Item #: 9966DVD Category: SCI FI Format: DVD MPAA Rating: R

Woolly Rating: 5/10 (11 votes)

MEMBER COMMENTS ON THIS VIDEO

jd	Aug 25, 2004 @ 18:53:5

<[:-} its all about "blood"
harlan ellison always did have a problem with women, and "a boy and his dog" used the device of presumed post-nuke sociopathic lawlessness to really push misogny to the limits of commercial acceptance. stepping out of genre print media into the relatively expensive process of making of a 35mm film and getting it distributed made the transgressive bent of this movie all the more financially risky. in the dvd extras, in so many words, director / scriptwriter l.q. jones reveals that he basically marketed it theater by theater as a latter day road show movie. he makes it sound like an artistic decision, being sure each venue met his artistic standards. i saw it at the loveable but decrepit "uptown" theater shortly before its last gasp, so i find that claim a little ghetto fabulous. i also have to doubt that ellison's failure to deliver the screenplay was solely due to his being blocked by his awe of his own "novella," and that the decision to use the voice of the man who did the title song to dub "blood" the dog instead of james cagney was solely artistic. though i appreciate jones' ingenuity more after the commentary, the vastness of the grassless mud flats used as location, dotted with lanfill debris, doesn't convey the same sense of apocalyptic devastation to me it does to him. its worth noting that by brazenly ripping this 1975 film off, transferring it to the similarly desolate australian outback, and dumbing it way down, "mad max" (1979) achieved big commercial success and launched mel gibson's career. jones says don johnson had to wait and wade through several t.v. pilots before he got his break on miami vice. of course, the complete lack of talent johnson shows here explains that, and also why johnson is grubbing for grocery money in the midst of bankruptcy now that his narcissism is no longer supported by his reflection. though he uses very diplomatic language to bestow brief praise on johnson, jones says flatly at the beginning of the commentary that, after over a hundred viewings of the movie while working on it, he no longer watches anything but the dog! i didn't finish the commentary, but jones keeps coming back to the dog's talent and intelligence throughout the lion's share i did listen to. myself, i think the star of the movie was susanne benton, doing a very good job with an utterly unsympathetic and uncharismatic character as "quilla june holmes." having been treated very kindly during weekends 1979 - 1980 by the gentle citizens of kansas while a pharmaceutically incorrect g.i. prowling off base, i have never been able to ascribe to them the pettiness and malevolent enforcement of conformity they are slurred with by this movie. this stereotypical attitude toward kansas in hollywood can be traced back to the 1930 - 1934 "pre-code" warner bros. movies. i will admit that the oppressiveness of having nothing but 3.2% beer in bars that closed at midnight did wear thin. they really did "roll up the street at midnight." i'll admit jones does a good job of using their somewhat insular culture as a basis for nightmare degeneracy, with the underground populace dressed in overalls and mime make-up, living in fear of the totalitarian "committee."

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