Robert Suggs (October 19, 1998)
Film Proposal #3542N
Contact: Agent Morty “Shifty” LaRue
Working Title: “Vampire Commandos 2: Wag the Tentacle”Comments: It’s golden, babe! Think Titanic 2! Think DiCaprio as the Prez! Oscar City! That Internet sensation, “Vampire Commandos,” started it all. After that hot little property came to light from some nowhere newsgroup, it was the e-mail flavor of the the month, Trixie! Net Nation couldn’t get enough of it! Too bad Carpenter, Schwarzenegger and Schwarzkopf beat us to the film rights, but yours truly has nailed sequel first refusal!! Order the VC2 jackets and baseball caps! We’re golden!Synopsis: The stability of the North Cosmos has been reestablished since Mighty Cthulhu has been put down (note: can we get Arnold back? He wasn’t wild about the green makeup and underwater filming, and the buzz is he’s committed to the $200 mil John Woo action remake of “A Christmas Carol.”). Everything’s hunky dorky until a philandering American president pitches some woo with an intern (think Demi--va va voom! She’ll peel for an extra $10 mil) in the Oval Office. Two reporters break the story (Redford and Hoffman! all too ready to reprise their solid gold Watergate flick! Leave everything to Shifty!) and the angry peasants with pitchforks are pounding at the White House doors. President Leo, in desperation, takes to the underground tunnels. (Great shots here--Taft’s skeleton falling from a slimy crevice a la Indiana Jones! Ingenious traps laid by Millard Fillmore! Think video game spin-offs! $$$$$$) Then the prez discovers a vast cavern filled with screaming Bull Moose party savages worshiping an effigy of Teddy Roosevelt, and an ancient book. The prez reads (raps? Think soundtrack album, kuh-ching!) certain incantations, and Mighty C rises again from the muck and computer- animated swill! That’s when the prez has to pick up the red phone and call the vampire commandos again (re-use catchy “who ya gonna call” theme from first flick. Memo: check the rights). Bill Murray and the other VCs mix it up with Mighty C’s minions again! The minions are picked off at a studio budget of $70 mil or so, and President Leo and the Big C end up duking it out on Air Force One! C plummets into the Pacific! Wide open for VC3! Nab the rights! Cue the Saturday morning Cthulhu toon for kids!
Director: Round up the usual suspects, but play one hunch. These Internet weirdos said they knew of a director with some experience in vampire/space visitor flicks--name of Ed Wood. Rings a bell. He must be doing indie flicks. I’m having my gal Bambi check it out.
Signed, Morty “Shifty” LaRue
oOo
rbadac (October 20, 1998)
Once again, here is proof that the irrepressible Shifty LaRue, of all the nefarious jackals working in the industry today, has the most indisputably firm grasp on the pulse of American popular culture...It is to be hoped that one day he may even shift his grip to the more conventional pulse points, such as the neck, wrist, or femoral artery. But it is nevertheless unarguable that he has our attention.
Edmund Wilson
ooOoo