Film Streams

Gunkville Journal
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New Releases

Wrigley Dung Under
"Will Kill for Carbon Credits"

[USA-Australia, 2011. Released to a couple of theaters starting August 26, 2011]
Featuring songs by Modest Mouse.
LIVELY rating: USA-GOL, SBJ-L, GVBC-1

Max Wrigley isn't getting any younger. Professional playboy, busboy, part-time underwater mortgage demolition expert, and a distant relation to the inedible-latex mastication empire of the same name, Max longs to make a new name for himself.

Max's Call of the Wild

One day he has a Tiffany - specifically from Tiffany Tek Private Carbon Dating Services. In a tender moment filled with personal academic details, Max's assigned wood-dating analyst, Melanie, explains her home work assignment on climate change in Australia. It is then that Max realizes that "Killing Things Can Help Save the Planet."

It seems that Australia has problems with millions of wild camels eating a lot of stuff that should remained attached to the ground, and they consequently belch huge quantities of methane - enough to make Aussies fear to light their barbies.

Off to "where beer flows and men chunder"

Carbon credit calculator in hand, and convinced this is his big opportunity, Max liquidates his assets, hires a crew of ex-Blackwater operatives, a film crew to document his expected triumph and his assemblage embarks upon its tramp-steamer escapade to Australia.

Shot in what might be called "camel noir," the dromedaries are filmed mostly at night with lighting beneath their floppy lips apparently to make them appear more menacing when coupled with an exaggerated audio level as they chewed their cud. But let's face it, nothing with a rubbery face and big buck-teeth is going to be all that scary, even if it's chewing at night and belching fiery balls of methane (assisted by a off-screen crew member with a butane lighter).

Day-time filming was cinéma énervante style with the camera pointed at one location for long periods of time, e.g., a sweltering road, accompanied by wearing dialog: “There's one crossing now.” - “Well, shoot it.” - “I feel drained by all this excitement. It's gone now anyway.” “Go after it in a truck then.” - “Why don't we wait until it's cooler.”

Apparently no camels were actually killed by weapons in the making of this movie, but the incessant night-time gunfire from the ex-Blackwater crew damaged vehicles, wounded several caterers, and the tracer ammo they used started wild fires that eventually obscured the outdoor filming, which had to be cut short.

The film then switches to a montage of indoor scenes involving Max's efforts to conduct taste tests with "Cud Burgers" (with/without a bun), set up camel rendering plants, pay damages caused by the crew at various "Gents" clubs, deal with pro-camel protestors carrying "Go Hump Yourself" signs, and handle government permit issues.

Max finally breaks down, gets drunk, and rides off one night in a Nissan Leaf, which promptly runs out the battery. Several days later he's found near a small spring, apparently beaten up by a pair of lingering Rock-wallabies and a joey. When one of their pouches is emptied, rescuers find brass knuckles, a Papua New Guinea Vacation Getaways DVD, and a letter Max started to write to Melanie back home urging her to forget him after she graduates - although it's not clear by her earlier attire what kind of school she was actually attending, and whether she remembered him long enough to forget.

Back to America

Semi-restored to health, overwhelmed by the growing opposition of the Australian public, operational control issues, heavily in debt, and with no certain way to exchange his anticipated carbon credits for something he really wants, such as a non-inflatable girlfriend, a new Hummmer, or Transformers (the big ones), Max abandons the scorching Outback and returns to America semi-wizened and half-baked.

Now looking much older despite an in-flight, half-face treatment of Botox, Max revisits Tiffany Tek and finds that her operation has expanded to include a lucrative reparative therapy clinic to deal with climate change.

“Climate change issues are like sexual orientation issues. It's all in your head. It's like a bad dream. And you don't embrace your bad dreams. You deny you ever had them. Nobody wants to hear about your bad dreams Max. That way nobody gets upset and you can join social organizations, like the Tea Party Patriots, that have the potential to expose you to some 'real' money, not 'dung change' like you said you were going to make and didn't. It's your choice to make Max: dead wood or sap-ling.”

Max was sufficiently chastened (another Tiffany Tek service) and decides to reform his prior reformation by joining the conservative Restrained Focus Initiative. ("If you've seen the whole forest, you were probably trespassing.")

And what about Melanie? “The little gutter snipe,” said Tiffany. “She's now at Al Gore's network, Current TV, working for the 'Worst Person in the World'.”