Street Trash
Well I guess it
had to happen eventually. Somebody had
to make a multi-strained movie I really like.
I know over the years I’ve been kinda harsh on stuff like Short Cuts,
Magnolia, Night On Earth etc but I do stand by my opinion that
these films also hide behind a structure that almost guarantees success. You take on enough plotlines and one of them
is bound to resonate, you limit the screentime of each plotline and it
prettymuch gives you permission to make characters who are either stereotypes
or gimmicks, and the condensed nature of these films justifies character arcs
being reduced to their most basic structures of setup, conflict, and then
resolution without the subtle moments in between. It turns out that exploding hobos is the way
around all these problems.
This film takes
place in a city that looks like Detroit where homeless culture is pretty
evolved. The hobos actually have their
own village within the junkyard complete with elaborate residential structures
made out of tires that feature indoor lighting.
They also have a monarchy. The
king is a crazy Vietnam veteran called Bronson.
I’m not sure if that just happened to be his name or if he adopted that
name when he became an ultraviolent maniac because there’s a lot of that going
around.
Bronson sits
atop a giant garbage throne fucking the queen of the hobos and occasionally
rattling his sabre, which is made out of sharpened bones. Just like here in the British Empire, the
Royal Family seems largely ceremonial since there is a more legitimate
authority: the junkyard owner. However
in this alternate hobo universe there are no biopics about the hobo Royals like
how we have stuff like The Young Victoria and those Elizabeth
movies. So I don’t know who cleans up at
the Bum Oscars every year because I can’t imagine hobos always giving the award
to whoever plays a drunk. Maybe in this
alternate universe they’re suckers for guys who can play sober.
The bum
plotlines are definitely what hold the whole film together, but there are the
other plotlines as well. There’s the
obese junkyard owner, who’s failed attempts at romance are definitely more
amusing than those of John C. Reilly’s character in Magnolia. I’ve never seen a guy try to extort a
post-mortem pityfuck from a woman by climbing on her like he’s going to rape
her and then pretending to have a heart attack and die on her and hope she
fucks him. It doesn’t work, but I’ll
give the guy points for elaborateness that those American Pie kids
missed. He later figures out how
necrophilia works when he fucks a corpse he finds in his junkyard.
The junkyard
owner lusts after his assistant manager, who exploits his attraction to protect
one of the hobo villages because her boyfriend is a hobo there. The boyfriend is kind of an outcast among the
hobos because he is cleanshaven, honest, sober, hardworking, well-mannered and
dependable. Their love is kind of like the
one sacred thing in all this mayhem, carnage, and death not unlike that movie Titanic
only with a scene where hobos play keepaway with a dude’s severed penis and
couple fewer Oscars to its credit.
The common
thread is a liquor store merchant who discovers an old case full of prohibition
era hooch bottles that cause whoever drinks the contents to melt and explode in
some very impressive special effects sequences.
It brings together the various hobo factions as well as the auxiliary
characters of the police and the mob.
Actually, the doorman at the mobster’s restaurant steals the whole
show. I’m surprised this wasn’t a
breakout performance from a guy who we all know now as some big shot George
Clooney type. The characters all overlap
and interact in the most unpredictable combinations. At the halfway point if you asked me to guess
which character would sing the film’s closing credits song as he melts, I
would’ve guessed wrong, but I will say I was pleasantly surprised.
I liked Clint’s
character singing about his car from beyond the grave during the closing
credits of Gran Torino and I actually think it’s something they should
incorporate into even more movies. In
James Bond films instead of playing the same main title theme song again at the
end, they should have the villain sing about their life from the perspective of
imminent death. I know a lot of you
loved Paul McCartney singing that Live And Let Die theme song more than
I did, but wouldn’t you rather only hear that song during the opening credits
and then also get Yaphet Koto during the closing credits singing about inflating
into a balloon, flying up to the ceiling and bursting?
I saw the
director’s cut of the film, which is kinda funny since it was preceded by a
message from the producer saying that the director became a devout Christian
and tries to distance himself from this film, so you’d think the director’s cut
would be zero minutes. But in this cut
the film definitely ended on a strange note.
The crazy Vietnam vet guy, Bronson, gets his head chopped off and his
severed head’s last glimpse at this world is looking up the skirt of the
junkyard assistant manger and Bronson’s severed head smiles. This is perhaps a nod to the bittersweet
consolation that the characters in The Deer Hunter get from singing ‘God
Bless America’, or possibly just an ode to snatch in general. I’m not sure, it makes as much sense as any a
place to end this thing. But colour me
impressed. Between this and Love
Actually I’ve got a newfound respect for these multi-strained movies
although this film sold me more on hobos than Love Actually sold me on
Pommies. But jolly good show
nonetheless.
If you liked this, check out these other
writings:
I put on my tux and stand
in line and buy a ticket at this super-exclusive movie event of the year.
These streets are savage and
from 1984, although they are not streets of fire.
I don’t have much to say
except this film receives my highest possible honour.