Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

You’d be forgiven for thinking the real star of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is his self-absorbed manager.  Even the crooked Tom Parker knew to stay out of the fucking limelight.

The ubiquitous Scooter Braun, in hot water these days for acquiring the rights to Taylor Swift’s original masters and later selling them for hundreds of millions all without her approval or a cent of compensation, appears so often on screen offering remembrances and insights to the audience and direct advice to his young meal ticket, he bumps his Canadian prodigy to supporting actor status. Bieber is a mysterious ghost in his own movie.

It’s clear Braun himself is engaging in blatant, self-interested mythmaking.  In a film that served as useful propaganda for the doe-eyed, babyfaced teenager from Stratford, Ontario, aimed squarely at the loins of his terrifyingly ravenous female audience, it doubles as an unwelcome platform for all the shameless vultures eager to carve off their piece of the lucrative Bieber pie. They suck up way too much cinematic real estate.

The film is centered around a major show at Madison Square Garden in 2010, teased at the beginning and shown in part at the end, during a leg of his first world tour. As we get closer and closer to the date, Braun worries it won’t happen. Failing to present himself as a benign figure of wisdom and kindness, he’s actually a ruthless capitalist heavily invested in running Bieber ragged for as long as he gets what I presume is a substantial cut of his earnings.

Noting he’s done 120 live shows in two years (which probably doesn’t include performances on TV and radio or time spent writing and recording), a punishing schedule for even the healthiest performer possessing extraordinary levels of energy, Braun reveals that for some of those shows his young charge had a broken foot wrapped up in a cast (as proven in a briefly shown concert clip) and a lingering throat problem.

Just a few days before the big MSG show, one such specialist lowers the boom with his diagnosis. Bieber needs to cancel some earlier shows on the road to Mecca or he will risk ruining the only reason he’s famous. And he needs to shut up before the next scheduled show, a necessarily rigid rule not easy for a rebellious teenage boy to obey.

Overly religious vocal coach Mama Jan, a tough, charmless middle-aged woman with no children of her own who acts as a surrogate mom and critic, seconds the need for a time-out. Don’t be fooled. Despite claiming to be part of a happily dysfunctional road family, none of them actually care for his well-being as much as they care about their next paycheck, no matter the faux concern they frequently express. If Bieber, a multi-talented instrumentalist, didn’t have star quality, they’d all be leeching off of someone else.

Just before learning the truth, Braun speculates to one of his managing colleagues that he thinks it’s just dehydration from spending too much time out in the sunshine. Even he seems oblivious to how much he’s needlessly overworking his superstar. For his part, Bieber has to be talked into making cancellations in the first place. Like any performer in his situation he doesn’t want to disappoint anybody. Mama Jan makes a persuasive argument and he relents. Better to postpone a couple shows now than seven or more later.

Braun is so unwilling to be honest about his greedy intentions he goes out of his way to present himself as some kind of philanthropic hero to Bieber’s fans who are generally so fucking easy to please it’s disturbing. One well-timed hair flick and they soak their drawers.

We learn in the second half of the film that there are some leftover unsold tickets for otherwise sold-out shows just lying around. (Sure.) Along with some other underlings, Braun goes out, finds the saddest cases and makes their day hours before the show. (He claims his favourite part of his job is making people happy like this. He is completely full of shit.)

There’s the family scammed by phony tickets bought on Craigslist, another who got screwed over by a no-showing friend, the two girls who stupidly left theirs and a wallet in a cab, the family visiting from Poland, the modest Muslim girl who camps out overnight with her friends and turns out to be a good singer in her own right (curiously omitted from the longer Director’s Fan Cut), the two Black girls selling chocolate bars outside one of the venues.

No matter the fan, the reaction to receiving Willy Wonka’s golden tickets is always the same: sheer pandemonium and appreciative hysteria. “You are a saint! You are a saint!” one such ecstatic girl cries out to a surely pleased Braun who does not in any way resemble that remark. He’s so well known in Bieberworld fans absurdly go nuts for him. To be fair, he’s giving away floor seats. But just as surely, he’s just giving director John M. Chu cutaway options during the live scenes.

Never Say Never, much like the first One Direction movie, provides a platform at times for Bieber supporters to express the kinds of thoughts that if expressed by grown men about women they openly lusted for would result in restraining orders, arrests and the hiring of more security.

Overzealous groupies are nothing new. They’re as old as the hills. But Bieber supporters sound particularly psychotic and delusional. Two girls, not even teenagers yet I’m guessing, openly argue over who will be his “first wife”. The added, unexpected cynicism is stunning.

Another creepy gal, a pre-teen not out of place in a horror movie, sounds especially determined to get Bieber to marry her. She’s even made a shirt combining her first name with his surname. Yet another young fan admits to sending him 100 tweets in a single day. I can only shudder at imagining what the rest of his fan mail must look like.

During some concert footage, there’s the expected moment where a couple of overeager front-row fans climb the barricade and try to get on stage to touch him. One is caught by security immediately and removed (she tries to take one of the sound monitors with her), the other manages to break through but is blocked by a couple of his quick thinking back-up dancers (some of whom are truly exceptional). While it’s unlikely any girl would actually harm Bieber (male fans are far more dangerous), the uncertainty would still make me very uneasy.

Not helping any of this misguided devotion to an extremely bland pop star who makes Michael Jackson look edgy is the uncomfortable way Bieber is frequently sold to his audience. “Are you ready to fall in love with Justin Bieber tonight?” his DJ provocatively inquires about a 16-year-old during one show. One of his managers, a woman, asks a fan lucky enough to be invited on stage if she thought the star was as attractive as she imagined. Oh yes, comes the reply. How is any of this healthy?

This results in an unusual paradox, contrary to the usual rock and roll protocol. Handsome, muscular, squeaky clean Bieber, polite yet mischievious, singing about making a girl feel less lonely and wondering if the girl of his dreams is out there in the crowd, is hypocritically presented as a completely unattainable sex symbol, one you can lust for in public but never fuck in private. (He was dating Selena Gomez around this time who is unseen and curiously unmentioned.)

Whereas Elvis and The Beatles banged everything in sight, Bieber is presented as an object of frustrating elusiveness. You can get invited on stage for a song, receive a bouquet of roses, maybe even experience a shiver or two as you feel a gentle stroke of the hand on your cheek while you’re being serenaded. But you’re not getting a room key or a phone number. It’s like going to Chippendale’s but no one strips. I’m surprised the movie isn’t called Chickbait.

You can’t say his more determined fans aren’t willing to obtain some form of personal contact no matter how outlandish or obtrusive the method. In the expanded Director’s Fan Cut, briefly released after the first version, we learn that anyone with even a peripheral connection to Bieber is a potential lead. And if that doesn’t pan out, you can try to directly befriend his pals from Stratford who he rarely sees in the active storm of Biebermania. (They show up to the MSG gig.)

There’s a revealing scene where we meet a family close to Bieber (the dad was his soccer coach who claims he was selfish with the ball in only the original version) and as he speaks about the number of annoying phone calls from desperate girls trying to reach Bieber from all over the world, some of which come in the middle of the night, his wife picks up on another lunatic before she is quickly hung up on.

Raised by a single teen mom who sent him to church, the pop phenom doesn’t curse, drink or smoke, and besides a lingering kiss on an excited fan’s cheek during a photo-op, he doesn’t flirt with or hit on anybody. He is as inoffensive as his anglicized, uninvolving, corporate R&B music. At least, that’s the image they want you to swallow whole.

There’s a suspicious scene set in his old “stomping grounds” of Stratford. A talented young violinist is busking outside the Avon Theatre pretty close to the spot where a young, left-handed Bieber sang while playing his acoustic guitar to a small crowd of understandably impressed onlookers. He was 12.

Millionaire Bieber throws her some change in her open case and starts a conversation. It’s a little awkward and forced. She recognizes him but doesn’t have the usual overwrought response to his presence. He goes into inspirational mode, telling her his busking history outside the Avon and encouraging her to keep going and following her dreams. The girl, a little stunned, simply goes back to playing again as he walks away pleased with his childhood friends.

Bieber’s family, especially his loving maternal grandparents who helped raise him in the absence of his father (think a skinnier Batista) who appears, in one instance quietly teary-eyed during a gig, but rarely speaks, go out of their way to put him over as a very nice boy who they hope remains that way forever.

In between archival home movies of him as an angelic lad hamming it up in various ways, there are modern scenes with him being playful (hiding behind a curtain before the next backstage fan photo-op) and kind (he also hands out free tickets), cheerfully playing with one of his baby half-siblings, and having chummy conversations with a young Jaden Smith, who raps on the title song and makes his live debut at one of his shows. Gotta love nepotism.

Just a few years after this film’s highly successful release (it’s one of the highest grossing music documentaries of all time), Bieber’s true colours would emerge as he would accumulate one bad headline after another, making this G-rated farce even more outdated and phony.

Probably recognizing how much of a brat he actually is (one crew member diplomatically asserts he’s a pleasure to work with “most of the time”), while acknowledging his love of pranks and clowning around, Bieber’s shrewd management team carefully present him as a hard-working professional, very respectful to more established stars like Boyz II Men whose back-up duties on Smile feel like a demotion, and his mentor Usher always there with a hug, a smile and some advice despite their awkward first encounter.

Usher’s not merely a celebrity admirer. In the second version of this film, the briefly released, reworked and expanded Director’s Fan Cut, his role as a financially invested producer is expanded as we learn he was very worried Bieber would align with Justin Timberlake over him. He stands to profit in the same way everybody else does. No wonder he encourages Bieber to drink that green goop to protect his profitable voice.

Years after the film’s double releases, footage leaked out of Bieber using racial epithets against Black people, outtakes that had no chance of making the final cut. I thought of that every time he has a positive encounter with a person of colour whether it’s a fellow musician or his trusted personal security guy. It makes you question the sincerity of these interactions.

That said, there is one genuinely charming moment in the second Never Say Never. During an intimate acoustic set in front of a much smaller crowd, Bieber playfully pretends not to know one of his hit songs his aggravated fans are requesting. He invites a cute, little white girl up on stage if she promises to sing along with him.

She climbs up, he puts her on his lap and although it takes her a moment to process what will be a lovely anecdote she’ll endlessly retell everyone for the rest of her life, there she is singing every word of Baby. At one point, Bieber lets her take over and although she’s off-key the entire time she never misses a beat. He smiled and I smiled.

Much like The Beatles experienced with their early success, it doesn’t take much for Bieber to whip his fans into an absolute frenzy. A dorky, white-boy dance move here, a calculated hair flip there, a extended warble in the middle of a song. Taking a page out of David Bowie’s playbook, he even performs songs high above the crowd in a heart-shaped contraption, similar to the British legend’s cherry picker red-seat during the Diamond Dogs tour.

Bieber is clearly aware of the power of his sexuality. (It can’t be an accident there’s a quick shot of him blowdrying his hair shirtless.) There’s a funny moment where he appears to be conducting and silencing their screams. (There’s another funny moment when a bouncing, wide-eyed fan looks on in amazement while he sings.) It’s all too easy to abuse that power when you’re that huge a rock star. And inevitably, long after the propaganda effects of Never Say Never wore off, he would succumb like many others before him.

It’s obvious that Bieber studied The Beatles. Maybe not musically (they had better hooks and actually took risks), but how they inspired all that shrieking and certainly that distinctive Germanic haircut. When The Beatles would sing She Loves You and imitate Little Richard’s patented whooping, that’s when you’d see their follicles shake resulting in the desired response.

Bieber doesn’t need to be in the middle of a song to do this himself. He picks his spot and those panties get instantly soaked. I’ve never seen young girls lose their minds for so little.

The closest thing to self-deprecation, if you can call it that, is the sequence where the girls try to imitate his gimmick and then we see him doing the same before he’s tackled and carried off by Braun and the vultures in slow motion. It’s not funny because it’s lame and soft. Bieber knows that a more ruthless mockery of one of his biggest selling points is bad for business which explains this more tame bit of teasing. Best to leave actual satire to Kate McKinnon who absolutely nailed his inane mannerisms for Saturday Night Live. It’s no wonder he eventually got it cut.

In the Director’s Fan Cut, Bieber’s mom notes the dilemma of raising a teenage pop star. If he fucks up, what’s she going to do? Ground him? Cancel a tour until he improves or makes amends? To do so would involve punishing his entire team. Bieber was surely aware of this which explains how he got away with being a dick for so long before the press started exposing the truth. It took a Comedy Central roast of all things for him to start reflecting on his childish stupidity.

In the original cut, Braun the profit-sucking manager recounts a conversation with his charge. Bieber worried to him about having a ruined childhood. Braun promised that wouldn’t happen. Nearly a decade after this film’s double release, as revealed in his recent YouTube series Seasons, the boy from Stratford developed serious drug addictions as he tried to cope with his growing anxiety and depression. Braun belatedly admitted he didn’t live up to his word. All those damn millions got in the way of his judgment.

The movie doesn’t offer much insight into his family history. His unwed teen parents (no ages are given) broke up before he was even a year old (we don’t know why) but remain cordial today. One of his songs he performs during the sold-out MSG show appears to directly reference the break-up which clearly had an impact on him he otherwise doesn’t address.

In fact, Bieber is only interviewed once in the whole film. Discussions about selling out the world’s most famous arena is considered a huge benchmark that puts him in the same category as U2, The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson. If only his entire catalogue, early samples of which are limply presented in concert here, was as remotely compelling as even the weakest song on The Joshua Tree.

Never Say Never is far from a completely candid document about the unlikely rise of an international sensation. Most of the truthful parts we already know. By posting clips of his childhood performances, including those from a local singing competition he didn’t even win, on YouTube he saved himself years of grunt work trying to get a record deal. Once Braun discovered him, it was inevitable someone would say yes to signing him. After playing small gigs in schools and theme parks, and making numerous radio appearances, his fan base would grow exponentially. And a year after seeing Swift’s first sold out MSG show, Bieber would achieve the same goal.

Kept safely out of view are the dark bits Bieber is only now sharing in another series of YouTube videos. The loneliness, the isolation, his self-abuse, his private pain. Despite his uninspired, generic pop music, his real story, far messier and more complex, sounds way more interesting.

But as proven by the high returns for Never Say Never, there’s more money to be made through whitewashed propaganda. Like any committed capitalist knows full well, it’s always greed over humanity. Right, Scooter?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, November 30, 2020
3:52 a.m.

Billy Jack Goes To Washington

He’s saved rape victims, protected a school for the disenfranchised and kicked the asses of intrusive rednecks.  Why not take a seat in the Senate?

Based on the Capra film, Billy Jack Goes To Washington was the least liked of the four fully realized Billy Jack films (a fifth was never completed) and yet once again I find myself alone in defending it.  Released briefly in 1977, it is far from original, but it still captures the cynical atmosphere of its time and is saved by strong character performances.

Quietly and passionately played yet again by Tom Laughlin (who also produced, co-wrote the screenplay and directed, all under his usual pseudonyms), you could argue Billy Jack is way too naïve this time compared to his more skeptical feelings about the government expressed in multiple ways in all the earlier installments. But based on its source material, the movie finds a clever way around this.

EG Marshall is very good in a tricky performance as a Senator Billy Jack respects and admires.  Marshall was close with his uncle who vouched for his character.  But he didn’t live long enough to see how corrupted and compromised he would ultimately become.  The uncle was murdered for pursuing a “lost cause” that threatened the establishment.

That phrase comes up a lot as justification for self-righteous, dead-end political crusades which our hero will find himself pursuing in order to save his reputation and burgeoning political career.  Only appointed to fill a seat for two months (to win over otherwise disinterested voters) until his unnamed political party (you gotta figure they’re Republicans) rally behind a successor, Billy Jack decides to use his limited time to get a National Camp policy enacted.  Essentially, it’s an extension of the Freedom School from the two earlier chapters.

But there’s a problem.  He wants to build the first one in a place he’s intimately familiar with called Willet Creek.  That’s also where Marshall and his wealthy benefactor Sam Wanamaker are planning to build a nuclear facility, a plan they hatched two years ago.  (Wanamaker stands to profit considerably from its construction and eventual operation.)  In a practice that continues today, they’ve sneakily inserted this proposal in a different bill where they hope it’ll slip through undetected.  God knows the bill itself has enough support.

But there’s also another problem.  In a scene that made me laugh out loud, after another corrupt Senator succumbs to a fatal heart attack during an impromptu press conference (Billy Jack fills his seat), the husband of her aide is handed his opened, disorganized briefcase. As he flips through the papers a package with the words CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY! in big bold capital letters falls onto the Capitol floor which only he notices.  (Sure.)  While the aide (Lucie Arnez making a really good impression in her first movie) leaves the scene to notify the dead senator’s wife, her husband quickly scoops it up and hides it in his jacket hoping to get a plum White House job in exchange for his silence.

What’s in the package?  Oh, nothing, just the fact that there have been numerous close call incidents that nearly led to nuclear meltdowns not unlike Three Mile Island.  No biggie.  The husband makes the fatal mistake of entrusting Les Nessman to grant him his political advancement.  Today, like more honourable whistleblowers, he’d merely be imprisoned for possessing classified information.

Meanwhile, Arnez is ordered by Marshall to keep an eye on Billy Jack and make sure he doesn’t catch wind of the nuclear proposal, offering a financial bonus as an added incentive.  There’s a wonderful scene where she cynically explains how to get a bill passed in Congress.  It involves endless amounts of compromise and amendments and bargaining through committee after committee and sub-committee after sub-committee with no guarantee of a prioritized vote. 

The rookie senator is undeterred.  He still wants to get his National Camp thing going.  Arnez is shocked but late in the picture she becomes a helpful ally especially after what happens to her husband.  Turns out he’s not completely stupid.

Marshall likes Billy Jack, too (he reminds him of his uncle), but he is owned by Wanamaker.  As he wrestles with his conscience, his wealthy benefactor, a Murdoch type who basically runs the corporate media among other lucrative businesses as well as commanding gutless politicians like Marshall to always vote for his benefit, threatens him with demotion.  We’ll just have to find another candidate for President, he threatens unsubtly.

Put in a no-win situation Marshall gives his dead friend’s nephew holy hell over and over again and even goes so far as to frame him as the corrupt bureaucrat he himself actually is and is trying desperately to cover up.  With co-conspirators at the ready, BJ is accused of personally profiting from the National Camp bill because, thanks to a clearly forged signature, it looks like he now owns Willet Creek, the site of its future location.

Marshall’s facial reactions after he sits down and stops accusing are deeply revealing.  He looks fucking glum.  He’s so ashamed of his actions he can’t even look Billy Jack in the face.   It’s a good sign for the beleaguered hero.  There’s still a chance his name will be cleared.  And considering how long Marshall has been an elected official, retirement with a hefty pension isn’t such a bad escape route.  No matter what, Washington always wins.

Billy Jack is smart enough to know there’s no point in defending himself during this sham of a hearing that even the Senators know is total bullshit. The whole thing is rigged against him.  So he walks away needing more time to determine his next move.  It’s Taylor and a few trips to famous Washington DC monuments that convince him to pull a Rand Paul and filibuster in the Senate, only taking an occasional pee break, until he literally cannot stand or rap on (more like rasp on) a second longer.

What is he trying to accomplish since he never does get that National Camp bill passed?  Knowing he’s been outsmarted by a crooked system that doesn’t care about ethical rules and obliterates populist rabble rousers by closing ranks and controlling the narrative, he has nothing to lose by exposing the contents of that classified file (only marked top secret to protect guilty bureaucrats and plutocrats) and proving beyond any doubt that nothing with corrupt his integrity.  If you’re gonna lose, might as well go down looking like an unblemished martyr.

With Wanamaker controlling the media, Billy Jack’s stunt gets almost no positive press, totally believable considering how certain unconventional politicos like Bernie Sanders have been poorly covered and even purposefully ignored by corporate media. (Taylor’s Freedom School channel, the only supportive outlet with an obvious bias, gets shut down by the government.)

A letter-writing campaign orchestrated by Wanamaker and his minions backs the status quo, not the junior Senator’s one-man rebellion, crushing his spirit, if for but a moment.  Physically broken and spent after endless hours of promo cutting, he makes one last appeal to a thoroughly depressed Marshall, still averting his eyes.   Some will question the effectiveness of such a last-minute plea, but I would argue it’s convincing because of their heartfelt connection to BJ’s uncle. The rubber band is about to snap.

Marshall has shown many signs of breaking with Wanamaker who is the real power of the Senate despite similar grumbling from the Governor of Billy Jack’s state, the man who granted him the vacant Senate seat.  Here is his opportunity to finally own his disgrace (something rarely if ever seen today) and stop looking and feeling so goddamn guilty. Billy Jack gives him an opening he’s dying to take.

There’s a revealing scene when Billy Jack, now knowing the full truth and feeling utterly betrayed, confronts his soon-to-be-discredited mentor in his office. Long before this, he knows the old man is Clintonian in his settled politics: sounding progressive but always voting conservative.

In the meeting in his office, Marshall basically admits he’s powerless against the 1%. He can’t win without their massive machine behind him even though most people are so turned off they don’t vote at all. (He attracts just enough support to remain in his seat.) Sanders and The Squad have since proved not only is that absolute poppycock, it’s also political cowardice. Billy Jack is neither impressed nor persuaded.

It’s curious how far Marshall and Wanamaker will go to kneecap Billy Jack’s crusade, no matter how outlandish their tactics may seem to even the most casual political observer. In a scene clearly serving as a forum for another sensational action display, a bunch of hired goons, all Black for some reason, corner BJ’s scared daughter demanding sexual compliance. Knowing she’s missing, Taylor rushes in to protect her. Once the new Senator shows up and once again removes his footwear, it’s go time. I like how the whole family, especially Taylor, get to fight alongside the hero for once. No more rescuing damsels in distress. Taylor is not quite the stubborn pacifist she once was.

Billy Jack Goes To Washington never got a full, proper theatrical release in 1977, just a short, limited one. (It was later re-released in 1979 which explains the added reference to Three Mile Island during Billy Jack’s marathon filibuster.) With my own political evolution shifting ever more leftward, like The Trial Of Billy Jack, it spoke to me. It understands that fully funded fear fuels and protects Washington more than anything else giving it tremendous immunity despite widespread public loathing. And that fear is pure uncut rich white guy paranoia. There’s no doubt it feels very relevant and contemporary. Billy Jack is basically Bernie Sanders more than 40 years ago minus the hapkido.

Every Senator who walks out on him as he begins his filibuster is an elderly honky strongly opposed to his self-righteous grandstanding, all of them representing the super rich, the real power behind the power. No party names are ever used and perhaps that is the point considering how depressingly similar Democrats and Republicans have often been, even more so since the Clinton era.

That said, I would’ve liked to have to seen a more fearless approach. Laughlin, who ran for President several times and was outspoken politically his entire life (he wisely opposed The Iraq War), was never shy about his views and beliefs. Underneath his Eastwoodian calmness was a deep vessel of rage fueled by the witnessing of so much unresolved, unaccountable injustice. (He died in 2013. His wife, Taylor, died in 2018.)

Despite reportedly running over two and a half hours in its original cut (the Shout! Factory DVD is just under two hours without explanation and there are no deleted scenes included), this now shortened Billy Jack Goes To Washington could’ve been an epic like The Trial Of Billy Jack covering way more ground than a land dispute and the nuclear lobby. (I would’ve liked to have seen particular focus on the evils of The Drug War and the surveillance state, an issue addressed in the earlier sequel.)

Maybe it didn’t need the blueprint of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington as a starting point. Billy Jack is such an adaptable character with Laughlin playing him that once you put him in a sea of establishment sharks, be they political or otherwise, you’ll root for him no matter what even though there’s a good possibility he’ll be good and bloodied by the end, at least emotionally.

The man with the lethal barefooted kicks learns many valuable lessons in DC. 1. It can’t be reformed. 2. It’s lonely taking a moral stand in a hostile environment. 3. Rich white people are difficult to dethrone. And 4. Once you lose your integrity, you’re nothing but a compromised slave.

No wonder EG Marshall looks so miserable.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, November 20, 2020
3:09 a.m.

The Trial Of Billy Jack

The Trial Of Billy Jack is one of the most sympathetic leftist movies I’ve ever seen.  Clocking in at nearly three hours, it has the Herculean task of juggling various storylines and characters without ever getting confused or sidetracked.  It is by no means a great film but by God, I enjoyed it.  Judging by its reception over the decades, I might be the only one who has.

Renaissance auteur Tom Laughlin once again dons that iconic hat and removes his cowboy boots to occasionally kick the hell out of redneck colonialists unwilling to respect the humanity, laws and property of First Nations peoples.  Told in flashbacks through his tearful, defeated real-life wife Dolores Taylor (who gets top billing since she’s on screen a lot more), the title is a bit misleading.  He actually faces several trials.

The first takes place in court as he ultimately gets convicted for his actions in Billy Jack, the second film of this series.  Then, following a four-year sentence, he is released and confronts his own inner demons with a number of spiritual tests. 

This part of the movie feels like a direct response to the criticism of the earlier chapters.  Roger Ebert, in particular, knocked the hero’s insistence on using violence instead of constitutional diplomacy but without acknowledging Taylor’s repeated on-screen criticisms of her man whenever he gets into such trouble.  (These films have always been constructed as irreconcilable arguments about how best to combat injustice.)

There’s a neat scene where Billy Jack is tasked with slapping three different people, all figments of his spiritual guide’s imagination.  Each one has a unique response representing the steps it takes to let go of anger and achieve totally focused enlightenment. 

The first guy punches him back.  The second only yells.  The third, a white bearded Jesus who uncannily resembles Christian Bale, pities him and urges him to change his ways.  He’ll need more time to learn the fourth level.

Besides preparing him for life after death, the purpose of these tests is to show the hero the corrupting influence of violence and how it masks deep insecurities, paranoia and pain of not only his oppressors but himself.  The spiritual guide has the impossible job of convincing him to routinely turn the other cheek which creates a conflict for him in the real world.  Very much reflecting the tail end of the Nixon era, there’s a lot of deep mistrust of the federal government and its ruthlessly violent enforcement agencies, especially after they allow greedy developers to infiltrate and exploit the natural resources of Billy Jack’s community who aren’t afforded the same rights.

This is a rare film where Indigenous characters are given significant screen time to air their justifiable grievances in public forums.  These are historic wrongs they’re addressing, especially during a special TV convention where they beautifully pinpoint how undemocratic the American republic truly is and how unfairly they continue to be treated.  Policy positions that affect 220 million Americans (its population at the time) are decided by just 4 or 5 powerful politicians.  Wealthy donors are their real constituency.  46 years later, sadly not much has changed. In fact, it’s gotten much worse.

Taylor closes that ceremony with a speech that whitewashes the founding fathers’ own troubling human rights record.  But she ends it with a killer line of truth.  You deny the people their freedom long enough, you make revolution inevitable.  No wonder she gets a standing ovation.

While Billy Jack struggles to soothe his violent soul, soon to be angered but not to the point of fighting back herself, Taylor continues to run her Freedom School, a utopian institution with a couple of uncomfortable nods toward Scientology where the emphasis is otherwise on good health, strong community ties, classical education and non-competitive fun.   (The biofeedback stuff is a little too E-meter for me.)

Like Billy Jack, the second film, we get to know the students and care about them.  A severely abused child with a missing hand becomes a test case for treatment even though no one is trained in psychology, a bit of a red flag.  But thankfully the plan is to merely earn the kid’s trust, let him get his understandable anger out and try to get him to open up in a comfortable way.

Inevitably, in a school filled with talented musicians, the kid wants to learn guitar which becomes possible when he gets a hook attached to his damaged arm.  He’s obviously not a good singer or player (he’s just a beginner) but there’s a touching moment during a tense scene late in the film where he does a duet with his caregiver (Laughlin and Taylor’s real-life daughter Teresa) who becomes his fiercest protector when an attempt is made to remove him.  She herself is a better talker than warbler.  Her tribute to her dad when he comes home from prison is not worthy of all those tears.  However, there’s a much better song written and performed for her off-screen mom by a different student in the final scene.  That one is definitely moving, especially considering the growing contempt for Taylor from the student body who wish she would be more radical in her politics.

Not just a place for learning, the Freedom School also runs its own media.  And much like Michael Moore and Glenn Greenwald decades later, their reporting is all about exposing government and capitalist corruption which results in unlawful surveillance (a student with a knack for creating gadgets figures out a way to silence their phone snooping; not sure he needed to create an improved lie detector test for politicians, though), constant harassment, and eventually, a bloody massacre. Today’s police remain as deadly as ever.

The Trial Of Billy Jack opens with on-screen statistics of infamous police shootings of student protestors, foreshadowing the final act.  The movie actually ends with more graphics defending its depiction of violence correctly noting how much more intense it could’ve been portrayed (and probably should’ve been).  It asks that the viewer direct their anger towards the architects of all this bloodshed speaking directly to the current Black Lives Matter movement and like-minded activists.   Not sure the quoting and collective singing of a famous John Lennon lyric is so wise and welcoming in the face of so much state oppression.  God knows the federal government and its national security agencies will never listen. Kumbaya isn’t going to improve their behaviour so they must be abolished.

As the police continue to harass the Freedom School students, the kids themselves get into heated arguments with each other about how best to confront them.  It’s revealing that the Black and Indigenous students are far more eager to retaliate than the reticent white ones who at first plead for more peaceful demonstrations.  But then one correctly notes near the end that “brute force can only be met with brute force”.  Unfortunately, they don’t have the weaponry of the state.

They do have Billy Jack but surprisingly he proves to be a non-factor.  There aren’t many action sequences in this series for a reason.  The man only fights when he feels it is absolutely necessary, undermining some of the harsher criticism against him, but even he urges the kids not to give in to their own anger making him somewhat hypocritical. 

With the assistance of Korean martial arts master Bong-Soon Han, who also trains Taylor in a really good scene, the duo put their bare feet to work benefiting from the obviously flawed strategy of the rednecks.  It never occurs to them to maybe rush the duo all at once or to collectively pull out firearms.  Only one such villain is on the ball but how could he miss Billy Jack from point blank range?  And can you really kill a guy with a well-placed kick?

No matter.  I admired the flawed ambition of The Trial Of Billy Jack, its wide scope of challenging ideas, how it embraces its contradictions without really resolving them because honestly what is the most surefire solution against violent fascism when it’s always standing on your throat? 

I appreciated its fierce loathing of Nixon’s America (the film was released the year he resigned in disgrace) and how it convincingly connects the violence in Vietnam with the oppression of American citizens challenging their authority.  What is tested on foreigners will inevitably be brought back home as is the case today. Its absolute refusal to act like modern day Democrats is refreshing. There is no love for the FBI or CIA in this movie.

While on the stand in his criminal trial, Billy Jack recounts an incident while serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam.  A village of civilians is rounded up and directed into a giant ditch.  Then the order comes down:  kill them all.  Billy Jack refuses and actually removes himself from the scene. 

In his overly damning review of The Trial Of Billy Jack, Gene Siskel singled out this moment as being irresponsibly dishonest, that no such order would ever be given.  Only bad individual soldiers would so such a horrible thing.  Considering what we have since learned about American troops in foreign countries and how often they deliberately target civilians with the blessing of the Pentagon and their superiors on the ground, this is an astoundingly dumb comment.  The scene is clearly evoking My Lai which was actually much worse.

When a warning shot is fired by one of the riot cops during the stand-off with the Freedom School, it is misinterpreted as a sniper attack from one of the kids especially after another cop gets bloodied in the face by a rock.  That’s all the excuse they need to open fire on dozens of innocent, unarmed, panicked students including a young child.  In the aftermath, in a moment that will resonate with BLM protestors, one cop gloats to an off-duty one far away from the scene that he should’ve been here.  “We got a couple of them.” No officer is arrested and put on trial which is very believable. (Taylor tearfully recalls how even the public applauded this brutality.)

There’s a sadistic joy expressed by the police in this film that is also dead-on accurate.  How many reports have there been just recently exposing cruel comments made by real-life officers reveling in their violence against Black people alone?  Tom Laughlin was paying attention even if Gene Siskel was not.

As the rednecks hound the Indigenous community to get them to sell their land, one poor sap named Blue Elk, an outspoken critic, especially against sell-out natives colluding with the feds, who cuts a good promo during the televised human rights convention, gets kidnapped, beaten (off-camera), and humiliated at a local country dance in front of white people, none of whom intervene on his behalf.  It isn’t until Billy Jack and his Korean pal arrive to kick some serious honky ass that the man’s suffering ends.

Billy Jack isn’t able to protect the Freedom School kids this time because he gets arrested for murder (he surrenders wrongly believing the kids will be left alone) and then wounded after a successful escape attempt.  Out of commission for the rest of the movie, the state swoops in to do their damage only stopping when Billy Jack’s community arrive with torches and a reminder that the cops are the real criminals here.  You can never bargain with unrepentant monsters.

Would real-life cops actually cease firing in that moment?  Based on what happened at Standing Rock decades later, obviously not.  (Taylor places a last-minute call to the governor to finally get them to back off but when she goes outside she gets popped herself.)  But in a film that rightly sides with First Nations folks, it’s a welcome sight and empowering.

Also cool is the scene where a white protestor, upset about a Freedom School bus being pulled over for no good reason, is chased down by cops who start to beat him down (which is barely shown and not that effective).  But after Billy Jack walks over, starts taking off his boots, and incredibly runs directly towards them in slow motion, they’re out of there.  Pretty sure he would’ve been shot in the real world despite all the witnesses but I like how much they fear him.

There are no easy answers in The Trial Of Billy Jack.  State oppression is relentless and all consuming, demanding your full submission and surrender so they can rest easy again and keep on screwing you.  As a result, the Freedom School kids are torn about how to proceed with their adversarial journalism when their muckraking terrifies their enemies to the point of overreacting.  (At one point, their TV station gets bombed and some of the kids want to bomb them back. The rednecks flip over their bus and burn it.)

Taylor at one point expresses regret that the exposes were not ceased which leads her lover to call her out for not taking a stand at all.  She does not share Billy Jack’s view on violence and her furious speech doesn’t stop the kids from confronting the riot squad. But at least she understands and shares their rage, just not their methodology.

The movie ends somberly with the surviving kids, Billy Jack and Taylor nursing their wounds and mourning the dead while mulling over their uncertain futures. Despite the traumas they’ve endured and the government rot they’ve unearthed and publicly covered, there is still some hope, no matter how faint it may be. (Are they really singing Give Peace A Chance to themselves to cease the in-fighting?)

During a press conference about child abuse earlier on, Taylor makes an argument for restorative justice without actually using the words, strongly emphasizing empathy as a way to bridge divides and heal punctured souls, an idea that remains ever more controversial despite compelling empirical evidence supporting such a position. (Taylor notes the high success rate for cases compared to the alternative methods.)

It’s this very philosophy espoused and endorsed by Billy Jack’s spiritual guide who continually pushes him to be more passive, empathetic and compassionate despite all the temptations and pressures to throttle and vanquish his powerful enemies. Not yet ready to perish, she gives him more time in life to right the ship. But he’s not the one who needs a course correction.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, November 20, 2020
2:28 a.m.

The Born Losers (1967)

Long before Harry Brown and Paul Kersey, there was Billy Jack.  A Green Beret just back from the Vietnam War, he mostly keeps to himself in the woods, bathing under a waterfall and fishing with just a twig. 

Driving a jeep whenever he needs to come into town for fuel and other groceries, this Indigenous veteran lives off the land and sleeps in a silver trailer.  But Big Rock, a beautiful coastal town in California, has changed since he left to fight a pointless war.

It’s been taken over by an unrepentant motorcycle gang.  Despite harassing and assaulting men and women wherever they go and stealing whatever they need, many citizens are in awe of them while the local sheriff’s department refuses to rein them in.  The club, proudly white supremacist and rapey, are effectively immune from any serious prosecution.

They call themselves the Born To Lose MC which explains why the movie is called The Born Losers but not why they have chosen such a self-defeating name.  Their logo is a naked woman crucified on the cross while being poked by a swastika.  Their hideout resembles an abandoned brothel where they commit their gang rapes.  A philosophical Himmler quote is scribbled on one of the walls.

Led by a wannabe tough guy who wears Kurt Cobain’s white, egg-shaped retro sunglasses and looks uncannily like a young, bearded David Letterman (especially when he smiles and smokes tiny cigars), they don’t take kindly to back talk. 

In an early scene, while motionless in traffic, a dopey driver, distracted by one of their female members and her suggestive tongue (she’s not that hot, dude), stops paying attention, lets off the brake and bumps the Letterman clone by accident. The whole thing feels like a set-up.

The perturbed leader climbs off his hog and lets the guy off easy by telling him he’s lucky after he apologizes for his clumsiness.  But the driver won’t shut up.  He obviously doesn’t care about his sunglasses being stomped on. 

But after a helmet suddenly smashes through the quickly raised glass of his driver’s side window and he’s dragged out for a public beating in full view of everyone, he definitely needs police assistance after being denied refuge by an indifferent couple in another car who will have their own beef with the gang in due time.

The driver manages to get far enough away to a pay phone in a local café but the owner is a dick who won’t let him call.  Good thing Billy Jack is there.  But by the time the driver gets through to the police, the thugs have caught up with him and dragged him into the alley.

The man from the woods knows what he must do.  He pulls out his rifle from his jeep and threatens them.  When they don’t listen, he pops one in the stomach.  Here come the sirens right on cue.

In court, Billy Jack is given a choice:  pay a fine or serve four months in the clink.  (Why he was even charged when he was trying to save a guy is yet another sign of a failed system.) Dead broke because there are no horses to be trained in this town anymore (the job he had before his tour of duty), he decides to sell the jeep.  He’s horrified to learn from his lawyer that the gang members are given better options. They can pay a much smaller fine or spend a month in jail. Gee, tough decision.

When I watched Billy Jack, the 1971 sequel, back in 1992, I had no idea it was part of a franchise.  (It’s not a direct continuation of The Born Losers.) A precursor to Death Wish, despite its questionable politics I liked that its hero was so zen and in control of every situation despite facing impossible odds.  (The Letterman guy actually calls him Mr. Impossible.)  I enjoyed watching him calmly remove his boots so he could kick some ass in bare feet.  It’s obvious Steven Seagal was taking notes.

But The Born Losers, its far trashier predecessor, is at many instances shockingly appalling, but thankfully not on the depraved level of I Spit On Your Grave. (Because of its unskilled direction, it’s not nearly as grotesque.)  Yes, it does show some restraint compared to the more explicit Death Wish sequels.  (No graphic close-ups to match the uncomfortable screams.) And yeah, the language is deliberately toned down to get the more favourable PG rating.  (Every time the gang members say “mother” you know they really mean to add “fucker” at the end.) 

But this isn’t family fare, obviously.  Beautiful young girls, some of whom have horrible taste in men (why would you be interested at all in guys named Gangrene and Crabs?) and questionable logic, highly sexualized in almost every scene wearing just bikinis or a bra and panties, are helpless vessels waiting to be avenged by the quiet loner in the folded cowboy hat.  But he’s extremely patient, too patient. 

Running nearly two hours, it makes no sense why the gang doesn’t immediately bump him off (they’d rather “toy with him” like idiots).  And it’s long after he befriends one of the victims that he finally decides to act again on his own and only because he’s been robbed of the money he owes to the court.  (Yeah, I know.  He already gets in trouble for fighting back once but as he asserts in one scene, there’s always the sneak attack.)

About that plan, it’s clearly not that well thought out.  It apparently requires taking a needless jacking and a faint hope for some kind of spontaneous recovery.  (It also requires one of the victims to successfully escape which, of course, doesn’t happen.)  It’s a rare moment of vulnerability for Billy Jack who, despite frequently being surrounded by racist goons reluctant to jump him at once, is otherwise an impenetrable pillar of confident stoicism.

The Born Losers is too long and slow for a exploitation film.  It’s purely about revenge and nothing more.  It should not take nearly two hours for the hero to realize the police are useless and that the terrified victims, forced into backing out of testifying against their relentlessly threatening attackers, can’t win no matter what they do.  (Released in 1967, DNA was yet to be introduced to these kinds of cases.)

Speaking of that, what’s with all the mean spirited victim shaming?  Young rape survivors are regularly scolded, sometimes loudly, for their supposed complicity in their own assaults and for not being courageous as though standing up against powerful actors not likely to be convicted is somehow an easy decision or even worthwhile.

As the movie makes clear very early on, prosecuting the Born To Lose Motorcycle Club does not result in longterm prison sentences anyway.  If they do any jail time at all, it’s usually short and when given the choice of a small fine, they always pay it to avoid spending even the slightest amount of time in confinement. 

They openly confront the homophobic, outmatched, moustachioed sheriff who looks like he’s in between porn gigs. He only manages to embarrass the Letterman clone once which ultimately means nothing. Why change at all when you have immunity? And why force victims to make choices that won’t protect them in the future?

The movie could’ve used some advice from wiser feminists at the time. One of the victims, who may have been drugged, claims she’s not a victim at all (she has some kind of unexplained grievance against her parents, the same ones who refuse to help the beaten driver in that early scene, which she uses as justification for repeated contacts with the gang) and yet, she witnesses two of her more reluctant friends being assaulted which clearly bothers her but not enough to stop her from going back for more. With her thoughts all over the place, she ultimately hates her parents more than the rapists! What the fuck?

Sparkly dressed Jane Russell, who plays a shouty mother of another victim, at first scolds her daughter for what happened to her (why didn’t you cover your face on TV to avoid embarrassing me? she cruelly wonders) but then when the police arrive to assure her daughter’s testimonial cooperation, she becomes her fierce protector refusing to put her through any more trauma. Russell’s quite good here but her inconsistent character is deeply unstable, yelling one minute and then crying and laughing hysterically the next, oddly disdainful and supportive in the same sequence.

Uncredited co-screenwriter Elizabeth James, the short-haired victim that Billy Jack rescues, an abandoned daughter, with an absent father, who resembles a cuter Liza Minnelli and is always in scantily clad outfits which easily explains the gang’s lust for her, has given herself some extremely corny dialogue to recite. But she’s not talented enough to not make it sound like her own bad writing. I caught her acting constantly. Unlike Billy Jack’s supremely mellow Tom Laughlin, this is not a natural performance.

At one point, while talking with her rescuer one night alone outside in the woods, she gets on this rap about having a metaphorical light bulb inside of her reminiscent of the stars above and how she needs to be picky about who she lets in or it’ll be busted and all her light will ooze out of her or some horseshit.

Is this her awkward way of saying she’s technically a virgin? (Notice how often she wears white.) She inevitably falls for Billy Jack but aside from saying she’s cute when she smiles he’s more paternal to her than anything else, rubbing her head like she’s her son or something. He’d would rather tease her platonically and show her magic tricks.

Considering how incredibly inept the police are, it’s no wonder the victims are reluctant to face their assailants in court. Easily distracted by obvious gang diversions, be it a wild goose chase involving a hot-wired cop car or being shot at while leaving survivors vulnerable to a kidnapping or physical confrontation, the Nazi bikers have easy access to their victims to make them tow the line. Thankfully, they just make verbal threats to assure their silence. Like I said, this could’ve been so much worse.

When Russell repeatedly asks the district attorney for a complete guarantee that her victimized daughter (who goes from doing a strip tease in her bedroom to sucking her thumb after another encounter with the invading Nazis) will be fully protected with no further repercussions, he can’t give her that reassurance. Despite her fluctuating emotions and uneven support for her daughter, you can’t exactly blame her for being outraged and unwilling to support his prosecution.

For a grindhouse action film, there’s way too much stalling and jibber jabber. A smarter Nazi gang would recognize the real threat Billy Jack represents and act accordingly without hesitation. Instead, they just stupidly taunt him over and over about his Indigenous heritage, puncture one of his tires and dump gasoline into his cowboy hat (which may explain why he replaced it with the more iconic one he wears in the second film), all while laughing uproariously, not realizing their immunity is about to be removed for good.

Curiously, the movie, which feels like an urban western, does not end with a big shoot-out as expected. (The bikers are never armed with anything more than wrenches and tire irons. Truly, they’d rather use their fists anyway.) Once Billy Jack returns to the gang’s compound fully loaded with Plan B, he pulls off a diversion of his own and only eliminates one member. It’s only then the reticent police realize what they must do.

The Born Losers was released in 1967, a major turning point for the American cinema. As the culture was being radicalized, movies were being liberated from previously stifling restrictions. Language was loosened, violence became more visceral and thanks to the sexual revolution, there was more nudity.

While these long overdue changes led to the creation of The Wild Bunch and The Godfather, it also invited a flood of cheapo thrillers, heavy on the sex and violence, light on interesting characters and good stories, into the marketplace.

However, this first Billy Jack story doesn’t fully embrace these new creative freedoms, it merely hints at them and not in intelligent ways. There’s blood, yes, to make mostly limp fight scenes seem harsher (although the driver getting his face mushed against a car window is effective) but nude bodies are framed or covered enough to avoid too much detection even though titillation is clearly a selling point. And the bikers are not even close to being potty mouths despite their bigotry. The PGifying of this adult story is rather cynical.

Laughlin, who also co-wrote the script and directed, both under pseudonyms, had no interest in making a story of substance here but he surely wanted his film to have mass appeal nonetheless. Judging by how financially successful The Born Losers became, not only did he achieve his goal, he managed to put together three sequels. (A fourth was scraped after some preliminary footage was shot.)

But what has he actually presented to us here? Too reluctant to be a true action film (it’s not well photographed to begin with), too sexist to be redeeming (is there one female character who isn’t a confused mess?), too sluggish in its pacing, too pretentious at times to be taken seriously, too cartoonish to be credible and far too schizophrenic in characterization, The Born Losers is a message film with a muddled delivery.

Laughlin wanted to raise awareness towards anti-Indigenous bigotry, a worthwhile endeavour, based on real-life incidents he witnessed or read about firsthand. (God knows these issues remain unresolved 53 years later.) But by giving his one-note villains goofy nicknames (one tongueless character is called Speechless while another is named Child after baby Jesus) and making the film a complete indictment on the justice system without fully addressing its actual, complex problems, The Born Losers is more simple-minded right-wing propaganda than a lucid, muckraking diatribe.

But it’s not even watchable propaganda like Death Wish which at least had a provocative premise and better performances. That film wanted to challenge liberal pacifism in the face of personal tragedy while also recognizing that anger can be unreasonable and poisonous, corrupting one to the point of total transformation.

Billy Jack is already a violent man based on his war record and relationship with animals. It’s not a stretch for him to instantly fight back against evil unlike the more mild mannered Paul Kersey who has to be pushed to the edge before punishing oblivious street toughs. So why does Billy Jack pull his punches for most of the movie?

It’s obvious this could’ve easily been trimmed down to a short since there’s not nearly enough material to justify a full two-hour running time which explains the often relaxed pace. Adding to that feel is the musical score which sometimes provides inappropriate cues that don’t match what’s on screen. (Women in peril should not be accompanied by cheerful tunes.) But at least the recurring main title theme, complete with mariachi horns and Spanish guitar, sounds heroic and is triumphantly catchy. It’s quite memorable.

There is one lingering mystery at the heart of The Born Losers that’s never really addressed and is all the more eye-raising because of the time in which it was first unveiled. Why are these motorcycle Nazis so committed to raping women when they’re clearly attracted to each other?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, November 16, 2020
8:01 p.m.

The Hunt For Red October (1990)

Is he planning to attack America?  Or does he really want to switch teams?  And what exactly are his real motivations?

The Red October, a ferociously immense and seemingly indestructible Russian nuclear submarine named after the famous 1917 revolution, like a mechanical whale gently floating the depths of the Atlantic, has been spotted by English intelligence.  This information is passed on to Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst more comfortable in front of a computer than in a military theatre.

Helming the conn is Markos Ramius, a legendary trainer and commander with fabulous hair and a suspicious Scottish accent.  Over time, we learn the truth about his intentions but oddly not the reasoning behind it.

And therein lies one of the curious flaws of The Hunt For Red October, an overlong action thriller with barely any action or thrills.  Yes, it is intelligent and mostly well cast but it feels unexciting and inconsequential.  For a film about the tensions in the dying days of the Cold War it lacks importance.

Sean Connery plays Ramius as a cagey, determined chess player, ever adaptable when his closely held plans go awry.  Early on, he has a private meeting with some KGB budinski who demands he open up some secret orders from the Kremlin. They want to test Red October’s ultra-quiet, undetectable caterpillar drive by having it sail by other Russian subs.

But those orders are never carried out because Ramius suddenly turns into James Bond and instantly disposes of this nuisance.  Perhaps because of the film’s PG rating, this brief moment of physicality is far less brutal and compelling than it should be or maybe I’m making excuses for a weak moment. At any event, he tries to cover it up as an unfortunate accident.  Spilled tea is not that slippery, bro.

An unmotivated close-up, to use Ebert’s famous phrase, reveals that another spy is on board but he won’t act until the very end.  Let’s just say starting a needless gunfight is a fatal mistake. He should’ve made like the caterpillar and done his evil under the radar.

Meanwhile CIA analyst Ryan (Alec Baldwin during his skinny hunky period) is summoned from his post with his British wife (Gates McFadden from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and young daughter in the UK to Washington, D.C. where he meets with Admiral Greer (the great James Earl Jones who makes the most of his limited screen time).  Greer fills in the blanks and then orders him to do an impromptu presentation for the Joint Chiefs in the US military.

They believe Ramius has bad intentions.  Ryan, who met the sub commander in Leningrad, believes the man actually wants to relocate to America.  But why?  Did the death of his wife a year ago sour him on further undersea missions?  Is he now against communism?  Does he see the writing on the wall just before the ascension of Gorbachev?  It’s never really made clear.

After the military briefing, Ryan is given three days to prove his theory correct.  He will eventually climb aboard the USS Dallas, an American sub helmed by Bart Mancuso (the excellent Scott Glenn), a no-nonsense naval commander who’s been tracking Red October through the assistance of Seaman Jonesy (a young Courtney B. Vance in a good performance).

The Red October’s state-of-the-art caterpillar drive cannot be detected by sonar.  (This typhoon-class vessel is so new the US navy doesn’t even have it in their library of sub sounds.) But through his tenacity and the extensive use of reel-to-reel tape, Jonesy ultimately determines its location which does not escape the attention of Ramius who is always one step ahead.

Meanwhile Russian Ambassador Andrei Lysenko (the much missed Joss Ackland) offers a whopper with a straight face.  He claims Ramius has lost his mind and is planning to slide into American territory to launch a sneak attack without authorization.  Lysenko insists the US military help Russia eliminate this non-existent threat. If only fellow Soviet sub commander (a sometimes twitchy Stellan Skarsgard) had better aim.

For you see, Ryan is of course correct.  Ramius is indeed headed to America to claim asylum and defect along with some of his crewmen.  Having already sent a letter of his intentions to The Kremlin, the Russian government has now ordered his assassination.  After all, they can’t let America have this possible propaganda victory which is ironically and rather strangely kept under wraps anyway.

The Hunt For Red October was directed by John McTiernan, who helmed the influential Die Hard and the only good Predator movie.  Lensed by future Speed director Jan De Bont, the film looks better than it feels (although some of the special effects, like that rather obvious chroma key finale, haven’t aged particularly well). There’s a striking moment when Ryan is hovering around these giant red pillars in the bowels of Red October.

Unlike the funny, gripping John McClane adventure it also takes a while to get going.  Despite some good dramatic scenes, like the one where Ryan meets with Fred Dalton Thompson and the butler from The Nanny, another where technician Jeffrey Jones offers paranoid insight, and the aforementioned military briefing, there is distracting complacency, a lack of urgency (torpedo countdowns aren’t scary) and too much inconsistency.  No wonder I had a hard time staying awake when I first saw the movie in an American theatre one night in the summer of 1990. That said, it is somewhat better than I remembered.

Unlike Predator with its memorable theme music peppered with tribal drumming, the score for Red October is slight and insignificant. A movie this slow-paced could’ve used a real sonic jolt.

Based on the novel by Tom Clancy, it is loosely based on a real-life incident which is way more intriguing than anything depicted here.  Set in November 1984, the movie starts off pretending what you’re about to see is real and therefore denied by all applicable parties rather than a work of fiction not nearly as engrossing as its inspiration.

For some reason, British Tim Curry who doesn’t lose his accent and New Zealander Sam Neill who at least tries to sound like a Soviet are among Connery’s crew.  They’re good actors but why couldn’t we have authentic Russians in their place?  This isn’t Shakespeare. You can’t get away with this shit anymore.

There’s no denying the towering charisma of Connery and that amazing head of fake hair, but why exactly is he defecting in the first place and why should I care?  I mean, we’re being asked to root for a traitor, right?

Is the movie subtly suggesting, as it does in one scene where he chats with Neill about their possible futures in their new country, that the lure of the American West alone has sold him on making this dangerous journey? 

What unresolved problems does he have with the Kremlin?  In the last scene, he mentions the necessity of revolution.  Is he tired of the Cold War in general? If so, these thoughts are never expressed. We’re left to guess and I wanted to know the whole truth. It’s hard to care about a story that feels incomplete and one-sided.

Unlike the exhilarating Crimson Tide, when it doesn’t present entertaining dramatic sequences The Hunt For Red October snoozes along until its inevitable conclusion where Ryan and Ramius, now safely out of harm’s way with no fear of all this being exposed by the media, bond over their mutual love of fishing. Released the year before the full collapse of the Soviet Union, its unveiling was impeccably timed. Too bad it doesn’t feel all that prescient.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
2:51 a.m.

Twitter Still Refusing To Unlock My Account

It’s been 6 days since Twitter wrongly froze my account for supposedly exceeding the number of times a user can retweet, the second time this has happened to me, both occurring during American elections.  I have complained at least half a dozen times and while I have received both an automated response and a personal one, I remain locked out.

Common sense would tell you that if a human being is complaining about being unable to tweet every day for almost a week then he is probably not a goddamn bot and he probably didn’t break a precious Twitter Rule.

There is this strange paradox about Twitter.  They want you to maximize your enjoyment of the service which I have for almost eight years but by God don’t you enjoy it too much or we’ll think there’s something wrong with you.  You’d have to be a fucking replicant to want to tweet and retweet that much.

But that’s the problem.  How much retweeting is too much?  Twitter does not establish a limit.  I have no idea what is considered “aggressive” to the point of arousing suspicion.  And that’s the other problem.  It’s not human observers at the company suddenly noticing something amiss.  It’s a fucking computer picking up something by mistake.  Goddamn fucking algorithms.

And here I am once again reduced to grumbling in public as well as privately.  It’s fucking insane.  (My 99-year-old grandmother died suddenly over the weekend and I can’t tweet my 700 followers about it.) It literally says on my profile page that I’ve written for The Huffington Post.  I have my own author’s page on there.  I have my own website on WordPress.  I’m being followed by some pretty prominent people in the media some of whom I’ve become friendly with.  How many actual bots can fucking say that?

None of this matters to Twitter.  They don’t give a fuck, otherwise this would all be resolved much quicker.  In fact, the first time I was locked out in 2018, it was resolved so quickly I even got a welcome apology.  

So, what’s changed?  Are there fewer people manning the controls now?  Why is it taking so goddamn long to reinstate me?  If you go to the contest a suspension page, there’s a message that basically says they’re backlogged and there will be a delay in responding to complaints.  As I said to them in my most recent complaint, I understand and appreciate that they’re dealing with too many cases at once.

But as I also said, my case is simple.  Drop the requirement that I have to input a cell phone number (I do not own a cell phone nor am I planning on getting one) to get a confirmation code and simply restore my full access.  Takes two seconds.  Honestly, why is it taking so much longer now to do what took roughly a day to accomplish two years ago?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, November 9, 2020
10:37 p.m.

UPDATE: I’ve just discovered that I’m no longer following anybody on Twitter. Before my wrongful suspension, I was following several hundred accounts. No longer. So fucking infuriating.

I’ve contacted two Twitter friends via email to let them know what’s going on and they’ve said they’re going to vouch for me to Twitter Support which is very sweet of them to do on my behalf. I’ve also noticed that my account is labelled “Restricted” for “suspicious activity”, a completely ridiculous assertion based on zero facts. I love how being engaged in American politics through retweets arouses their suspicion.

Anyway, despite my ongoing frustration with this bullshit, I think I may have found a possible solution. I’ve been doing some research and I might be able to get that elusive confirmation code after all if I input my landline number instead of a cell phone which I don’t have. Google locks out users of their Gmail service and offers them a choice of receiving the code through text or an automated voice message. Twitter may do the same. I’ll try this tomorrow and see if it works.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, November 12, 2020
2:31 a.m.

UPDATE 2: Well, that didn’t work. But the good news is I’m back in, no thanks to Twitter Support. We’ll just leave it at that. Also, I think all the accounts I was following have been restored so that’s a relief. Now to get caught up after a 10-day hiatus.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, November 13, 2020
7:19 p.m.

Twitter Still Thinks I’m A Bot Overdoing It On Election Day

It happened again.  Twitter has locked me out of my account for enthusiastically tweeting and retweeting about an American election.

Two years ago, during the US midterms, it wrongly believed I was a bot for “excessively” retweeting comments and election results, despite sharing my own thoughts multiple times.  Well, here we are again.  I’m getting fucking sick to death of this bullshit.

As of this writing, we do not know who the next President will be.  Democratic nominee Joe Biden has a significant lead over Republican incumbent Donald Trump.  Right now, according to CNN which has been the most patient in making projections, he only needs 17 electoral votes to win the Presidency. There are just six states left to declare a winner.

Very early in the morning last night Trump was leading in the most important ones:  Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina and Wisconsin.  But since then, Biden has become the frontrunner in Pennsylvania while maintaining his hold on Arizona and Nevada.  The former Vice President just won Wisconsin and Michigan this afternoon.  Trump’s team is demanding a recount in the former (and likely the latter) which will be a waste of time.

If these races end where they currently stand, Trump will not have enough remaining electoral votes to declare victory.  But the tallying isn’t quite finished.  We will likely not know the winner until the end of the week, if that.

Trump’s impulsive, vague decision to announce from The White House last night his intent to go to the Supreme Court feels remarkably premature and more than a little paranoid.  He has just begun the process of filing lawsuits to either stop the count where he’s winning or have ballots rejected where he’s not.

Ever determined to cover all his bases, because he can’t stand failure, Trump will do everything in his power to win re-election, even if he rigs the system in his favour, a privilege he did not have at his disposal four years ago. 

This should not have been such a close contest.  It’s absolutely astounding considering how badly he’s fucked up the pandemic but not at all surprising when his opponent promised to be the opposite of Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in America.

But I can’t continue tweeting about it at the moment because Twitter’s error-plagued algorithms continue to mistake me for a fucking soulless android. 

Here’s the thing that really pisses me off.  There are steps one can take to restore access to one’s account.  First, you do that stupid reCaptha thing where you declare “I’m not a robot” and then pick out the palm trees seen in a picture broken up by nine squares.  I can’t get it to work on FireFox but it works fine on Microsoft Edge.

Then, you type in your cell phone number and Twitter is supposed to text you a confirmation number which you then enter and presto, everything’s back to normal.

But I don’t have a fucking cell phone.  I hate fucking cell phones.  They’re annoying.  And Twitter doesn’t give you any other fucking options to restore the account.  So, once again, I have to send them a fucking angry message grumbling I’ve been locked out of my fucking account because for the second time in two years they’ve mistaken me for a fucking bot.

None of this would be happening if they would just verify my fucking account.  I wrote ten goddamn articles for The Huffington Post, one that drew private praise from a world renowned mathematician, and I’m followed by a number of prominent journalists and academics.  I’ve earned the right to get that fucking checkmark.  And I should be able to retweet as much as I fucking want.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
4:34 p.m.

UPDATE: After waiting for four long days, after taking Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, Joe Biden has finally won the Presidency. But I still can’t tweet about it because I remain locked out of my account. I have complained half a dozen times to Twitter and they have not responded. Also, my 99-year-old grandmother has died suddenly and I can’t tweet about that, either. It would be nice to not feel so goddamn aggravated and powerless. If any of my readers have any pull with Twitter and can convince them I’m not a fucking bot, I would be most appreciative.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, November 7, 2020
10:23 p.m.