Review: Extract (2009)

Dear Michael Rotenberg,

Every time I go to conventions, nerds won't leave me alone about Office Space. That horrible experience earns me more praise than Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill combined, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Usually, it's the broad caricatures that win people over in mass droves, not the accurate, tight-knit commentary on paper-pushers. This, and a weird reverse-marketing phenomenon caused by 20th Century Fox's burial of Idiocracy leads me to believe that my name alone has enough Cult Pull to make a third comedy on a modest budget. I was thinking about something a little quieter, a little easier to do; I want to make an ensemble piece, what would be like Altman's Short Cuts, but funnier or whatever.

I have some scripts for short films, left over from when I went to college. To summarize, they are:

1) A story about a guy who loses his balls in a freak factory accident.
2) A guy who pays somebody to seduce his wife so he can cheat on her guilt-free.
3) A couple lives next to a neighbor who won't leave them alone, and when they finally snap on him, the neighbor dies of a heart attack (this will be funnier when you read the script).
4) A guy tries to get out of smoking weed with his friends because he gets paranoid, but he ends up smoking some anyway. Then he gets punched in the face (this will be funnier when you read the script).
5) A hot girl cons people out of stuff because she's hot.
6) Gene Simmons is a lawyer.

Blending these together in the right way can create a life-is-hell, people-are-dumb theme that has worked so well for me in the past, and the ensemble nature means we don't have to rush anything.

Let me know what you think.

-Mike Judge

YO MIKE:

That ensemble thing sounds stupid, and nobody likes those. All the rest sounds great tho! I dont know how you can get all of these elements to work in ONE STORY about ONE GUY, but you can pull it off i'm sure without making it seem like a total clusterfuck of stupid ideas! We can cast the Arrested Development guy to really reel in those Cult suckers, even if you cant make it work Fuck em they'll see anything.

Love Michael Rotenberg

P.S. last night's episode of the Goode Family was great!

4.8/10