Friday, March 18, 2011

A Fistful of Hobos! (Brad's Picks)



In honor of the upcoming release of Hobo With A Shotgun (April 1st On Demand, In Theaters May 6th), we here at ITMOD are celebrating our favorite street urchins.  Honestly, this was one of the toughest lists to cobble together.  There have been lots of great cinematic hobos, from David Carradine's Woody Guthrie to Ice-T's game survivor Jack Mason.  I almost dropped Randolph and Mortimer Duke onto the list, but their brief screentime in Coming to America made them ineligible.


5.  The Kid (Dick Tracy):  After spending years stealing food for The Tramp and being rewarded with constant beatings, The Kid is rescued from the street by sharp dresser Dick Tracy.  He hates dames and is always ready for the next meal.  "When do we eat?"  And when you're tied up in a basement 'bout to blow he's mighty handy with a baseball.


4.  Romulus (The Caveman's Valentine):  Possibly the craziest bastard on this list (well, let's reevaluate that after #1), Sam Jackson's former Julliard trained pianist believes that a faceless being named Stuyvesant is controlling the world via rays from the Chrysler Building, and is also responsible for the corpse he just found hanging from a tree outside his cave in Central Park.  The Caveman's Valentine is a strange, neo-noir with a brilliant if completely nuts-o unreliable narrator in Romulus.  Enjoy your awkwardness with your procedural.


3.  A No. 1 (Emperor of the North):  Nobody can beat a man to the ground with a live chicken like Lee Marvin's rail rider A No. 1.  And when he goes up against Ernest Borgnine's pscyhotic 'bo chaser Shack he's gonna need an ax and a whole lotta Hobo strength to take him down.


2.  Chance Boudreaux (Hard Target):  Jean Claude Van Damme and his achy breaky mullet might be homeless, but thanks to some bayou upbringing and military killing skills he's quite the formidable opponent to Lance Henriksen's most dangerous game hunters, and they really should have given up the hunt once they saw him balancing on that dirt bike.  Oh yes, Hard Target is easily John Woo's best American movie (sorry Face/Off).



1.  Bronson (Street Trash):  Street Trash is THE Homeless Movie.  And Bronson is The King of All Hobos.  He's a Monster!  A deranged Vietnam Vet who sits upon a Junkyard Throne like some Frazetta Death Dealer, Bronson must go fist-to-fist with the equally badass Bill The Cop while partaking in the most disgusting and ridiculous game of hot potato ever put on screen.  Once witnessed, he's impossible to forget.


--Brad

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