AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL (1972)

A scuzzy dude gets off a plane in Israel. He starts hitchhiking and is almost immediately picked up by a woman. They go back to her crib, where he bitches about the Vietnam War before they screw. After their off-screen fuck session, they go for a walk and randomly meet another hippy couple. Boring stuff happens. Finally, around the 49 minutes mark, our four heroes show up at a large lake. Not too far offshore is a small, barren-looking island with like two bushes on it. They paddle over to the uninviting island on an inflatable boat. (Did I mention that the island is surrounded by sharks?) Once on the island, they don’t bother to tie up the boat or even unload any of their meager supplies. No, instead they run around naked and declare out loud that the World is “a bad World. Bad. Bad.” and that they are going to turn this island into a paradise free of “machines and buttons”. When they wake up the next morning, they’re shocked to discover that the unsecured boat (and their supplies) drifted off. This sets off a series of events that culminates in everybody going completely insane and running around like bloodthirsty cavemen. Snarling and attacking each other until they collapse in a pre-THE HILLS HAVE EYES cuddle puddle of death.

I normally don’t like to give away so much of a movie's plot, but if I didn’t with AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL the entire review would just be: “Four losers get stuck on an island (due to their own stupidity) and nothing happens. The End. Skip it.” Mild nudity (that you don’t want to see), below average acting, shit script with a shit story, long patches of wasted time where nothing at all happens, one song that seemed to go on and on for way too long, lots of self-righteous babbling, okay camerawork, unsafe driving habits, a poor little goat who's safety I worried about.

I’ve done zero research, but, based off the film alone, it felt like the filmmakers themselves were anti-counterculture and talking shit about the hippy movement. Who knows, who cares. It doesn’t matter, it’s an ungroovy movie.  Which is sad because I'm a fan of counterculture cinema from this time period.

I’m sure that AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL has fans and more power to them, but this sort of this isn't my bag, baby.  Hell, I’d be more interested in watching a documentary about the fans of AAHII than watching the actual movie ever again.

THE DOOM GENERATION (1995)

"The world sucks."

Two attractive twenty-something year old teenage lovers (Blue and White) accidentally pick up a third attractive twenty-something year old teenager (Red) in their crappy old car and then set out on an aimless road trip around Los Angeles. Occasionally stopping along the way for some good ol’ American robbery, dismemberment and cock mutilation. Sounds cool, but it’s nowhere near as exciting as you would imagine. Not even close. Oh yeah, you did catch on that the three main characters, Red White and Blue, all have names that coincide with the colours of the American flag, right? Okay, cool. Just making sure. Cuz man…that’s fucking deep.

Featuring a cameo by Heidi Fleiss (among other forgotten celebrities), a joke about "Richard Gere's butthole", a Ministry shirt and music by everybody from Nine Inch Nails to MC 900 Ft Jesus, THE DOOM GENERATION is definitely a product of its times. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it is an interesting historical (and low budget) look back to the mid-1990’s America.

I remember seeing THE DOOM GENERATION when it first came out on home video (probably 1996) and being disappointed that it paled to NATURAL BORN KILLERS. Revisiting it now, the whole thing just looks cheap.  And the dialogue is cringier than I remember. Also, the whole gay thing (two dudes) is so lightweight that is almost doesn’t exist. Lame.  And the ending sucked.

Worth watching if you’re curious and / or interested in 1990’s independent cinema. Others would probably just find it boring. Writer, Director, Editor and Producer Gregg Araki would later go on to make the devastating MYSTERIOUS SKIN in 2004.