<![CDATA[CHUD.com - A Movie Website and SO MUCH MORE. - Blogs]]> http://chud.com/articles en-us N/A nicknunziata@gmail.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:40:51 EST 20 <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...HAMLET]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1681/Sam-Strange-RemembersHAMLET.html
The story itself is pretty complex. There's this guy named Hamlet. He gets killed by his brother, Claudius. Claudius marries Hamlet's wife, Gertrude. Hamlet comes back as a ghost and demands that his son, Hamlet 2, revenge his death by killing Claudius. Hamlet 2 doesn't want to. He can't make himself kill anything until he's figured out exactly what it means to die. Also, he has a crush on his mom. Eventually, everyone shuffles off this mortal coil, returning even the mightiest of them to noble dust which may someday stop a bunghole.

Casting this film was difficult because with dialog this good only British people or those pretending to be British people can correctly speak the speech. Since American audiences reject European superiority/wimpyness, I had to fill lesser roles with cheap but attractive American has-beens. Therefore: Chuck Heston. Also Robin Williams plays a fop, Billy Crystal is the gravedigger, Bruce Vilanch is Falstaff, and Whoopie Goldberg tickles the ivory keys as Othellette.

For Hamlet 2 role, there was no way around a British actor. Unfortunately, I chose Kenneth Brenneth, a guy I will never work with again if only because the bottom-half of his face is exhausting to look at. Seriously, he's like Chapter One of a "How to Read Lips" textbook. I have never seen someone have to work so goddamn hard to enunciate.

Brenneth started pissing me off on day one. He showed up on set with a goatee, puffy pants, and a cardboard director's megaphone and immediately fired Phyllis Diller and Jerry Stiller when I wasn't looking. At first I couldn't control him because Kenneth Brenneth will not hear you until you refer to him as "Dame Kenneth Brenneth".

He's also a natural born leader of losers. By the end of the first week of shooting, Brenneth and his ilk (Brits) refused to be in the same room as any American actors, kind of a snobs vs. slobs thing. Any scenes with mixed company was shot and edited into cohesion later, a real pain in my ass. To get back at him for this bullshit, I had the CG guys give him that funny mustache and gray hair.  Yes, I will make my own films look silly in the name of revenge. Do not fuck with Sam Strange, actors!

Anyway, despite the difficulties, Hamlet made its money back, and I'm thankful. Hamlet is simply not a normal film. For one thing, it's over four hours long. For another, it's set in the 1800's but it's not a Western. Really the only thing it's got going for it is the great dialog and awesome hardcore sex.

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1681/Sam-Strange-RemembersHAMLET.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...JUMANJI]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1610/Sam-Strange-RemembersJUMANJI.html
This board game is pretty awesome. After rolling the dice, something appears out of nowhere and kills you. If you manage to not die, you have to keep playing, compounding dangers with each turn. The only way to save yourself is to finish the game. And if that's not difficult enough, the bus explodes if it's speed falls under 50 MPH. The phone calls are coming from INSIDE your house!!!

A boy and a girl (played by Creepy Head Tate and Sally Rednose, respectfully) start a game of Jumanji in the early 70's. One roll later, goofy boy is carried off by bats. Roll credits, motherfucker! THAT's how you start a flick!

Thirty years later, a brother and sister continue the already started game. Their first roll brings back the boy, now full-grown and past his comedic prime. To continue playing, they must track down that little girl from the 70's, now played by the hypothetically hilarious Bonny Hunt. (David Allen Grier's face gives this film the "Tom Snyder Thinks it's Funny" trifecta award.)

Instead of explaining the rest of the plot, I'll just give you a glimpse of the shooting script beyond the opening Act:

Roll: Big Mosquitoes
Roll: Retarded Monkeys
Roll: 1 Lion
Roll: Stampede of Stuff
Roll: Hunter Dickhead
Roll: Super Mario Plants
Roll: Kraken
Roll: Hamlet
Roll: Gene Siskel comes back to life
Roll: Game over

There are two problems with this movie. One is Robin Williams' confusion over what type of role he was hired to play. The beard at the beginning threw him off, I guess. I wanted to tell him "This is not a drama! You cannot get an Oscar for this!" but you try talking to a coked-up man-tribble while he's meditating on a more artful line reading. Word to the wise: you pay for the Robin Williams, but you get the constantly wisecracking Billy Crystal via cell phone for free. Even Robin Williams' drug dealers (Whoopi Goldberg and her sister Nipsy) are attention hogs.

The other problem is the film's rating. A board game that kills people is no fun at all when it doesn't actually kill people. I never should have gotten into bed with Nickelodeon; those guys do not fuck around. At our first pitch meeting, one of them asked, "Exactly how much money will this film make?" I waited for him to start laughing, but he was not kidding. "I don' t know," I replied. Twenty gallons of green slime rained down upon me. They never let up with that shit.

Rewatching Jumanji, I have to say it's not that bad. If I were to ever remake it, I think it would benefit most from an outer space setting. Or possibly an urban ghetto.

(three stars)

]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1610/Sam-Strange-RemembersJUMANJI.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...WATCHMEN]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1584/Sam-Strange-RemembersWATCHMEN.html
To allay your fears, I have compiled a list of all the changes we've made. Hopefully after perusing it, we can all be friends again...

1. The team is actually given the name "Watchmen" in the film. This is just to simplify things for an audience not familiar with the comic.

2. The "death of the Comedian " scene has been lengthened somewhat. The ensuing fight is by no means arbitrary. It highlights the struggle and hidden heroism of Edward Blake's character.

3. Some of the lines, particularly Dr. Manhattan's "Nothing ever changes", are now said by different characters. I did this to maximize time economy without suffering thematic losses. Hopefully these don't offend you too much. It's part and parcel with adapting such a rich work. Peter Jackson also did this with Lord of the Rings.

4. The character of Adrian Veidt, drawn big and strong in the comic, is portrayed by Mathew Goode, a scrawny, little gay dude. I did this because no one's going to believe that "the smartest man in the world" is also a bodybuilder.

5. Nite Owl II is still a crafty inventor, but he now buys all his building components from Home Depot. Don't worry, we used their 1980's logo.

6. We edited out dialog regarding to Rorschach's foul body odor simply because audiences can't smell characters. Duh! In the prison sequence, I instructed Jackie Earle Haley to smile more. We really want him to be the film's break-out character!

7. I would never stoop so low as to put clothes on Dr. Manhattan. Yes, this is a rated R movie made for mature adults, and no, we have not omitted his penis. I had the CG guys make it smaller than mine, is all.

8. Sally Jupiter does not appear in the film because I never understood what her significance was anyway. Instead, the camera lingers on Moloch's Penthouse magazines. Oh, Moloch looks at Penthouse magazine now.

9. Despite what you've heard, the squid is still in the picture. Only now he's a villain with a squid-head named "ARM-EE" and his signature move is the "MOTIONLESS INK BLOT". As it turns out, the ink which floats around Rorschach's mask is his, and he's come to "TAKE IT BACK MOTHERFUCKER!" Dr. Manhattan defeats him by tying each of his eight tentacles to different FedEx trucks. When his head explodes it's all like, slo-mo, then fast-mo, then regular-mo and shit. In victory, Dr. Manhattan puts Rorschach on one shoulder and Nite Owl on the other and they all go to Mars where David Bowie puts on a concert just for them.

10. Rorschach's mother will look different than in the comic because that role was cast based on a reality show contest. Congratulations, Susan Jorgenson!

I'm fairly certain those are all the changes. I hope you will be big enough to acknowledge that adapting a comic book is no easy task and that sacrifices must be made. Seriously, I'd like to see you try it some time. Assholes.

See you on March 6th!

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1584/Sam-Strange-RemembersWATCHMEN.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...JUNIOR]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1566/Sam-Strange-RemembersJUNIOR.html
Junior has a fairly straightforward and awesome plot. Two scientists at an upscale University face major layoffs if they don't start coming up with usable, grant-getting science. See? It's already two minutes as good as Ghostbusters! The scientists are trying to impregnate chimpanzees with human babystuff in hopes that a chimp/chump hybrid will give them a faux sasquatch off which they can make millions in ticket sales.

The apes aren't getting as human pregnant as the scientists hoped. Desperate to keep their jobs, they decide to test their odd-pregnancy drug on themselves to see what's fucked up about it. Guess what? Unless you're a chimp, it works just fine!

The genius of this film lies in the casting. Pregnant scientist is played by none other than Conan the Austrian. The other doctor, who in reality is probably more suited to have a baby in his gut, is played by none other than Rumplestilskin PhD. Even without a baby this is a funny role for Conan because he's playing such a straight-laced nerd. People think it's amazing that a man gets pregnant in this film, but the real miracle is that he's a virgin. Yes, this is a story about Christ's resurrection, and you were all too judgmental to pick up on it.

But just like Mother Mary, he doesn't stay a virgin long. As his tummy gets competition-sized, Emma Thompson shows up to give the film a 2nd Act-filling love interest. If you don't think Emma Thompson falling in love with Conan the Terminator is funny, then you need to go back to church. The script says they fall in love simply because they're both nerds, but I added some motivation for her character. It turns out, she loves portly men because her uncle was a portly man and she had sex with her uncle and he was really sensitive to her needs as a lover.

He gets her pregnant. Their love is so strong (cause he's a former Mr. Universe) that the baby is ready to come out right when his is. On top of that, Rumplestilskin's lady is pregnant, too. (She was knocked up by Aerosmith.) Thus, the movie ends with not one, but three (!) of babies being born. Only half of them have down syndrome.

Look, I know you hate this film. And yes, when I say "you" I am referring to the entire human race minus Sam Strange and his dog, Arnoldfan#4. You should really give it another chance. It's good. Not as good as The Dark Knight or The Happening, but good nonetheless.

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1566/Sam-Strange-RemembersJUNIOR.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1551/Sam-Strange-RemembersCHEAPER-BY-THE-DOZEN.html
"Say, Sam? That friend of yours, Steve Martin? Watch out for him. His great disdain for humanity will soon rob him of his comedic genius." I just laughed at Jesus and called him naive. Unfortunately, it turns out he was right about Steve Martin. I hope he got the last laugh because none of us did.

So what happened to Steve? Anger. We let him into our hearts because his banjo playing was funny. But once embraced, he shook off this Trojan Horse and demanded we take his banjo playing seriously. We didn't. And he now scornfully wastes his comedic gift before our very eyes. "You want funny, motherfuckers? I'll show you funny! Watch this: I'm gonna slip on some marbles and fall face-first into a pie! Assholes!" The opposite of comedy is not tragedy - it's just shitty comedy. Steve Martin knows this, and he uses it to hurt us. THAT is the tragedy, and it's all ours.

About seven years ago, Steve wanted a painting, and he needed a cookie-cutter movie to fund it. In an attempt to reconnect with my old friend, I agreed to direct Cheaper by the Dozen. Steve had written it himself. Here is a sample of the script:

--------------------

Suburban Mansion (Morning)

ME enters room wearing a suburban robe. ME has a shitload of kids. They're all a bunch of fucking little monsters like kids in real life.

Something happens to make ME make a funny face. Ad-lib, ad-lib, etc. Funnier face. ME picks up a kid. Kid gets finger paint on ME'S robe.

ME:
Hey, my robe!

Kicked in nutz. Funny pain face.

ME:
Hey, that hurts!

Dances funny. Slips on marbles. Falls down face-first into pie. Slowly lifts pie-face up to look at camera.

Kids run blender with no top. Shit flies everywhere. ME makes funny face of disapproval. Anger ad-lib.

ME:
I can't believe I have
 so many kids!
(beat)
It's hard to keep track
of your names!

ME loses temper. Kids cry. A lesson is ad-libbed. ME apologizes for being such a cranky dad. Mom comes home from grocery store.

MOM:
Hey, I know you told me to only
get 10 eggs, but I got 12 because
they're cheaper that way.

--------------------

As you can see, this shit apparently writes it self. So I figured it could direct itself too while I tried to get a tri-generational three-way going with Bonnie Hunt and Hilary Duff. Ultimately, that three-way was the only positive thing to come out of Cheaper by the Dozen. Unless you count the money, and I try to count every cent. It's probably a very bad film. I didn't watch it when I made it, and I'm sure as hell not gonna watch it now.

My mission to reconnect with Steve went awry on the first day when I told him to get his twangy fucking banjo out of my face. "Fine!" he pouted. "But you just talked yourself out of tickets to my magic show!" After that I just gave up on him. So should you. It is one of the easier ways to walk in the footsteps of Christ.

(three flaming Frogurts*)

*Joke © Doc Happenin]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1551/Sam-Strange-RemembersCHEAPER-BY-THE-DOZEN.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...LOST IN TRANSLATION]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1535/Sam-Strange-RemembersLOST-IN-TRANSLATION.html
Billymurray is a sad-sack old actor who visits Japan to make a whiskey commercial. He's spends the whole movie quietly hateful and rich while looking like a lived-in basset hound. Like all bored old men, what he needs is a shot of young tail.

It just so happens there is a young tail down the hall from his hotel room. This lady is played by Red Johannason, one of the world's more successful drag queens. She turns out to be a perfect match for Billmurray because, while he is old and bored, she is young and restless. Also, oddly huge knockers.

Her main problem is that she's married to Giovanni Ribisi. Let's all take a moment to reflect on the bravery of this young man. Not only did God decide to make him a retard, He robbed him of the usual consolation perks as well (super-strength, giant dong). Yet Giovanni gets up everyday and acts his little heart out, unwilling to let shortcomings stand in the way of success! We love you Giovanni and look forward to your forthcoming album, "Bathtub Farts Smell Different!"

Anyway, emo sparks fly when Billmurray and Johannason meet. They decide to get a cab and pretend to be Americans who have never heard of Japan before. They eat sushi, play videogames, go see an anime, go see a hentia, do some karaoke, drink sake, and buy panties from a vending machine. It's the most exciting 45-minute montage you'll ever see.

This day of discovery has brought them closer than they ever were before they met. Billmurray is not overstepping his boundaries by assuming the night will end with whoopie (not Goldberg). But of course, this cannot be. For one, she has a penis. And two, she just wants to be friends. "I'm too rich to have sex with old people," she Twitters. "Can't Billmurray and I just have a platonic relationship?" The answer to that question is :(

Shot down, he calls his wife for some companionship, but hangs up when she asks him to fly back to America and like her again. He calls his daughter's cell, but hangs up when she asks him to listen to her poetry. He watches Meatballs on tv, and it really makes him feel like performing Harry Caray. He gets so sad at this point, that he starts to look like Bill Murray.

Just then he gets a phone call from Red Johannson, who tells him that she's leaving Japan. He rushes out to catch her before it's too late. She tolerates his goodbye hug, but uncomfortably wiggles out of his goodbye kiss. Acting out of hurt pride, he grips her arm and whispers: "I am going to hunt you down and kill you in the head with a rusted fucking shovel." The Miramax guy made me mute this line because he felt it might put off the film's potentially large female audience. Who's laughing now, Harvey Mirimax?

Anyway, she drives off and he stands there. That's how the movie ends. Like I've said before, critics will love your movie if you refuse to give it an ending. They call it "daring" and "complex". But the reality is, if you don't say anything, you eliminate the risk of saying something stupid. Here's a story: once during a movie pitch, I was deeply unnerved by an executive who sat silent and unmoved throughout my whole presentation. As it turned out, he'd been dead for two hours.

Speaking of dead for two hours, don't watch Lost in Translation unless you need sleep. Good night.

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1535/Sam-Strange-RemembersLOST-IN-TRANSLATION.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1521/Sam-Strange-RemembersINTERVIEW-WITH-THE-VAMPIRE.html
Back when I gave a fuck, I interviewed some vampires to get a bead on what made them so goddamn slow and hard to be afraid of. As it turns out, they are an annoyingly sensitive bunch. It's all "tortured innocence" this, and "oh, the beautiful hunger" that. The only exciting part was after the interview when I staked their hearts, thus fulfilling my community service demands.

But there was one vampire who really stuck out. His name was Louis de Pointe du Lac, and I found his story remarkable because it was by far the longest and most self-important. It hurt so bad to sit through his seventeen days of thriftstore goth fibs that I just had to share the experience with the movie going public. The role of Sam Strange was played by Kuffs, by the way. You can see the resemblance in our glasses.

Way back in the 1970's, Louis was a Renaissance Festival performer whose wife just ran off with the blacksmith. A gay vampire by the name of Lestat de Lioncourt, gets the hots for him, and the two swap blood. After this, Louis de Pointe du Lac becomes a vampire, doomed to bore the earth until I killed him one late night in 1988.

The honeymoon ends quickly for these the two bloodsucking hunks. Lestat de Lioncourt wants to kill people, but Louis de Pointe du Lac has not lost his conscience and would rather eat rats. They have a lot of hissy fits and, like many retarded couples, decide that having a child might sew the rift that has grown between them since they met 24 hours ago.

It doesn't work because the kid they choose is a royal bitch. She wants tits but can't have them because vampires are meant to be as androgynous as possible. This is why all the male vampires in this movie have long hair and no penises. She does prove to be a ruthless killer, though. Because Louis de Point du Lac loves her, he agrees to kill people too. He also buys her sweets and lets her watch Spongebob, while Lestat de Lioncourt enforces a strict regiment of piano practice and ridicule regarding her no-tits. Clearly we have a nice mom/mean mom situation brewing.

One night, she convinces nice mom to help her murder mean mom. They do this by tricking mean mom into drinking blood from dead people then cutting his weakened throat. Apparently, vampires have a rule against killing each other, so the vampire police come and kill the little girl.

This leaves Louis de Pointe du Lac without friend or direction. But not for long. Turns out, they didn't kill Lestat de Lioncourt enough and he makes a grand return. Because the vampire police killed a fellow vampire for a crime she didn't commit enough, they all have to kill themselves. Our two lovable vampires live happily together until Lestat de Lioncourt runs off with his new love, Fabio de Bonerfillah. That's pretty much it. The end.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have made this movie. In forcing the audience to share my pain, was I really behaving any differently than Louis de Pointe du Lac? It did teach me a valuable lesson, though: do NOT try to boss around Tom Cruise. He is a bird that must be allowed to fly. If only the makers of Speed 2 had gotten my memo...

(three stars)

]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1521/Sam-Strange-RemembersINTERVIEW-WITH-THE-VAMPIRE.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...BELOVED]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1507/Sam-Strange-RemembersBELOVED.html
Beloved is not your run of the mill exploration of why slavery was bad. No sir. This one has a ghost, played with side-splitting goofyness by our future first lady, Condoleezza Rice. Drooling, talking like a dropped baby, random screaming, it's all there. This is a tough movie, and Beloved's character had to be hilarious if I expected people to actually sit through it. Thankfully, this is the funniest cinematic ghost since I made Ghost Dad. She's like a slow motion Hunter S. Thompson.

The rest of the story's not as hilarious. Oprah plays a woman named Seth who escapes from Slavery with her four children. When Slavery comes looking for her, she decides she'd rather see her little ones dead by her hand than someone else's. She manages to kill one baby before someone stops her. Slavery is so disgusted by this act that he decides to go be Slavery in some other country where people aren't such crazy-heads. The baby is not as forgiving however, and she haunts Seth's family from that moment on.  Everyone else treats Seth like shit for killing one of her own children, but I say she bought three lives for the price of one. You don't have to be Sam Walton to recognize that as a hell of a deal.

For eighteen years, the ghost carries on with regular poltergeist behavior: rattling the cupboards, moaning, and occasionally knocking eyeballs out of the dog's head. But none of that works anymore once Paul D. shows up. Paul D. was a slave with Seth, so he's thinking he can add a miserable shared future to their miserable shared past. The baby ghost throws a table at him, but Paul D. is related to Chuck D. so he has what it takes to throw it right back (a nation of millions). This scares the ghost, who runs away long enough to become a half-cooked human made primarily out of ladybugs, butterflies, and swampmud.

Two of Seth's three remaining children have already run away from her murderous love before the film begins. That leaves only Paul D, Seth, and her daughter Denver to deal with this ghost baby in a grown up body. When I wrote the book, I specifically made Denver fat and ugly. But this is a film, so she's played by a hot girl willing to get naked at her audition.

There's stuff going on in this movie that even I don't understand. It became clear early on that I was making a picture that would appeal to feminists, a group I know nothing about. I had to guess at what they like to see in films. When Beloved first appears and Seth suddenly has to pee for five minutes? Shot in the dark. When Beloved gets Paul D. out of the picture by raping him? That was a guess, too. Both my barista and librarian called me deep and insightful, so I must have nailed it.

Now that Seth has Beloved back, she works hard to earn forgiveness for the whole throat cut with a hacksaw thing. At first, all Beloved wants is sweets, but her demands grow more complex as she ages. Before long, she's bugging Seth for a Nintendo Wii, which only white people were allowed to have back in those days. Denver sees these impossible demands placed on her mother and decides that, while it was nice to have her sister back, her sister is kind of an asshole, and it's time for her to get back to ghostville.

Phones haven't been invented yet, so she can't call The Ghostbusters. Instead, she has to form a Southern Gospel Choir to come sing Beloved out of the house (as an Easter Egg, we put a Forrest Gump look-a-like in the back row of the choir). Amazingly enough, this works and Beloved is gone forever. Paul D. returns with his best friend Riggs. Whoopi Golberg shows up, too, but acts very shy around Paul D. Seth marries Paul, Denver marries Riggs, and down in Hell Beloved marries Casper the Friendly Ghost.

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1507/Sam-Strange-RemembersBELOVED.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...URBAN COWBOY]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1500/Sam-Strange-RemembersURBAN-COWBOY.html
Bud is a young cowboy wannabe who moves from Dodge City, Kansas to the big city of Los Angles, Missouri. At first he is alienated by the bright lights and men wearing earrings only in their right ear, but his Uncle Buck shelters him from the modern storm by giving him a job shoveling pig shit at a horse-food factory. And for their nightly dose of hard drinkin, lovin, and fightin, he introduces Bud to Gilley's, the cities only no gay no black no vermouth bar.

At this bar, Bud meets his dreamgirl, Sissy. Their passion for each other is so severe that she is impregnated by his hillbilly gaze alone. A Bud Light vending machine marries them, and the two are overly excited to move into a used trailer and work out their plans for more family (one kid every 20 months until she grows a mustache). That night she asks him to do it in the butt, but he won't cause he says that's gay, and she falls even more in love with him cause he passed the "make sure your cowboy isn't gay" test her mother taught her. By accident, they do it in the butt anyway, which pushes a twin into her already pregnant belly.

Unfortunately, strife enters their union the next day when Gilley's installs a mechanical bull (made in Korea). Sissy wants to ride it, but Bud forbids this because watching his wife do something so manly confuses his boner. Additionally, he forbids her to vote or enjoy sex. (I think we all know how Bud feels about cunnilingus: he thinks it's a disease you get from being too cunning.)

This doesn't go over with the urban half of Sissy's urban cowgirl DNA. They get in a fight, and leave in the arms of substitute lovers. Sissy's with the ex-convict mechanical bull operator. She wants to make Bud jealous by being with the man most likely to punch her. Bud leaves with a city socialite posing as an urban cowgirl (this makes her a FAKE fake). She's at the bar because she wants to make her father jealous by being with the man most likely to rape her.

These new lovers don't work out. Bud and Sissy long to reunite but it's difficult because Sissy's fella leaves her handcuffed to the refrigerator 20 hours a day, while Bud's girl is really fucking hot.

What solves this problem is the exact same thing that created it: the mechanical bull. Gilley's has organized a tournament to see who can ride the dumb thing longest. Bud signs up, of course, but so does Sissy's new fella. By the way, this guy is played by Scott Glenn at his absolute ropiest. If Scott Glenn and I were on a plane that crashed in the alps, I'd definitely eat him last and even then only if I had some A1 sauce and dental floss.

Anyway, the tourney comes down to Bud and Scott Glenn. According to redneck law the winner can kill the other guy, so Sissy is especially interested in the outcome. To make things more tense, Bud is competing with a pig shit related injury to his back. To make things even more tense than that: no one mentions how gay it is that the bull they're riding isn't real.

Scott Glenn wins. Instead of killing Bud, he chooses to have him banned from Gilley's for life. Furthermore, Bud's injury strongly hampers his pig shit shoveling ability, and he's fired from his job. Exposed to the modern world, Bud must change his name to Tad, and start watching Absolutely Fabulous. Finally coming to terms with his emerging gayness, he buys a jumpsuit and enters a new bar: Beegee's.

Sissy doesn't make it. After Scott Glenn overdoses on tequila worms, she moves in with her mother, Aurora, and soon after dies of voice cancer.

(three stars)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1500/Sam-Strange-RemembersURBAN-COWBOY.html <![CDATA[Sam Strange Remembers...HOME ALONE]]> http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1480/Sam-Strange-RemembersHOME-ALONE.html
Kevin McBanister (played by breakout star, McCracky Crackin) is the middle child in a family big enough and modestly rich enough to rent and fill their own commercial airplane for a trip to France (where some chicks don't shave their pits). Some of his family members are more memorable than others. For instance, there's Buzz, played by a grown-up Randy from Pee-Wee's playhouse. Then there's Kevin's older sister, Bitch Who Thinks She Knows French. There's the kid who wets the bed; I think his name was Pepsi. And finally there's his Uncle Jerk, who considers Kevin his protege. Whenever Kevin does something Uncle Jerk is proud of, he praises him, "Look what you did, you little Jerk," and a tear rolls down his hound-dog cheek.

Kevin's an entitled little brat who acts like a victim, so the family locks him in the attic and "forgets" him the next morning as they hustle their way to France. He wakes up to find his mansion is completely empty of assholes. This is a new concept for him. For the first time in his life, he can take a dump without running the faucet to mask the noise.

For the next few days, Kevin does everything healthy pre-pubescent male audience members only wish they could do. He looks at Playboys, he watches R-Rated movies (from the 1930's), he eats a plate of ice cream so big that the first scoop has melted by the time he slaps on the last scoop, he shoots firecrackers, he shoots BB guns, he shoots a cat with a BB gun then blows it up with a firecracker, and he seduces his hottest teacher.

This could go on for hours and it would already be the best movie ever made. But my name is Sam Strange, and I don't fuck around when it comes to adolescent fantasies.

See, after having his fun two things happen. One, Christmas draws near and Kevin realizes that no family means no presents, so he starts to miss his mommy. Two, a pair of robbers think his house is empty and plan to rob it. If Kevin can grow a pair and deal with #2, he'll be too cool to give a fuck about #1.

The robbers are named Tweedledum and TweedleonlygoodinMartinScorsesefilms. When they find out the house they lust for is one smart ass ten-year old shy of being empty, they decide to go ahead with the robbery anyway because hair in funny places = power.

Kevin knows they are coming. He puts to work an impressive understanding of physics, carpentry, and pain as he booby traps every inch of his house. If Tweedledum and TweedleLethalWeaponIV want the McBanister's 27 VCR's, they're going to have to pay for them with blood. There are flying paint cans, blowtorches, floors covered in micromachines, broken Christmas ornaments, hot irons, and spiders.

The night of the showdown arrives. To steel his nerves, Kevin goes to church and takes spiritual advice from cinema's most heroin addicted Santa. Then he heads back home and prepares for the blood bath to begin.

Sadly, the first thing he booby trapped was the door. If anyone tries the handle a shotgun blows their head off. This is the first thing the robbers try. Instead of going through a kid vs. adult house of horrors, they buy it without feeling much pain at all. Disappointed, Kevin slaps his hands to his cheeks and screams. This sets off his sonar-based weaponry and twenty rigged slingshots fire ball bearings into Kevin's skull.

Moments later, his worried mother finally comes back home accompanied by John Candy. She sees the carnage and the scare it gives her sets off Kevin's brigade of fear homing spiders. Mr. and Mrs. Candy are dead before they even hit the ground.

The next day two cops show up. They trip over a wire which causes two bowling balls to swing from the ceiling and smash their heads together.

Ronald McDonald shows up. He heads to the kitchen for a Pepsi, but Kevin had the microwave set to run with its door open. This kills poor Ronald both instantly and slowly.

Only one person is capable of surviving this house, Santa. But because everyone who belongs to that house is either dead or in France, he skips it entirely.

Authorities try to blow up the house, but Kevin's Lego S.W.A.T. team diffuse all the bombs. They try to kill it with missiles, but his defense system shoots them out of the sky before they can strike.

Out of options, they simply build walls around the house and tell local children to stay away because Santa's evil twin lives there and he'll eat your soul. This works.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

(three stockings)
]]> no@spam.com (Sam Strange) Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST http://chud.com/articles/blogs/1480/Sam-Strange-RemembersHOME-ALONE.html