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Gunkville Journal
www.gunkvillejournal.net

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New Releases

Reconstruct This!

[U.S., 2013. DVD available July, 2013]
LIVELY* rating: USA-B, GO-L, SBJ-V, SBJ-L, GVBC-1

In a complete re-imagining of the Tolkien Hobbit saga, Reconstruct This! features Bilbao "Carpet" Baggins as a Basque-country born former sheep herder and cheap furniture salesman who descends upon a post-Civil War South with a dynamic female sales force ("The Baginettes") pushing pre-fab Plantation Kits ("complete with 'land-like' acreage") to white share-croppers, ex-slaves, and Tara-owner-wannabes.

The "profits" are quickly used to buy real (as in actual) properties in the South, which are resold in county-size parcels to Northern investors. As Bilbao ("Boe-boww") accumulates wealth and influence - he's simultaneously elected as a state senator in North Carolina; U.S. Congressman in Mississippi; the Governor of Louisiana; and as a sheriff in Florida - he builds, with the help of small group of smallish investors, an 027 gauge railway to speed oversight of his vast holdings. And to stay ahead of his creditors and outraged purchasers who claim fraud over Plantation Kits never delivered, shoddy construction, and the failure to disclose that "land-like acreage" meant a swamp in Florida that he didn't own.

After ten years, Bilbao's intrigues come to a screeching halt as result of an 027 and standard gauge railway accident outside of Pensacola, Florida. Suffering a foot injury, while sitting on the train engineer's lap at the time of the crash, the hirsute nature of his hobbitual foot fetish is discovered. He flees into Missouri, and spends part of his remaining years roaming the Great Plains with an itinerant book salesman hawking the Bible and Darwin's Origin of the Species: "Would you rather believe in a good-looking Jesus, or in this sorry specimen?" Sales are extraordinary; and local lecture halls (saloons) are quickly filled. The more scientifically inclined argue that, except for the feet, Bilbao is ascending on the evolutionary ladder, and Bilbao, always a persuasive talker, argues against that position. Frequently the proceedings are interrupted temporarily by strict Christian re-constructionists, who proclaim that Bilbao is just an ordinary wanted confidence man, or, alternatively, he's a human poser - the "devil in-panini." ¹

Eventually, Bilbao accumulates enough of “The Precious,” and, in 1890, moves to Rail Road Flat, Calaveras County, California where he opens a high-end dry-goods store, including a display of early Konrad Birkenstock's with the contoured insoles.

In 1897, Bilbao is wounded in an altercation with a contestant in the local jumping frog competition, who claims Bilbao stepped on and crushed the winner. Again, his feet become an issue, and object of derision.

Feeling isolated, and still suffering from the lingering effects of the gunshot wound, Bilbao withdraws to his living quarters at the back of the store, engaging rarely in commerce. On an extremely cold morning December 24, 1899, Bilbao is found frozen to death behind a store counter with his right foot caught in a candy cane jar.

In order to pay for a coffin and funeral, it is agreed that Bilbao should be covered with a sheet and moved to his store window with only his feet visible to interested viewers for a nominal fee of 15 cents. Because the population of Rail Road Flat is only 500, the initial funds generated are insufficient, and since the weather is very cold, viewing hours are extended. Soon the word spreads; trains are diverted to the dilapidated former mining town; thousands arrive for the viewing; bars, and places with “sportin' women” open; and, the town begins to thrive again.

Late one evening, towards the end of March, 1900, a group of former Union soldiers (under General Sherman) gather before Bilbao's store window for a bit of drinking and a fierce rondo of “Marching Through Georgia.” Later they are joined by a just-arrived contingent of outraged Plantation Kit buyers, again feeling cheated, this time in death, by Bilbao. Altercations start; soon there is shooting; and a torch is dropped. By morning, Rail Road Flat is flat. Those searching through the charred remains of the store find no trace of Bilbao.

Before the snow begins falling that afternoon after the fire, a group of children claim to have seen several barefoot human prints heading towards the nearby woods. A brief search commenced, but no proof to substantiate the sighting is ever found.

Some say Bilbao survived and became a sheep herder again, and that he still roams the hills today. Others say: “Nonsense! How far could he get with his right foot stuck in a candy cane jar?”

Still others say it's just a movie, and that WE left half-way through.

We're not saying.