Category Archives: Chronicles of Riddick

The Top One Hundred and Six Movies of the Oughts (106-91)

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Longtime readers will know that I’m a fiend for lists the way Sonny Crockett is a fiend for mojitos. Don’t believe me? Check out this blurry video:

My Best of 2009 movie list has been percolating for a while now, with only a few contenders for best or worst film to come before I shut things down at the end of December (oh yes, I won’t stop watching until I’m sure I have it right). Meanwhile, even though I’m uncomfortable with the idea of this decade being 1999-2009, I’ve been pondering my own best of the decade list. This should be something to be excited about, and yet until last week I just couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for it. When I search my soul I come to the uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion that it’s because any list I would come up with would both be horribly incomplete and would betray my populist taste. What makes me more uncomfortable than that is realising that such an admission makes me uncomfortable at all.

Any list I could make for this decade is already off to a bad start when I admit that I’ve yet to see many of the best reviewed and most beloved movies of recent times. The gaps in my viewing history include Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, Edward Yang’s Yi Yi, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return, and anything by Wong Kar Wai, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, or the Dardennes. I’ve also only seen a couple of (terrific) movies by Claire Denis and a single, memorable one by Michael Haneke. Some film buff I am. This short list is merely the tip of the iceberg. According to this list, I might as well not consider myself a film lover at all, as I’m not looking for movie excellence in the right places (though the entire list is invalidated by the praise for Woody Allen’s technically disastrous and intellectually vapid Cassandra’s Dream: surely one of the ten worst films of the decade).

All of that shame over my taste is wrapped up in feelings of mortification over class and intellectualism and authenticity and so many other things. I know that none of it is important but the expression of some kind of discernment in my opinion helps to legitimise my amateur film criticism, something I take very seriously even when I talk about things that readers might consider beneath contempt (my defence of Michael Bay, for instance, or my enthusiasm for The Dark Knight). Therefore it scares me to openly admit that I’m a sucker for a well-choreographed action scene with some pretty explosions included. No one wants to admit to enjoying those movies without losing their credibility, so why should I be the one to stick my neck out?

Maybe it’s time to get over those silly fears and say it loud: I’m a fan of populist cinema. Yes, I can appreciate works of cinematic art on many levels, though perhaps I might have greater difficulty expressing that appreciation or placing those works in context with works by other artists. However, when I talk about how much I love Joel Silver movies of the 80s and 90s, or Bruckheimer’s output in the late 90s to the current day, I’m on firmer ground. Perhaps this is why Shades of Caruso concentrates on those movies: it’s safer to talk about the joy I get from seeing a movie by the Wachowski Siblings than it is to attempt to unpick the works of Abbas Kiarostami. Any list I would make for the past decade would skew heavily towards populist movies, partially because most of the movies I’ve seen were major releases by Western writers and directors, but also because these are the movies that speak directly to me.

It was upon staring at that shame, and the shame I feel for having that shame, that I said bollocks to it and compiled this list. I hereby reject that shame, expel it from my soul, and embrace the movies that filled my soul with joy or heart-ache. The construction of this list is helped by the clear cut-off point in my past: 1999 was the year I moved out of my hometown for the second time and headed to London, where I found enough time and opportunity to attend more movies. As a result my enthusiasm increased, until I had no choice but to start a blog to use as a pressure valve for this energy. I’ve seen hundreds of movies in that time, and so I expect this list to be incomplete and filled with egregious misses, plus some movies have been missed off (Pan’s Labyrinth) or put low on the list (No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood) because I’ve only seen them once. I’ll need to revisit them with a clear head, free of hype, to do them justice.

One more caveat: I’ve not included films from this year. I know, this seems to make the whole process pointless, but I like to have at least a little gap between seeing a movie and putting it in a list this big. The End-Of-Year lists are made with the proviso that I understand how my opinion will change over time, and watching films right up until Dec 31st means I will be cramming in movies even though my opinion of them has yet to settle. Who knows whether time will be kind to these movies or not. I’ve certainly been surprised with how some movies I initially loved have dropped out of my favour, and others that I enjoyed well enough on first viewing are not breaking into the top fifty. For the record, at least three from my forthcoming 2009 list would definitely qualify for inclusion here, but I don’t want to add them now as the year has yet to finish, and I’m hoping two or three more will qualify. Perhaps when I’ve finished compiling my 2009 lists, I will write an addendum explaining where they would go in this list.

And so, here is the first part of my list of the best 106 movies of the period 1999-2008. Why 106? Because I just couldn’t leave the last six movies off without writing a little bit about them, as I enjoyed them greatly and felt they would never in a million years get any list love otherwise. As this post has already run on, I’ll only list the first 16 here, and the next 90 films will be revealed as the week progresses. Yes yes, there are simpler ways of doing this, but anyone who knows me will understand that when there is an easy way and a hard way to do anything, I will ignore both and then do something completely self-indulgent that makes a mockery of my original goal. Just play along. I’ve kept my explanations for why I love these movies as short as I can. I hope I’ve lauded a secret favourite of yours, dear reader, one that has been snubbed by every critic in the land.

Honorary Bad Movie Inclusion — The Room

It is quite simply the worst movie ever made, but its rewatch value, its quotability, and the fearless depiction of the dreadful inner life of its emotionally immature writer and director make it almost infinitely fascinating. Its inclusion here is no reflection of its quality, but of the hold it has over anyone who watches it. It’s a true curio.

106. Avalon

After leaving a screening of Avalon, my viewing companion commented that there is good boring and bad boring, and this was a perfect example of the former. Starkly beautiful and glacially paced, Mamoru Oshii’s ode to the power of gaming predicts a future where our desire to transcend our mundane world will drive us to abandon it.

105. Kung Fu Hustle

What made me love Stephen Chow’s madcap martial arts comedy wasn’t the expertly choreographed actions scenes, great though they were. Neither was it the broad humour, though I enjoyed that too. The best thing about it was how the wacky tone morphed into effective dramatic energy. At first you laugh at the caricatures, but by the final act you fear for their safety.

104. The Mothman Prophecies

Poorly marketed as a bog-standard X-Files-esque alien abduction flick, this dread-soaked thriller is more interested in dramatising our insignificance in the face of supernatural forces that move us around like game pieces. Strong performances and meticulous direction from Mark Pellington help to ground the potentially silly project.

103. Moulin Rouge

At his worst, Baz Luhrmann is a vulgar artiste who has zero impulse control, but when his approach works, it can wrench your heart open. This fearlessly sincere musical is the most successful example of the Luhrman effect. Though many have resisted its garish onslaught, my cynicism melted twenty minutes in and stayed that way.

102. The Rundown (aka Welcome To The Jungle)

What should have been the gateway drug to the paradise that is Loving The Rock instead faltered at the box office, but who cares? For its sheer exuberance and demented asides — not to mention a totally hatstand performance by Christopher Walken — this Midnight Sprint shall be remembered and adored.

101. Solaris

Though Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Stanislav Lem’s SF classic fails to capture the essence of that novel (as does the previous version by Andrei Tarkovsky), the result explores equally interesting philosophical questions. Clooney excels as a bereaved astronaut forced to confront living memories of his dead wife, a celestial manifestation distorted by his yearning and twisted perceptions of reality.

100. Mushishi

Katsuhiro Otomo’s live-action adaptation of Yuki Urushibara’s manga is a curious beast. Though overlong, the tale of Mushi master Ginko’s journey through a polluted and hostile pastoral land is a feast for the eyes. The gloomy atmospherics and cascade of ideas more than make up for any flaws.

99. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

Kevin Smith’s low-budget comedies often fail to fly thanks to their self-imposed parochial restrictions. His ambitious and controversial religious satire Dogma was an improvement upon those early movies but this self-lacerating road-movie was the one that really worked, and well enough to finally make me appreciate his scatological shtick.

98. I Heart Huckabees

It achieved an awful notoriety as the movie where director David O. Russell lost his mind on set and bollocked Lily Tomlin, but I Heart Huckabees was also a disorienting blend of philosophy and Dada-esque nonsense, often incomprehensible but almost always entertaining. However, unlike many chaotic cult movies (ahem, Richard Kelly), this actually made sense if you unfocused your brain while watching.

97. Shanghai Knights

Shanghai Noon was fun, and the pairing of Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson was more successful than the tiresome team-up of Chan and Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour movies. The London-set sequel was a massive improvement, mostly because helmer David Dobkin was the only US director who seemed willing to spend time with Chan to create fights almost as complex and funny as his classic Hong Kong work.

96. Michael Clayton

Clooney again in full force, this time as a corporate fixer who gets messed around once too often. What could have been a rote corporate thriller instead becomes a fascinating character study, one where terrible decisions are made in good faith, and good decisions happen for the wrong reasons. It also propelled Tilda Swinton into stardom: for this I am eternally grateful.

95. Mulholland Drive

Is it poor form to admit that upon first viewing I didn’t understand anything about David Lynch’s tinsel-town nightmare? All that I knew was that the final scene was almost unwatchably terrifying. Days later, the mood of dread still lingered. That residual horror — and Naomi Watts’ excellent star-making performance — is enough to justify inclusion on this list.

94. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Easy to forget how big an impact this movie had on first release. Even though the final installment of the trilogy ripped all of the fun from the franchise, the first is still a near-perfect swashbuckler. The first appearance of Captain Jack Sparrow is a contender for Best Entrance of the Decade.

93. The Prestige

Initially the blatantly obvious “twist” at the end of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation soured an experience that had been extremely pleasurable. Upon repeated viewings, it becomes apparent that the Transported Man trick is not the point of the movie. Instead, Nolan is more interested in painting a picture of a man driven to unthinkable acts because of his thirst for revenge. Compared to dreadful fallout of that psychological damage, magic is nothing.

92. The Chronicles of Riddick

Many choose to focus on the flaws and hubris of David Twohy’s Space-Conan-meets-Lord-of-the-Rings hybrid, but that occasionally inspired vision – and that amazing twist ending — are enough to justify the entire ambitious, galaxy-hopping project. Another film where the cult grows every year, with the prospect of a continuation of the saga now tantalisingly close.

91. eXistenZ

Arriving between the reality-warping brain food of Alex Proyas’ Dark City and The Wachowski’s Matrix, Cronenberg’s only self-scripted film of the decade was greeted with an initial burst of excitement and then seemed to be forgotten. A shame. It’s his most playful movie since Naked Lunch, skipping gleefully between levels of reality and throwing in traditionally unpleasant body horror with abandon.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Keep checking back to see more updates as the week progresses.

Paging Dame Judi Dench

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Is the Great Dame free at the moment? She needs to clear her schedule, as do Karl Urban and Thandie Newton, because they need to be ready to turn up for the next two installments of The Chronicles of Riddick, which Vin Diesel has announced are in the works right now.


Yes, we are as shocked as you are, Dame Dench. To many people (including at least one reader of this blog, and she knows who she is), this news is baffling, risible, proof of the delusions of Mr. Diesel. To others, me included, this is THE BEST NEWS EVER. Even better, judging from the enthusiastic responses on these pages, I now know I’m not alone. It’s astonishing to find out that The Chronicles of Riddick, which has been used as a punchline for so long, actually has a fanbase. I really thought no one liked it. It’s not like it set the world on fire, unlike what happens to the surface of prison planet Crematoria during daytime, if you know what I’m talking about.


Of course, Diesel is in the entertainment news a lot right now, as trailers for the fourth Fast And/Or Furious film has recently debuted, and his new movie Babylon A.D. is coming out on Friday. This is a cause for celebration for me, even though writer-director Matthieu Kassovitz is the man behind the appalling Gothika, a movie so utterly forgettable that all I can remember is that Halle Berry is in it as a ghost, or someone who sees ghosts, or as the girlfriend of a ghost, or as the lawyer/doctor of a ghost, or something ectoplasm-related. Whatever. It has ghosts in it. That much I know. Still, at least that shoot was where Robert Downey Jr. met his wife Susan, so something good came out of it (if you’ve seen RDJr’s Inside The Actors Studio you will know how adorable they both are). As for director Kassovitz, he has been aiming his stinkeye at the cretins at Fox, blaming them for ruining his film with Diesel backing him up. Commenting on the state of the movie following its butchering in the editing suite:

It’s pure violence and stupidity. The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters… instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24… I should have chosen a studio that has guts. Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I’m ready to go to war against them, but I can’t because they don’t give a shit.

Ouch.


Babylon A.D. has been publicised pretty poorly by Fox, so it has very little chance of doing well, something I had originally figured was related to lack of confidence in Diesel’s box office pull, before I read about the difficulties the crew had. It’s an easy mistake to make. Diesel is often treated like a muscular lunkhead, but in interviews he has always struck me as an interesting guy (code for “he’s a gamer, leave him alone“). That he draws ridicule so readily is one of the reasons, I suspect, filmgoers have been ready to point and laugh at The Chronicles of Riddick. If they don’t like it, fair enough, but it’s been laughed at in much the same way David Caruso’s post NYPD Blue film career was. “Look at where your hubris and arrogance took you, Diesel”, seems to be the cry. Screw that. It was a crazy-bold adventure filled with imagination and demented vision. I’d never argue that it was perfect, or a great film, but it was much better than many will give it credit, and it finishes on a perfect note. I’ve been eager to see the next installment ever since, and would have taken it in any format, be it comic, game, or animation. I can’t wait, and I know for a fact that Brian Michael Bendoom is happy about it too. Upon hearing about the potential sequels, he said:


And no one would dare argue with… BENDOOM! (For background on Brian Michael Bendis’ ill-treatment of the ultimate Marvel comics villain, check out these funny pages.)

A Stone Crashes Through The Oval Office Window

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Baffling though it is, rumours that Oliver Stone’s next movie would be about a drunk, obnoxious George W. Bush acting like a jerk in the Oval Office appears to be true. I’m really staggered by this. Not because the widespread dislike of the man has passed me by, but because this has been announced while he is still President. A couple of years ago left-wing pundits bemoaned the fact that Bush was getting a free ride from a pliant and craven media who were too chummy with the White House staff to effectively report their malfeasance, moral turpitude, cowardice, incompetence, and other crimes which are seemingly infinite in number.

Since then, Stephen Colbert roasted the President with a speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner that qualifies as one of the most astonishing displays of chutzpah of modern times, a watershed moment in the War on Unreason and Wilful Insanity that attracted opprobrium from the chastened media, but several awards, most notably a Spike TV Guy’s Choice Award for Gutsiest Move, a Shades Of Caruso Award for Best Thing To Have Ever Happened Ever, and best of all, the endorsement of none other than Morpheus! (It’s at 4:48 on the video linked to above.)


Not only did he get PWNed by the derision of a man who once held his own against Agent Johnson on top of a moving truck for a good few minutes (not easy), but Bush’s approval ratings sank to -1 googleplex% or something, which has freed many people from their inhibitions about roasting the man who once thought a mandate meant winning fifteen votes more than the other guy. It might have been more than fifteen. I’ll check later, though it sounds about right.

Even with this wave of unpopularity and increase in prez-razzing, Oliver Stone (his post-Alexander bankability partially restored thanks to the modest success of World Trade Center) has gone beyond any satire yet announced, and has seemingly been given permission by the cosmos to go all out on Dubya’s ass even though he’s still “in charge of the Free World”. A preview of what appears to be the first draft of W makes me wonder if it is meant to be serious or not. Could this be Stone’s attempt at a potentially successful political version of Meet The Spartans, complete with references to flight suit harnesses pulled too tight and pretzel-induced comas? Amazing.


Stone attracts a lot of flack, and I understand why, but I’ve remained fond of his work, even when it looks like the temper tantrum of a sentient Avid editing machine whose CPU has been filled with presidential biographies, tracks from The Soft Parade, and gallons of radioactive testosterone. JFK can be attacked for its theorising, but the way those theories were presented, in that incredible, enormous final speech by Kevin Costner, is a masterclass of editing. Nixon has a cluttered narrative and ugly visual style, but it’s fascinating and underrated despite that (and Anthony Hopkins gives what might be his best performance). I even enjoyed Any Given Sunday and Alexander, though that’s probably only because I’m bonkers-berserker-crazy about Al Pacino and historical epics, even when they’re a bit/a lot crap [Delete where applicable].


With a few reports of reviews blasting the script for a total absence of subtlety and featuring what sounds like slapstick scenes of Bush Behaving Badly that are so bizarre I have a really hard time believing they are really going to be filmed, the casting decisions announced so far are the only reliable barometer of what the movie will be like, and the choices are a mixture of inspired and baffling. Mom and Dad Bush are perfect (James Cromwell being the go-to old guy du jour), but Josh Brolin, though “hot” right now, doesn’t seem like a Bush type to me, unless the film really is going to tip over into spoofery. I like Elizabeth Banks, and look forward to her realising her potential, but even then I’m unsure.

As for the rest of the casting, Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair seems about right, though surely Michael Sheen has been contracted to play Blair into the foreseeable future. I doubt Gruffudd would be given a chance to create a performance as terrific as Sheen in The Queen (who was totally robbed at the Oscars that year). I don’t even know where to begin with Thandie Newton’s casting as Condoleezza Rice, though. Her patented bottomless African sadness seems worlds away from Rice’s steely demeanour and clinical, emotionless intellectualism. Plus, appearing in this will further delay the inevitable filming of Chronicles of Riddick II: Space Conan In Space.

But what about the other players in this comedy of bad manners? There’s been some speculation already, so here are my suggestions. First, Mr. Known/Unknown Knowns/Unknowns himself, Donald Rumsfeld, who could be played by Canyon’s all-time favourite actor, Jude “Mike Novick from 24” Ciccolella, though playing someone as cock-sure as Rummy means we won’t get to hear Jude’s catchphrase from 24, “My! God!”, used whenever anything happens. Seriously, anything. War, gas attacks, beer frothing out of a can, Sky+ box runs out of memory, etc.


If there was a flashback, young Rummy could be played by Chris Evans (not that I’d wish that on our hero Evans, but the likeness is remarkable). Note that Evans has his top off and is showing some flesh. You’re welcome, ladies (and some gents).


Vice-President Dick Cheney was a tough one, and after much consideration, I realised it had to be Andrew Stehlin in full 30 Days of Night vampire get-up.


I know that a choice like that seems kinda lazy on my part, and many people will be horribly offended that I compared Cheney to a heinous bloodsucking maniac who thinks humans are cattle to be exploited, but you have to understand I haven’t yet seen 30 Days of Night (my Hartnett allergy kicking in), and I’m only guessing that that vampire is anywhere near as evil as Cheney actually is. If I’ve sold Cheney short with the comparison, I apologise.

Compared with Dick, finding an actor to play former Secretary of State Colin Powell was easy. It could only be Terry Crews, especially if played in the style of his bravura performance as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho from Mike Judge’s magnificent Idiocracy.


Often credited as being the person who took George to one side and told him, “That smug thing you’re doing? Faster! More intense!”, Karl “Turd Blossom” Rove can only be truly captured using animation. A perfect design was featured in Miyazaki’s masterpiece Spirited Away: Boh the demanding baby, seen here about to have a terrible temper tantrum.


That said, there will be no transformation into an adorable mouse like at the end of the movie. Perhaps instead he can be turned into a Golgothan, like in Kevin Smith’s Dogma. It would at least match his nickname. I wish I knew George Bush well enough to get a nickname. I wonder what it would be. Twinkle-Tits? Dirt-Legs? Jam-Head? I have to admit, the guy has mad (as in eccentric) nickname skillz.

Chief of Staff Andrew Card, once voted Least Likely To Be Mistaken For Leo McGarry From The West Wing, exists, at least in my mind, to tell the President that everything is going just fine and the people love him and no, the mob outside the White House with burning torches and pitchforks are there to attack Bill Clinton and they haven’t yet realised he’s not around anymore. Who better to capture that optimism than the happy half of the Mayor from The Nightmare Before Christmas.


With the roles of his parents so well cast, it’s only fair I spend more time trying to cast Jenna and Barbara Bush than I have everyone else here. And, three minutes later, here’s my choice! Jessica and Ashlee Simpson!


I chose them because they are real sisters who are blonde and brunette, and not because there have been lascivious claims made about their private lives. That would be rude of me, and really, the Bush daughters deserve no heavy criticism. It’s not like they invaded Iraq to ensure worldwide oil production remained at a steady pace allowing oil producers to ramp up the price of petrol leading to many billionaires becoming super-mega-trillionaires or anything like that. They just like beer. Me too! Yay Bush daughters! (Please read the Greg Palast interview I just linked to. It will change the way you see everything.)

As I said above, the Ioan Gruffudd casting is potentially quite interesting, but Tony needs a perfect Cherie if we’re ever going to take him seriously. Who better than ubiquitous cover girl and smiling fan Jessica Alba, so that we can duplicate some of that supernova-hott sizzling chemistry from the universally adored and acclaimed Fantastic Four films.


Their smoking sexxy scenes together (such as the one from the first film where Reed gets distracted by an equation, and Sue nags at him about it, or the one from the second one, where Reed gets distracted by an equation, and Sue nags at him about it) was obviously the number one reason those films just about made a profit set fire to the international box office as if it had been blasted by a fireball from Johnny Rumsfeld-Storm’s hands!

Continuing the Marvel adaptation theme, former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton reminds me of Nick Nolte, whose gruff, unpredictable, and scenery-chewing performances are a perfect fit for someone who walked into UN HQ on his first day and started to eat the building from the inside out.


Let the Evil Soar! Using special technology like what they used with Oliver Reed in Gladiator, former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be played by Julian Beck from Poltergeist II: The Other Side, though again, there may be an evilness deficit at work. The magic of CGI effects can fill in the blanks there.


Some of these selections have stumped me terribly, but this one might have been the easiest casting choice since choosing Morgan Freeman to play God in the Almighty movies. Former press secretary Scott McLellan could only be played by a similarly reanimated Oliver Hardy.


Convicted/pardoned lawyer and assistant to the President I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby brings to mind clueless cultural pundit, mediocre novelist and dire kneejerk newspaper columnist Tony “former Mr. Julie Burchill” Parsons.


Of course, Libby could only go about doing his master’s bidding with the help of a member of that pliant, supine, mesmerised press corps, most notably Robert Novak, whose ghoulish ruthlessness, unearthly aura and total moral decay would be perfectly captured by Angus Scrimm, AKA The Tall Man from the Phantasm movies.


Speaking of malleable puppet-men and craven, misguided Bush-enablers, what about two Brits who reiterated the White House line about WMDs so enthusiastically that I’m surprised their mouths didn’t fly off their faces with the effort. Former Home and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw resembles food critic Anton Ego so strongly that I think Brad Bird had already made the connection…


…and former Defense Secretary Geoff “Buff” Hoon’s air of hyper-confident machismo and brawny ambition are a perfect fit for a reanimated Benny Hill:


The reports on Stanley Weiser’s script don’t reveal much, other than some peculiarly broad dialogue (“I’d like to stuff a plate of freedom fries down that slick piece of shit’s throat”? Really?), but there’s a good chance we will at least get to see Bush winning the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in 1999, so they will have to cast someone as rival John McCain, and who better than lovable old man Mickey Rooney. Everyone loves cuddly old Mickey Rooney! Perfect to play lovable cuddly funbucket McCain!


Of course, McCain was exposed to lethal doses of Gamma radiation several years ago (it was covered up), and his renowned McCain Smash! episodes mean there might have to be a CGI option kept back for any scenes featuring his response to his defeat.


Once those scenes are finished with, Weiser and Stone will inevitably move onto Bush’s next victim, Saviour of the World Al Gore, who is the living embodiment of Professor Frink.


But will the script show his re-election in 2004? If so, John Kerry is going to turn up, and after throwing out several lookalike candidates for the role, I realised that the half of the world that reacted so negatively to the peculiarly anti-narrative finale of No Country For Old Men desperately wants to see a rematch between Llewellyn Moss and Anton Chigurh, and so the coveted role of John Kerry can only go to Academy Award winner and Stone Fox Javier Bardem.


Now all we need is for the film to feature scenes of Bush gnawing on ribs and wiping his hands on various world flags, yelling “Fuck youse all! I’m presidentin’ up in this bitch” every five minutes, riding around the White House on a plastic car shaped like an enormous eagle, and offering to arm-rassle everyone he meets (and ordering Secret Service guys to shoot anyone who beats him), and I would pay lots and lots and lots of money to see it.