Whenever I lecture at college campuses (the best way for a man my age to get scratch & strange), film students all ask me the same thing: how do you make a good movie? I always give them the same answer because it is simply the best non-lying answer I know. To make a good film you only need two little things…Kurt and Russel.
I’ve worked with Kurt many times and never regretted it. He doesn’t necessarily give you upfront box office, but the question wasn’t about successful films, just good ones. And like me, Kurt has never made a bad film in his life. Overboard is a great example of how the two of us can elevate something horribly offensive to something fun and rewatchable two million times on TBS.
So there’s this rich lady enjoying life on a yacht with her rich husband. The both of them are snotty bastards who constantly slave-drive their employees and refuse to treat anyone with respect. It’s kind of like Green Acres if both characters were Eva Gabor. In other words, the hottest fucking Yacht in the world.
Anyway, the movie is mostly about the lady, who is played by Kurt Russel’s real wife at the time, Goldie Hawn (this was before he married Kate Hudson). We had to make her the biggest bitch anyone’s ever seen so people wouldn’t hate us for what we put her through later. She is especially mean to her butler, played by Cornelius Chimp. Not only does she endlessly boss him around, but she also flicks his ears, makes him spit chewed food into her mouth, and mixes his AIDS medication with tic-tacs. “What a cunt!” the audience says. “I hope she gets what’s coming to her!” I wouldn’t worry about that…
One night, while hanging over the yacht’s railing in an attempt to make her butt smell more like salt water, a smarter than average piece of the ship pushes her OVERBOARD. She flails in the water and screams for help but everyone, even her husband, ignores her. You hear that Oprah? Your day’s a’comin!
She thinks she’s going to die, but she has no idea. A totally awesome Kurt Russel happens to find her unconscious body washed up on the shore. When he wakes her up, he’s giddy as hell to find that she’s got no memory of her previous life. Since his momma didn’t raise no dummies, he instantly tells her that she’s his wife and the mother of his four wise-ass kids. (One of the kids was supposed to be played by Pee-Wee Herman, but he was a real dick about it, so instead we hired a kid that does the worst imitation of him ever. Don’t fuck with Sam Strange.) She doesn’t think all this sounds right, but he shuts up her arguing with a good Kentucky tooth-slap.
They go home, a shack with no running water, no electricity, and no floors. Kurt calls everyone ahead of time to let them in on the rouse, so when they show up the kids all know to call her mommy and demand breast milk. None of it’s really adding up for her, but she figures he knows better and goes along with it.
By the next day, she’s cooking all the meals, cleaning all the shit up, and raising all the boys to be sexual predators. Kurt just sits on the couch reading Playboy and asking her when she’s gonna start paying the bills, too. Little flashes of her past burst forward, but Kurt smacks them back into place.
Meanwhile on the Yacht, the lady’s husband is dancing like a happy idiot because his bossy, frigid wife is long gone. I guess one man’s gain is another man’s gain. The yacht then crashes into an island filled with lonely, big-breasted women, who, instead of speaking, have an entirely touch sensory-based system of communication. Half of them are Nuns, half of them are MILFs and half of them just turned eighteen yesterday. This is a movie about every male fantasy imaginable.
Back at the farm, Goldie Hawn’s character is really getting the hang of her new Thug Life: Mississippi. By mixing in a little of her old bitchiness, she’s displays authority over the kids and cuts them from breast milk for life. She is also starting to get wise to Kurt’s less than complete retelling of her history. For one thing, he tells her she used to be fat and she doesn’t think that’s possible because she’s a real lady and real ladies don’t get fat. She also has trouble picturing four red-headed assholes coming out of her fine-ass body, which displays no stretch marks, saggy boobs, or torn vaj.
But as her suspicions grow, so does her love. One night, while the kids are all at crime camp, he improvises some goofy poem to her and she responds by making sweet, hillbilly love to him. This represents the amazing lengths non-violent rapists had to endure before God invented Roofies. But what’s a rape? She seems happy to me, am I right? You know, some wonderful, life-long relationships have made in prisons thanks to a “forced” wiener in the beaner. True love works in mysterious ways, people. Amnesia-rape is just one of them.
The next day, the family decides their time of constantly taking and never giving anything back has to end. So they put their money together and buy her a washing machine. She falls on her knees in ecstasy. “I’m so happy! This isn’t offensive at all!”
Kurt asks her if there is anything else she’d like. “There is,” she says. “A girl.” Kurt smiles, finishes his beer, throws the bottle against the wall, wet-burps, and pulls down his overalls. “Make yourself scarce, kids.” When they’re finally alone, he convinces her that the chances of conceiving a girl are greatly improved if they do it in the butt.
In the end everything works out. She never regains her old memories, but they sucked anyway. The years go by, the kids get older, and the lovin’ only improves. On his deathbed Kurt finally tells her the whole truth. She kisses him on the forehead and thanks him. Sadly, you couldn’t make a movie like this today unless you are willing to give up your screenplay credit and call it The Taming of the Shrew.