Ding-Dang Diddly

So, going through my notebooks, I see that on February 6, 2006, I came up with the following titles:

GUITARHEAD
THE VIEW FROM YOUR MOTHER
STUPID FOR SALE
THE DEVIL'S TREEHOUSE
THE DIRTY SCREAM
THE BAMBOO RIFLE

What was I thinking? I have no clue. When I get into the "zone" and start writing down this kind of stuff, I rarely have an idea regarding its ultimate worth, purpose, or possibility of practical application.

Guitarhead

What can you do with a title like Guitarhead? A movie called Guitarhead, it seems to me, would have to be one of two things: either a Jon Mikl Thor-style "horror-rock" turkey about a serial superkiller like Jason Voorhees with an actual guitar for a head, or a School of Rock-type comedy about a would-be or failed guitar hero who gets a chance to become the next Stevie Ray Vaughan or Kirk Hammett or Slash when he finds himself unexpectedly competing in one of those bullshit talent competitions that only exist in movies like School of Rock or Guitarhead.

The View from Your Mother

If your significant other asked you, "Wanna see The View from Your Mother tonight?" - what would you say? Well, if your dear mother'd died recently, and your significant other knew it, you might say, "You insensitive jerk/bitch!" Or you might say, with a mild measure of bewilderment, "Huh?" and then say something like, "You insensitive jerk/bitch!" Or, if you weren't that cut up about your mother's death or didn't really like her when she was alive so her death made no impression on you, you might answer your S.O.'s query thus: "I don't feel like driving out to the cemetery right now. Can we do it some other time?"

At which point, your S.O. would explain that, no, you silly, it's this movie called The View from Your Mother I got at 7-11 this afternoon, at the Redbox kiosk. "Oh," you'd say, and then go on to observe that it's a worrisome development, in your opinion, that America's now renting its movies at places like 7-11 and Albertson's: those veritable bastions of Cinema. "Then again," you'd quickly add, "it's not like they're renting Kagemusha or Touch of Evil or The English Patient out of these shitboxes, so I guess no harm, no foul." You think to yourself: yes, indubitably, what better outlet for prodigiously shitty movies like Death Race (2008, 98 mins.) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009, 92 mins.) and The Bounty Hunter (2010, 110 mins.) than a vending machine outside a convenience store? "You elitist jerk," your S.O. would say, and: "I'm sorry my taste in movies doesn't meet your high standards, boo hoo hoo." (She wouldn't actually say "boo hoo hoo," btw; she'd actually start crying, like boo hoo hoo, see?)

At which point it'd occur to you that it's unlikely something with a title as pretentious as The View from Your Mother would be available at a Redbox kiosk, unless it's an Andy Samberg movie that's basically a less-intelligent update of Ed and His Dead Mother with some of the actors from The Office and maybe Crispin Glover in supporting roles - not that you have anything against Andy Samberg (you think he's awesome); it's just that nothing he's done in movies has lived up to the brilliance of his SNL shorts so far (for example...).

Stupid For Sale

Stupid For Sale sounds exactly like the kind of movie you'd expect to be able to rent out of a Redbox kiosk, doesn't it? I mean, you wouldn't really expect a movie with a title like Stupid For Sale to share space on a "100 Greatest" list with Citizen Kane, 8½ and Apocalypse Now, would you? No, you wouldn't, 'cause I know you're not that retarded (and neither am I). But let's say Hollywood called and wanted you to write something with Stupid For Sale as the title - or what if you overheard some obnoxious teenagers at the mall telling each other how awesome Stupid For Sale is? What would you think the movie itself is about?

Well, if obnoxious mall-dwelling teenagers are singing its praises, Stupid For Sale is probably a mindless summer comedy starring Andy Samberg (sorry, Andy) or Johnny Knoxville (with maybe David Koechner in a supporting role as a bigot or boss-from-hell [or both]) about a slacky twentysomething who has a yard sale and unexpectedly winds up making a fortune selling a bunch of stupid shit like a solar-powered egg-slicer, an electric butter knife, an automatic diaper-changer, a car-charger for vibrators, etc., and then Corporate America comes calling, offering him the top slot in a nationwide chain of "stupid shit yard sales"; meanwhile, he'd gain, lose & regain a love interest, help his alcoholic father get over his long-absent wife, and show his uptight neighbor the joys of "cutting loose" and having a "good time." Or something like that.

Yes, definitely expect to see Stupid For Sale at a Redbox kiosk if such a thing ever gets made.

The Devil's Treehouse

Now let's say you were standing in front of a Redbox kiosk outside a 7-11 (where you'd just bought some Twizzlers, a Dr. Pepper, and a pack of Marlboro Lights) and you saw the cover for The Devil's Treehouse: what the hell is this? you might ask yourself. You'd go to Rotten Tomatoes on your iPhone (or your slow-ass Blackberry) and might read this synopsis: The Monster Squad meets Rosemary's Baby. Why not? A group of kids form a "monster club" and hang out in their treehouse reading Fangoria all day, bitching about all the cool-ass scary movies their parents won't let 'em see 'cause of the gore, profanity & sex. They'd say shit like "Bogus!" and "That sucks, man!" a lot. And then one day, a young couple'd move into the old Dunwich house down the street, and right away our plucky protagonists'd suspect that something was up, that no one that young, hip & urbane would move into a creepy old place like the Dunwich house. So they'd sneak in one night and discover that the couple are actually Satanists, and that the wife's carrying Satan's baby, and that they need the blood of a child as a sacrifice to the Devil because of some birdbrained ritual they have to perform as soon as the baby is born or whatever. Naturally, our monster club heroes'd spring into action, which'd involve them having to give the young Satanist mother-to-be an abortion - fun for the whole family! This totally sounds like it's right up Pixar's alley...

The Dirty Scream

What can you do with a title like The Dirty Scream? The first thing that comes to my mind in trying to tackle this bitch is the following question: is there such a thing as a clean scream? If so, what does it sound like? 'Cause if you can get a handle on what a "clean scream" is, it should then be easy to imagine its opposite, i.e. a dirty scream. But that's too much work, don't you think? Better to go with your first instinct, which is sexploitation (right?). Now, you'd still have to come up with some kind of story, what they call a "threadbare plot," so how about this: borderline-pyscho cop Harry Trask falls for a crack-addicted prostitute named Rain Fremont - she falls for him, too, but can't escape the Herculean grip of her crack addiction, which makes being together a tad difficult. So Harry quits his job and whisks Rain to an isolated cabin in the Pacific Northwest, ties her to a bed, and then watches over her as she proceeds to go ape-shit out of her mind due to mind-bendingly severe withdrawal symptoms ("I know it's tough, baby, I know!" says Harry. "But you can make it, I know you can! I love you!"). As Rain lies there screaming her head off, shitting, pissing & puking all over herself, her pimp, T-Bird Shaka, and his goons somehow manage to track her ass down - they find the cabin and lay siege to it when Harry refuses to let Rain go (here's where it'd get all Straw Dogs [or Home Alone, depending on your sensibilities]). For the finale, I'd probably have a Dead Alive-type climax, with Harry hacking all the bad guys into a hundred bloody pieces, which'd drive him all-out bonkers and leave him a stark raving lunatic. Final image: Rain, tied to the bed, and Harry, drenched in blood & gore, screaming at each other as if embroiled in a competitively-oriented session of Janov's primal therapy (but without the "results"). Okay, so not a lot of sexploitation there, I know; it kinda got away from me as I was working it out, and I'm not really into titillation anyway (I'm an extremist in that regard: porn or nothing; I'll sit through erotica only if I'm trying to get my significant other aroused ['cause I'm a man, baby]).

The Bamboo Rifle

The Bamboo Rifle: easy: the lone American survivor of a Japanese attack on some Pacific island during WWII finds himself trapped in the steaming, stinking jungle. Monkeys pelt him with their feces constantly. The only weapon he has is his Bowie knife (were Bowie knives standard issue for servicemen in the Pacific theater?), which he uses to make a rifle out of bamboo and fight the Japanese Rambo-style until American reinforcements arrive. Totally believable. And patriotic, too. Of course, now that we're all more culturally sensitive & crap, it'd be a good idea to portray the Japanese as "determined" and "fierce," instead of "bloodthirsty kamikaze fuckheads" (thanks, Letters from Iwo Jima!). Also, I think it'd be cool if you had the monkeys help our hero towards the end, 'cause he'd always take the shit-peltings in a laid-back, good-natured way, so the monkeys'd feel bad for him later on when the Japanese are trying to waste him. "Gaargh!" the monkeys'd say, "Shit-Catcher need help! Shit-Catcher friend! Yellow-Man die! Raargh!" (Yes, yes, I know it's a PC faux pas to say "Yellow-Man" but that's how people talked back then - it's the 1940s, remember? Back off already...)

Well, that's it for now, friends - I'm going to Blockbuster...

copyright © 2010 by Diego Baz