The Glory Stompers - on Netflix
OMG where to begin? It's actually been quite some time since I saw this... thing... spectacle... whatever you call it, but it is difficult to admit that by "saw", I mean I actually watched the entire length of it.
Okay, it has Dennis Hopper. So you think, "Hey! Biker movie, Dennis Hopper... maybe this is an unappreciated influence on Easy Rider!"
Now, okay, I don't mean to get into a debate about whether Easy Rider is, or is not, a good movie or a bad movie. This is, after all, the age in which, if you want to see young Jack Nicholson act, you can do like Jefferson did with his Bible, and just watch the scenes with Nicholson in it.
But it doesn't matter whether you think Easy Rider was a good movie or a bad movie. I saw Easy Rider, I served in the Senate with Easy Rider, and this movie, sir, is no Easy Rider.
There are few things easy about watching this film. But, hey, it's got Dennis Hopper, and it's a biker movie, okay? Even if you didn't like Easy Rider, The Glory Stompers might actually make you think Easy Rider wasn't as bad as it could be. But this movie really defines "as bad as it could be".
What I don't understand about several of the B biker and hippy movies is - I mean really think about this - They made these things in California. In the 1960s. They were up to their armpits in ACTUAL bikers and hippies.
And this brings me, as it should bring your fast forward button after ogling Dennis Hopper, to the climactic hippy love-in in the woods. If you care about the plot, it takes a lot longer to get there, and that's really all there is to be said about that.
It's just like the Woodstock movie would be if only 25 people had showed up. But it made me realize something. When you hear one of your elders telling you how, "Yeah, back in the sixties, I hung out with all the Hollywood people and like, my friend's sister was Frank Zappa's babysitter..." - Those people... They were the ones who were brought in to be the extras in these bizarre caricatures which, at bottom, appear to be more like the earlier FBI movies on how, you too, can help us defeat godless Communism.
But I would not steer you astray by telling you that it has Dennis Hopper in it, and it is a biker movie.
