Border Radio

Apparently most people are crazy about this "cult film". I am not. I do enjoy looking at the stylized cinematography. I liked it enough to sit through the rest of this awful film because at least I had something interesting to look at.

Three southern California punk rockers rob a club of one thousand dollars that they feel was robbed from them for services rendered, and hide out across the Mexican border waiting for - what I don't know, but I'm not alone, because they don't seem to know either They seem to completely lack any kind of plan. They have committed a serious crime but they just sit around shooting a gun into thin air, talking to dolls and smashing their faces, and acting in general like people I do not want to know. And nothing is ever said or done that makes me want to know them.

Lu (Luanne Anders), is actually married to one of these guys and they have a little girl together, and thus she starts trying to figure out what happened - why and where have they disappeared?. One of them calls her and tells her where HE is and to come down and he will tell her the story. When she arrives he acts like a complete idiot. For example, she asks "Why am I here?". He just wears a stupid grin and says "Why are any of us here?". It's like watching somebody discipline a ten year old boy. Like a ten year old boy, he's mentally old enough to know when he has done something wrong, but not able to digest the serious ramifications of anything.

As this film wears on - and it did wear on me - we learn that, IMHO, the dumbest of the three, who is constantly being bailed out by his well off parents although apparently in his mid 20's, is having an affair with Lu. Why she would pick this guy when her husband seemed like he had more potential, AND he was her husband? I was never able to figure that out.

Some people highly praise this film. I'll grant them that for the cinematography, but unless you are from southern California and were ever inside the punk rock movement, I doubt you'll glean much from this experience. I walked away from this knowing little more about the characters and feeling nothing more for them than I did at the beginning, and to me that's a major sign that a film has failed in its mission.

I've become a fan of the criterion collection over the past few years or so. I consider the institution a staple in the film industry, both in recognizing and preserving pivotal pieces throughout the years. In fact, seeing the criterion collection symbol on a DVD cover sparks my interest in films that I probably wouldn't think twice about watching otherwise. An example of this is Border Radio. I anxiously awaited a screening of this film because of its importance to indie film explosion, and I am a big supporter of indie flicks. But as I watched it, I realized that this is a very good student film. But it's too amateur and unseasoned to earn any comparison to better indie flicks and better Hollywood flicks. The film is sloppy in its structure. After establishing the characters, the film takes the shape of a documentary where these characters are interviewed, one-on-one. The idea itself isn't a bad one, but the filmmakers don't give a reason for doing so. Why are these characters are being interviewed? How does it contribute to the story? The characters themselves have absolutely no redeeming qualities and the filmmakers don't give us a way to relate to any of them. The acting is horrific, and better directors in better movies have proved that non-actors can produce good and sometimes great performances. The actors in this movie all look like film students although we know some aren't. The best performance was produced by the Mexican who sang and drank a corona for 1 short scene. The story itself is dull and cliché. If another film student makes a movie that has to do with somebody owing a club owner money, I'm going to scream. More importantly, the film has no premise! Most films have a premise without trying. This one has none, no moral of the story, or no point to the story. These things are learned in film 101. In fact, these things should come natural in any form of storytelling. The only thing that makes this film worth anybody's time is its photography and some of the music. There are some great landscape shots and a beautiful scene where the daughter is circled on a music merry-go-round. Ultimately, this film is a perfect example on how some indie flicks get much props simply because their indie flicks. How this gets the criterion treatment, I have no idea. This is simply a bad movie made my amateur filmmakers still searching for a voice. It took them 4 years to make this movie and, despite how low-budget a film is, it should never take 4 years to make an 83 minute movie with non-actors and a bad script. I do appreciate a movie with good intentions and I would assume that these USC film students had good intentions to make a non-Hollywood film about real people; but those intentions fall massively short. The ridiculously high acclaim that some indie flicks get because they're shot with shoe-string budgets with plot less stories has to stop (in the same way the acclaim some Hollywood flicks get because they have big stories and a predictable storyline has to stop).

I just saw this movie for the first time tonight, and I loved it. It is beautifully shot with some great performances. It's funny, dark, and real. The music is great. As for the film being a "historical document," it does encapsulate part of the L.A. music scene in the '80s, but the movie is actually pretty timeless and still stands up today without ever seeming like a caricature of the times. This is one of the finest low-budget indie films I have seen. It really doesn't even need to be qualified that way. It is just an enjoyable film that works. Chris D.'s performance is especially poignant and Luanna Anders is perfect. If you love L.A., punk, or just a good story, see this film.

Originally scripted as a grim film noir homage, a series of financial dry spells stretched out the film's production schedule to three years, whereupon the screen story underwent as many dramatic changes as any of the hard-living bands from the music scene the film adopts as its backdrop.

Star Chris D. insists in the DVD's supplemental features that the original script's noir aspects are what attracted him to the project, but it was only once he became involved that the thing took shape as a "rock movie," with the added participation of D.'s friends (and sometime bandmates) like John Doe and Dave Alvin. Alvin went on to create an eclectic and memorable score for the film (now out of print, sadly), with players culled from friends and colleagues from X, Los Lobos, The Blasters and other local heroes.

Not every film could survive three filmmakers AND active contributions by everyone in the cast, but then it's a rare project that manages to pack this much simpatico talent onto one movie poster.

Additional DVD extras include deleted scenes, a potent "trailer" (including several moments not in the finished film) set to a driving musical score, and a pair of loose, enjoyable commentary tracks. Another welcome addition is Chris D. and The Flesh Eaters' vintage ain't-no-WAY-this-is-running-on-MTV music video for their classic "The Wedding Dice" (comically mangled by Chris Shearer in the film itself).

Had it followed its intended "straight noir" course, BORDER RADIO may well have survived as an interesting curio; but as it turned out, the film stands as a fitting elegy to an era, both in its depiction of a musical phenomenon's sunset and for its unique collaborative approach to film-making. That both still feel like breaths of fresh air twenty years on only stands as a testament to their legitimacy.

Like so many of the "lost" bands of the music scene it salutes with unabashed affection, BORDER RADIO is ripe for rediscovery.

This is a breezy hang-out film featuring a handful of dreamers and goofballs of the mid-80s SoCal punk / proto-grunge scene. The stakes are never very high and nothing much of consequence happens, but it has a low-key charm if you know these kind of people.

It shares some of the same DNA as Clerks, River of Grass, and Bottle Rocket, though it is not as funny or clever as those later films. Good Sunday afternoon watch that doesn't demand a lot of engagement. That it has a nice soundtrack probably goes without saying, given the talent involved.