making the Puritanical sin and atonement binary commercially palatable to a “secular” mass audience.

I found this flick on that sweet, sweet Key Video box above, but it is available on DVD. This cover is from DVD Covers.

 This VHS sleeve insert and the courtroom image above are on loan from Black Hole Reviews
Top image of George DiCenzo as Vincent Bugliosi and bottom image of shaven Charlie are from The Stuff You Gotta Watch

Tightrope

Tightrope

United States – 1984

Director – Richard Tuggle

Following a decade of race-riots, hippies and touchy-feely progressive politics, 1971's Dirty Harry, was the reactionary tale of a white cop incensed at a justice system that cared more for so called “rights” and “due process” than it did for the “law.” The film was a huge hit spawning several sequels and its own genre of reactionary angry-white-male films. (Reasserting masculinity after the ‘emasculating’ loss in Vietnam.) Poor guys.

At the same time the Feminist movement and yes, rape revenge films are forcing the previously taboo subject of sexual violence into the public discourse in low-budget films like Ms. 45 and I Spit on Your Grave. In 1983 just a few years after I Spit on Your Grave, the fourth installment of Dirty Harry, Sudden Impact is released. The main character is also named Jennifer and also a rape victim out for revenge. But instead of encouraging us to sympathize with her, this Jennifer is painted as a criminal for operating outside the confines of legality. She is after all a she and thus not allowed to engage in the same extralegal punitive justice as our hero Harry.

Thus, facing criticism for yet another reactionary plot in which a rugged man of action saves everyone else in the service of the status quo, Eastwood decides to get behind a clone script engineered to explicitly address the issue of his stone-age out-of-touchness.

Enter 1984’s Tightrope in which Eastwood plays (Dirty Harry playing) Wes Block, a callous and sarcastic New Orleans cop on the case of a serial rapist/murderer. Great and crude effort is made to give Harry, err…Wes, a veneer of empathy. A single father of two young daughters (one Eastwood’s own,) Wes also becomes romantically involved with Beryl (Genevieve Bujold), a womens’ self-defense teacher and rape-counselor who doesn’t wear a bra. Although he never acts it, the mere proximity of females (something Harry generally lacked) is meant to give Wes a mild guilt-by-association "sensitivity."

But Tightrope's message is more than simple retrenchment, it is an attempt to work out the dimensions of the "New Man" predicated by feminism's demands and successes. The film intentionally draws a parallel between Wes and the killer by confusing their psychology, by making them sides of the same coin.

The clearest indicator to my mind is the use of handcuffs as a motif of power and submission. Used for domination in both sex games and the law, their repeated appearance in the film (and promotional materials) highlights the way that public and private power are often intertwined and mutually justifying. Struggling with these conflicting notions of morality, Wes suffers from nightmares in which he is the killer misogynist strangling the "liberated" Beryl. “I’m gonna get you motherfucker!” Wes yells after the killer violates his home. Sure, he’s yelling at the absent killer (an ex-cop no less), but Wes is looking at himself in the mirror, implying that his hypothetical good side is determined to catch and contain his bad side.

Although it makes a strong case for the possibility of shared power, that is, over none-but-ones-self, Tightrope is bound by the conventions of genre and its star's image. The struggle is a private one, and on the surface Wes must play the same old Harry. When he visits Beryl's self-defense class and she knees a practice dummy in the balls, it mechanically groans and sticks its tongue out while Wes grins bemusedly. And as if to demonstrate the one-sidedness of this whole paradigm shift,  Beryl is attacked but fails to employ any of her own training, instead feebly stabbing the killer with a pair of sewing scissors before Wes comes to her aid. Woman it would seem, is still bound by the traditional rules of conduct even if man isn't.

Dangerously Close

Dangerously Close

United States - 1986

Director - Albert Pyun

Media Home Entertainment, 1988, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour, 36 minutes

Either you love it or you don't really care enough to have a strong opinion. Dangerously Close is an early film from auteur Albert Pyun. Sandwiched between other 80's Pyun classics The Sword and the Sorcerer and Vicious Lips, Dangerously Close is surprisingly unembelished. In fact it's downright vanilla, following a lower class kid who goes to an elite school only to discover that the rich students are not particularly friendly towards the lower classes.

Numerous other films have covered similar territory, at LVA we've met Zombie High and Brotherhood of Justice, but its a story that comes directly from the pages of history. Ever since the inception of private property, the Haves have tried to keep out the Have-Nots. United Statesian cinema loves to tell the story of the poor kid who fought back and kept his dignity. If he won the girl that's because love is more valuable than riches. If he won the riches, it's because, darnit, this country is GREAT, and anybody can achieve anything if they set their minds to it. I would argue that it is the power of such myths that makes this country great. That films in which we sympathize with the po' folks keep getting made and out in the real world we continue to idolize the vampire elite.

Years of the Beast

Years of the Beast

United States – 1981

Director – D. Paul Thomas

Gospel Films, 1988, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 38 minutes

The opening credits blink on over shots of Seattle’s University of Washington campus. Students study together on the steps of Suzzallo Library. Neo-gothic parapets and spires jut skyward, harsh and unrefined, in distinct contradiction the clear blue purity and simplicity of the heavens. It is entirely appropriate that Years of the Beast’s opening scene takes place here in order that the philosophical groundwork for the rest of the film be laid out. It is as important to Evangelical Christianity as to any other group to define itself by describing what it is against, even if that definition is utterly incoherent and inconsistent.

Can't, quite, make it out...

Professor Miles is a regular old secular academic, devoted to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. When Miles drops in at Smith Hall to visit Dr. Klineman he learns that his friend has just been fired. It seems that Klineman’s own research is the reason. Well, perhaps research is too generous a term, for Klineman has been drawing connections between current events and Bible prophecy, connections which do not qualify as ‘empirical knowledge’ to the Christ-hating academic community, but Klineman knows that the ‘truth’ is not secular.

Satan sez ballpoint on the palm is good enuf

At that very moment there is an earthquake and, to Miles’ bewilderment, Dr. Klineman vanishes without a trace. Thus begins the Rapture, a time when all the indisputably good Christians are whisked away to heaven while the rest of try to figure out why, if God really did make us in his image, did he give us inquiring minds? Was it because He too lacks all the answers and thought curiosity might be useful, or just that He enjoys watching us fumble and fuck up and get persecuted by Satan? But wait, wouldn’t rejecting God’s self-ness be essentially like rejecting God? All of this Doublethink is way too much for Miles' 'educated' heathen brain to process and in a weepy fit of cognitive dissonance he and his wife flee into rural Western Washington as the Tribulation descends upon a burning Seattle.

2nd Ave & Yesler Way Apocalypse!

Fortunately for Dr. Miles, you can’t take your research to heaven, and while dodging the emissaries of the Dark one he has plenty of time to pore over Klineman’s notes. Conveniently enough, all of the answers are in there, served up without any confounding footnotes, references or direct observations, and after a few heartfelt scenes of emotional pleading, Miles finds himself born again. But Satan is not going to let him go that easily. Persecuted by the Devil’s regional representative, the Skagit County Sheriff, Miles goes underground and joins a clandestine Bible study group to await the Second Coming. And come it does in a blast of shoddy animated light-rays. So, while his dreams of a tenured position at the U have evaporated in the blinding light of faith, Miles can rest assured that astrology draped in Christian trappings is totally not like regular astrology; it’s true.

Gladiator Cop

Gladiator Cop

United States – 1994

Director – Nick Rotundo

Monarch Home Video, 1995, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 32 minutes

Douche!

If you’ve seen the poet-shirted epic Ring of Steel, you’ll empathize when I say that it is almost impossible to get enough of that fucking film. I watched it five or six times (they blur together) before I was able to squeeze out this shitty review. The subsequent month was difficult indeed knowing that there wasn’t any more. Sure, I could have watched Ring of Steel a seventh time, but as anyone who is passionate about film knows, you have to give it space. It’s like a drug, the more you take the higher your tolerance. After a while it just loses its potency, its magic, and you have to detox.

So it goes with Ring of Steel. As much as I need it, I’ve got to let it steep for a while. Sometimes though, things just work out. When I signed myself up for this Week of Hong debacle I didn’t really know what to do. I figured a plan would shake itself out once I had something to work with, so I just went online and picked a handful of the cheapest James Hong VHS tapes I could find and ordered them sight unseen. Not only did Gladiator Cop satisfy my primal craving for ponytail-man-bangs (a favorite from RoS) and illegal fight-to-the-death LARP nerdery, but it was also my first Lorenzo Lamas movie. That’s a pretty rich meal to digest all at once; like truffles deep-fried in duck-fat.

Mr. Hong doesn’t make his appearance until a little ways into the film, but it’s a zinger of a role. Often times he just has a teeny bit-part in these low budget STV flicks but not so here. Lamas plays Garrett, a cocky and uncouth ex-police detective who moonlights as a champion fencer. When the famed sword of Alexander the Great is stolen from the local museum where his collagen injected curator girlfriend works, Garrett traces the theft to the illicit roid-nerd death-match circuit. Garrett doesn’t know it yet, but as it turns out he is the reincarnation of Alexander the Great and surely destined to wield that damned sword before the end of this epic. Using his telepathic ability to fondle corpses and see how they died, he tracks the sword to one Parmenion (a real historical figure played here by James Hong,) Alexander the Great's rival, now reincarnated to seek revenge. It’s a little far-fetched I know, but these two guys really play it to the hilt. Even though I received the less graphic version (apparently there are some boobs somewhere,) this aperitif is exactly the appetite whetting I was looking for as I count the days until my Ring of Steel anniversary viewing later this month. Bon Apetit!


Thanks to TS Filmvault for the trailer.

Week of Hong Contributors

Illogical Contraption - Bloodsport II and Bloodsport III
Fist of B-List - The Dynamite Brothers
From the Depths of DVD Hell - Big Trouble In Little China and Balls of Fury

Direct to Video Connoisseur - South Beach Academy and Caged Fury

She Blogged By Night - Seventh Sin

Booksteve's Library - Two China Girls

Lines That Make Things - The A Team (TV episode)
Temple of Schlock - Hot Connections
Explosive Action - Ninja III: The Domination
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear - Classic TV with James Hong 

Lost Video Archive - Teen Lust, Gladiator Cop, Cyber Bandits and Blade in Hong Kong

Beaks: The Movie

Beaks: The Movie

A.K.A. – Ataque de los Pajaros (Attack of the Birds)

Spain/Mexico – 1987

Director – Rene Cardona Jr.

International Video Entertainment, 1987, VHS

 Run Time – 1 hour, 30 minutes

Smack!

From the intrepid Mexican biologist cum rogue scriptwriter/director who brought you the homoerotic Latin Jaws knockoff Tintorera: Tiger Shark comes another film with a full-colon in the title, this one an eco-disaster re-envisioning of The Birds. Where Hitchcock depended on sheer psychological terror and statistical visual illusion, Legacy director Rene Cardona Jr. banks on American "actors", the realism of stock nature photography, a stapler, and the pitching arms of several professional pigeon throwers.

Opening with the finest enucleation by bird-of-prey we’ve seen in the decade since Day of the Animals introduced us to such asinine ornithological antics, Beaks! quickly begins testing ones powers of logical conjunction. When a second attack, this one perpetrated by chickens, takes place, news reporter Vanessa (Michelle Johnson) is convinced, despite her employers totally not-sexually objectifying assessment of her (tits)ability to do actual (sex)reporting that there is some kind of connection between all this feathery antagonism. Dragging along her smart-ass boyfriend/cameraman Peter (Christopher Atkins), the pair do a leisurely and agonizing bickering/flirting-couple tour of stock bird photography scenes.

The casual viewer may have a hard time adding panoramic images of birds in flight to claustrophobic close-ups of pigeons smashing into the actors faces and coming up with horror as a sum, but if Christopher’s groan-inducing one-liners don’t provoke an anticipatory cringe or two, just think of the birds. They must be terrified.

Both of these European VHS covers are from the Cinehound Forum.

Borderline

Borderline

United States – 1980

Director – Jerrold Freedman

Avid Home Entertainment, 1995, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 44 minutes

In the early 1980’s a whole little cluster of border films came out within a few short years. It seemed that suddenly, illegal immigration was contentious again. In Border Cop (1980) Telly Savalas, and The Border (’82) Jack Nicholson each played a jaded Border Patrol agent who threw up his hands in cynical and frustrated sympathy. He may have felt deeply for the plight of the illegals, may have even been good friends with some of them (or even fallen in love), but he still had a job to do. Borderline, which came out just a few months after the Savalas picture was a gap in my Bronson collection that I had long needed to fill, but I was worried that it might be a difficult experience.

You see, I get totally confused when we white people make movies about non-white people. I start to feel like my emotions are being intentionally manipulated, especially when white actors play sympathetic non-white characters. Steven Segal, Burt Reynolds, Marlon Brando, Telly Savalas; the list goes on and on. Even my creasy Polish-American hero Charles Bronson played Mexicans and Native Americans on occasion. Bronson’s may have been the most believable brownface portrayal, but it still felt somehow disingenuous. These characters are repeatedly robbed, abused and even killed with much handwringing, but my feelings of empathy were all too often haunted by an inkling of insincerity which I couldn’t quite place. I don’t like having to think too deeply about what’s going on on-screen, it really ruins my suspension of disbelief.

It turns out I needn’t have been so concerned. Bronson, though he may have been typecast, or facecast as it were, always manages to deliver yet another compelling performance. In Borderline he plays Jeb, a Border Patrol agent much like his cinematic contemporaries; physically and emotionally overwhelmed with the contradictions of the very system which cuts his paychecks. It is such a difficult and thankless job being the responsible, caring zookeeper. But after watching as crowds of immigrants were herded about like frightened cattle in a prison yard for the first few minutes of Borderline, I was once again feeling the early stages of nagging guilt. But moments later, when Jeb’s best friend and fellow agent Scooter (Wilford Brimley) was brutally murdered, I suddenly had a revelation.

Scooter’s killer is Hotchkiss, “The Marine” (Ed Harris), a cold-blooded, uzi-weilding Nam Vet working for a local California businessman in a grand conspiracy to rake in the cash by drowning the U.S. labor market in a sea of malleable brown servants. Now even though the complications and tensions of illegal immigration policy are central to the rivalry between the Jeb and Hotchkiss, Borderline is not about illegal immigration at all. In fact it’s never even discussed. That’s because everything troublesome about immigration is embodied in one unscrupulous and evil individual, Hotchkiss whose elimination “solves” everything. Jeb’s clear-cut moral victory relieved me of any responsibility for the active contemplation of systemic social issues that often makes watching dramatic movies so unpleasant. Pitting these two men against each-other was brilliant. Not only do they play their roles with gusto, but it utterly mystifies one of the most contentious issues in modern U.S. politics. I must say though, if I have to cheer on the retrenchment of the status quo, Bronson’s the guy who’ll get me to do it every time. It’s so much easier when complex moral issues are boiled down into charismatic and easy to digest character tropes. If it had been anyone but him I would probably still be feeling guilty.

Wait, who's the headliner here, the Subject or the Objects?

French, Italian and United States' posters from Movie Poster Shop.
The French one is my absolute favorite, maybe one of the best posters of all time. It perfectly exemplifies the misguided self-deluding quality of white-people making movies about brown-people.

German poster-thing from Movie Poster Database
Why does (almost) every poster have a giant United States' flag on it?