Channel FUM

I propose a concept for a new 24-hour network.

FUM. The Fucked-Up Movies Channel.

By watching FUM, you agree to the terms and conditions of the network. In short:

All the movies aired on this channel are fucked up.
If you get fucked up by watching it, too fucking bad.

This freedom would be the catalyst for the resurgence of real underground video. In the daytime, you’d see Pretty Fucked-Up Movies like John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, which features Divine eating fresh dog shit off the sidewalk. That’s pretty fucked up, man!

You could show Waters’ other films even earlier, because none of them are as fucked-up as Pink Flamingos. There are many fucked-up moments, however, which would warrant their inclusion on FUM’s schedule.

After sundown, things get more fucked up. Trendy auteurs like Nicolas Winding Refn and Lars von Trier could get the spotlight, easily. Refn’s The Neon Demon gets seriously fucked-up a couple of hours in, with models bathing in blood and dry-humping corpses. One girl pukes up an eyeball and another girl eats it. It was seriously fucked up.

That’s Keanu Reeves holding that knife. He plays a seriously fucked up dude.

Lars von Trier’s filmography is a smorgasbord of totally fucked-up shit. In Antichrist, Charlotte Gainsbourg smashes Willem Dafoe’s nuts with a log. Early in the film, she has an orgasm during sex, as their infant son falls to his death from the window. Later, she castrates herself with garden shears. It’s totally fucked up.

A core concept of the film is that women are inherently evil, which is also really fucked-up.

This is around when FUM could air Harmony Korine’s Julien Donkey-Boy, which, although not one of my favorite Korine outings, offers quite the fucked-up bouquet. Ewen Bremner plays the schizophrenic Julien, who randomly murders a kid before the opening titles.* As his father, Werner Herzog drinks Robitussin out of a sneaker. Chloe Sevigny is Julian’s sister, pregnant possibly by him, who miscarries after going ice skating like a dumb-bunny. Even though this is completely fucked up, it happens right after the funniest scene in the film: Julien trying to sell his terrible homemade skates to an angry Hasidic boy.

French glitch group Oval’s “Shop In Store” provides the whirring score to the action, technically violating the rules of von Trier’s Dogme 95 movement, but if you look into how Korine circumvented the Dogme dogma, you’ll understand how it got certified. I think I like this movie more than I realized. It’s really fucked up, more so than Gummo. Which could also be aired on FUM.

* I actually can’t recall if Julien Donkey-Boy had opening titles. I haven’t seen it that many times because it hurts my eyes a bit- the focus is all fucked up.

It works to the movie’s advantage, in a fucked-up way.

Kids would never be permitted to watch FUM; nevertheless, the network would obey the unspoken rules of broadcast hours. Late at night, when the kids are fast asleep, things can get unbelievably fucked up.

Like Bumfights fucked up.

I’m pretty certain it would be illegal to broadcast any part of Bumfights– it’s illegal to sell, after all- but a man can dream. Odds are, you have no idea what’s on any Bumfights disc. Me? I have a working knowledge of them.

For instance, I can tell you that every Bumfights after the first would have to be substantially re-cut. Under intense legal pressure, the makers sold the franchise to two “entrepreneurs” (one was kicked off of the Dr. Phil show), who released 2 and 3. That’s why the music in the first one is spectacular, and the subsequent entries use a shitty Green Day rip-off called Happy Campers. That’s why the sequels are clotted with unrelated crap, like “The Wise Men”, the most pathetic grab at Jackass fame since Girls Behaving Badly.

If you see Bumfights, you are introduced to a hilarious, psychotic, unrepentant crackhead called Bling Bling. Almost all of Bumfights is filmed on camcorders, pre-9/11, which is what sets it apart from typical YouTube fare. So when Bling Bling gets fucked up, it’s filmed with skill and care, and it achieves an impressive, fucked-up artiness.

https://youtu.be/t7mJdUEZjSM

Bling Bling relished the accidental limelight. He got new teeth which he later lost. He got his cock pierced. He almost got a tattoo. At the end of his video, Bling-A-Long, he surrenders all royalties and profits for $5, so he can buy a hit of crack. It’s about the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever seen.

(Bling Bling’s song “Old Ragga” plays over the credits of my movie, which I was granted permission to include. Whatever the circumstances, I think his music is awesome.)

In the wee hours, FUM could show Indecline Vol. 1: It’s Worse Than You Think, the 2005 video from the crew behind the original Bumfights. It’s a barrage of clips, many violent, providing a sordid portrait of post-Bush American life. Billboards are cleverly and covertly vandalized, at dizzying heights. Homeless camps of tents stretch on for blocks. Mentally ill people scream in the street and smash animal feces into their foreheads. It’s as fucked up as it gets, almost no one knows about it, and the music and editing are fucking incredible.

https://youtu.be/ghH97mpneHQ

Ninth Cloud, Flaspar and Sixtoo are just a few of the great bands in that movie. Bumfights is also full of excellent drum & bass. FUM would be great for exposure, once people start craving fucked-up shit. And people always do.

How do I know? Because I haven’t even told you about the most fucked-up thing of all.

“The Bum Hunter”.

The Bum Hunter appears on the first two Bumfights videos, played by two different guys. The first happened to strongly resemble the late Steve Irwin. The second wasn’t as much of a ringer, but would venture into more fucked-up areas of Las Vegas to hunt.

In 2004, when I first saw these videos, I was revulsed by the Bum Hunter. My mind reeled at the inhumanity of it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I became angry. I refused to continue viewing the segments.

Then a fucked-up thing happened.

I went back to the scenes, trying to understand why it had such power over my emotions. Suddenly I began to crack up laughing. Then harder. I was dumbfounded. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen.

Never does the Bum Hunter express malice or anger; he acts just as Steve Irwin did with rare wildlife. Excited. Full of natural wonder. He’s even bum-bit at one point, and he raves about the incredible danger he just faced. You can get steamed about the people being tied up, whom you otherwise never knew existed, or you can laugh at the absolute fucked-upness of it all.