Hey, you try making a coherent movie when you’re out of your mind on acid.
Yep. I’ve enjoyed turning my decade younger S-I-L onto period films like Easy Rider, Vanishing Point, Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry, etc. Maybe I’ll have to include this one as well, although I’ll caveat the heck out of it beforehand.
Boy howdy, does it ever bring back memories of drive in movies, embroidered shirts, ZigZag stones and the whole counter culture pervasive at the time.
Try Electra Glide in Blue. If not a hippie movie, it did have a heavy element of such and was both watchable and, again, pretty representative of the times and attitudes.
True, I did like “Electra Glide in Blue,” and the morose lesbian hitchhiker in “Five Easy Pieces” as well as certain moments in “Harold and Maude” are somewhat redemptive of the genre.
Jane Russell in “The Born Losers” only reminds me that the worst B-Noir of the 40’s made a better counter-culture than the best the '60’s could offer, IMHO.
Hey, hey, hey, don’t go dissin’ Easy Rider! That’s blasphemy. 
One of my favorites, and one of the movies I’m willing to risk the wrath of Mrs. Fresh over by playing it while she’s anywhere in the apartment. Technically, her presence anywhere on our property constitutes an automatic veto, but I’ve been known to violate it, which is something I don’t do even for the Three Stooges. That’s love, right there!
My mom went to high school with Tom Laughlin, and double-dated with him a couple of times. I liked Billy Jack (Born Losers, not so much) but I lovedlovedloved The Trial of Iblly Jack - my first experience of the Movie That Is So Awful It Sucks Your Eyeballs Onto The Screen. Pure comedy gold - where else can you see a man confronting his dark side painted bright blue? And talk about your hard-hitting exposes - fraudulent furniture stores have to be at least one step down from Watergate.
But my gosh - I was in high school and I could still spot the pretension from outside the theater.
The world will be a darker place when they stop making incredibly self-righteous movies about half-Indian Green Berets who kick white people in the head.
Regards,
Shodan
In my youth I thought it was a great movie; so my kids recently bought the whole series for me on DVD. Wow, I must have changed, they are truly bad movies.
However, Soon after seeing Billy Jack, I started to study Hapkido, when my sons were old enough I introduced them to it and currently we all three hold black belts in Hapkido. Watching the credits of the Billy Jack movie I noticed for the first time that the fights were based on Hapkido. Cool, I sorta became Billy Jack…sorta.
I can’t access YouTube at the moment, but I wonder if they have that Saturday Night Live sketch with Paul Simon as “Billy Paul”.
*Billy Paul (after beating up ice cream store rednecks): I want a triple cone: chocolate strawberry and vanilla. That’s red, black, and white – together!
Hippy chick (Lorraine Newman): If only the world could get along as well as this ice cream cone, Billy Paul wouldn’t have to kill so many people!*
I’m pretty sure I saw Born Losers. Wasn’t that the movie where the mean, tough bikers show how tough they are by French-kissing each other? I swear that’s what I saw.
And one guy spits in a biker’s face and the biker wipes it off with his finger and then licks it up. I think Hunter Thompson mentions this kind of thing in his book on the Hell’s Angels.
Regards,
Shodan
Classic B-grade cheese; staff fave at my vidstore.
I’m eagerly awaiting the next in the series. From the Billy Jack entry on Wikipedia:
Laughlin’s website mentions plans to make another sequel, entitled Billy Jack’s Moral Revolution which, according to the film’s synopsis, hopes to “lead a nationwide protest march to force Bush and Cheney to give up Iraq as an oil colony and stop the endless flow of blood by getting the hated Americans out of Iraq immediately.” In Billy Jack’s Moral Revolution, Billy Jack and Jean are recruited by mainstream Americans, Moderate Republicans, Democrats and Independents who hate both Parties and believe Congress has become so systemically corrupt it can’t possibly represent the people any more, to form a new mainstream – not “fringe – 3rd Party, with exciting reforms to give real power back to the people (see 3rd Party enclosure). Throughout the film Billy Jack and Jean are under a horrendous siege in their struggle to try to save the heart and soul of America–and Its Constitution–before it’s too late. The movie was originally set to be released sometime in 2007.”[2]
And from Laughlin’s wikipedia:
[Laughlin] is currently seeking funding for a fifth Billy Jack film in two parts. When originally announced in 2004, it was entitled Billy Jack’s Crusade to End the War in Iraq and Restore America to Its Moral Purpose; this was shortened to Billy Jack’s Moral Revolution in 2006. In 2008, the film was titled Billy Jack for President. Recently, it has been re-titled Billy Jack and Jean. Laughlin promises it will be a “new genre of film”: a great deal of social commentary on politics, religion, psychology, etc. will be discussed, and a debate will take place between Billy Jack and President Bush via computer manipulation of archived speeches.
Looks like a pip!
Quite a change from the other films. 
Maybe they can retitle it Billy Jean and Jack and get MJ to sing the theme song.
Regards,
Shodan
Laughlin has an account on youtube and has some videos up where he talks about it, but the computer i’m at doesn’t have sound. Damn!
I mean, Bernard says, “Dinosaur, hand me some of that flour.”
Maybe people used to like to have flour poured on top of their ice cream cones back then.
Somehow this spelling, and the resulting pronunciation, are very amusing.
Like it would be some kind of really odd Pirate/Shark/Hippy/Martial Arts movie.
I try.
When the Mods tell me I have to Control my violent temper I really try. But when I see threads like this … were people debate whether it was sugar or flour I … just … go … BESERK
The FLOUR scene is at ~2:20
Just the Ice Cream Store fight.
Bernard reminded me of a young Christian Bale. Am I alone here or do others see the resemblance?
The Billy Jack movies are so bad they’re, um, bad.
They are the left-wing equivalent of a film like The Green Berets.
Bleeeech!!
(Years ago I heard that Tom Laughlin (who’s fat now) was going to debate Pat Buchanan, but it never happened. That would have been fun!)
My dad and I saw it when it first came out and we were sitting there grumbling about how awful it was, until the fight in the park. Just before that, when they came boiling out of the bar I sat upright and exclaimed, “Hey! That’s the Green Frog!” The movie was shot in and around Prescott, Arizona which we were familiar with. The park the fight was in is the town square surrounding the original county courthouse and the lake where Delores was raped is Lynx Lake located a few miles out of town.
After that we stopped paying attention to the plot (such as it was) and the actors, peering around them at the backgrounds.
Hey, not all of us have the movie memorized (yet).
I’ll hypothesize that the flour would have been for making yummy brownies, over which you could have ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, whipped cream, and…and…and.
Maybe they also made birthday cakes at the ice cream shop.
Damnit, I just know if we can crack this, everything else will make sense!