The Scream Bum

Depending on what you were looking for when you bought a ticket to see Scream 4 (based on the opening weekend numbers not many of you did) you either loved it or only liked it. It’s not a horrible movie, so I know you didn’t hate it, but it doesn’t even hold a candle to the original.

It’s been 15 years since the original, and 10 years since the last. I didn’t expect the franchise to try to be something it wasn’t and overplay its hand by falling into the gore porn business. However, I did expect something a little different due to the amount of time the producers and Kevin Williamson had to put this together. Scream 4 turned out to fall into the same exact formula the other three had. I’m going to remind you of that right now because I hate when writers give up spoilers, even if they put a big frickin’ spoiler alert right in front of it. You know you wind up reading it even if you don’t want to, and that’s just annoying.

What people need to remember is that the original Scream put scary movies back on the map. It was one of the most original fun movies of it’s time. So I say since there was nothing to lose. There should have been some sort of an effort to do what the first one did, break new ground There were some rumors that screenwriter Kevin Williamson was annoyed with Harvey and Bob Weinstein when they brought in the screenwriter from Scream 3 to “punch up” the script, but we may never know what Williamson’s original concept was. Maybe it had that new imaginative view I was yearning for.

All in all, the movie was fun. Courtney Arquette plays an awesome bitch with a heart, David Arquette is a great doofus with a badge, and it’s nice to see Neve Campbell with a decent job again. The rest of the cast and cameos were obviously there for a good time, and it all translates on screen.

Don’t go thinking you are going to watching a scary movie, that’s not what Scream is. “It’s a spoof, always has been”, as expressed on facebook by my friend, and screenwriter, Jason Dolan. I think most reviewers are getting too used to the talents of today’s directors that instill fear, they forgot about the icon that started it all, Wes Craven.

Scream tries to hit your funny bone throughout, maybe it hits the mark for some more then others, but it is getting panned from many outlets. I still say that certain laughter can be as invigorating and scary as any horrible act, and I bet Wes Craven will be the first to tell you that if you listen quietly you can still hear Freddy Krueger laughing all the way to the bank.

The Charlie Bum

How could I possibly have a blog about the things I watch on all screens and not bring up the guy that has been on a television and internet onslaught over the last couple of weeks? Charlie Sheen is capturing America’s interest, some might think his actions are despicable, and others are calling him their idol. Either way everybody is engulfed with the chaos that is Carlos Estevez.


The thing about Charlie is that even when he was younger he was always known as the bad boy. He has officially become the adult version of the character that Jennifer Grey met while she was at the police station in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (if you haven’t seen it then slap yourself right now).

I’ve always liked Charlie Sheen; he has been in some of my favorite movies of all time: Major League, Wall Street, Platoon, Hot Shots and a very under seen movie called Beyond the Law.

It seems as if everything that’s been going on have been things that Charlie has been doing for years. The drugs, the whores, the outlandish behavior are nothing new to him. He even shot Kelly Preston in the arm in 1990, and I would love to hear what John Travolta has to say about his wife’s ex.

A few years back Charlie tried to clean up his act and become a family man with the current It girl Denise Richards. It worked for a while, until Denise filed for divorce citing drug and alcohol abuse. Now Charlie is making Denise seem like the stable grounded one….Really!?!

Then it was Brooke Mueller’s turn to ride the Sheen train of mayhem, and she probably came to a point and realized that she couldn’t change him either. Once again, drugs, booze, and violence all attributed to the downfall of another attempt at normalcy.

So I say, is it a surprise that all this is happening? Hell no. Now the drugged out, boozed up, pussy hound has the one of the most dangerous combos in the world, unlimited cash, a nonchalant attitude, and a mid-life crisis. It’s as if Charlie did one fat line, something snapped in him, and a little troll in his self proclaimed warlock head said ‘It’s time for you to stop caring about what everyone else thinks’.
I dare you to find a news or talk show that doesn’t talk about Charlie Sheen. Plus, there is also his UStream.tv show Sheen's Korner that started a few days ago. Charlie has become a legend in his own mind, and a cunning linguist to boot.

Now that he is officially fired from Two and a Half Men what will become of the show? So far the names to replace him on the sitcom are John Stamos and Matt Dillon. No matter who the producers finally choose I see it drawing the same amount of viewers at first, but then it will probably drop like an anvil. That will ultimately lead to a big FU episode of Sheen’s Korner, and an even bigger declaration by Charlie that he is the “WINNER!”

So instead of talking about all of Charlie Sheen’s appearances I’ve decided to choose my top ten quotes (in no particular order) that the warlock himself has been bestowed upon us. Enjoy!

1.”Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh.”

2. “Here's the good news. If I realize that I'm insane, then I'm okay with it. I'm not dangerous insane.”

3. “I have to tell them that last night was a shameful train wreck filled with blind cuddly puppies.”

4. “I'm dealing with fools and trolls and soft targets. It's just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee. I don't have time for these clowns.”

5. “Slash sat me down at his house and said, You've got to clean up your act. You know you've gone too far when Slash is saying, Look, you've got to get into rehab.”

6. “The only thing I'm addicted to is winning. This bootleg cult, arrogantly referred to as Alcoholics Anonymous, reports a 5 percent success rate. My success rate is 100 percent. “

7. “What they're not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes.”

8. "I'm tired of pretending I'm not a total freaking rock star from Mars."

9. “I am on a drug, It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

10. "I have a 10,000-year-old brain and the boogers of a 7-year-old. That's how I describe myself."

The Hope Bum

It’s funny that there are so many more networks and television series that it's even harder to find a new show that breaks the mold. Then I found Raising Hope. Every episode is as surprising and funny as the last one. It is one of the best sitcoms on T.V. that no one is watching.


Raising Hope is about a dysfunctional family that revels in their abnormality. The story on founded on Jimmy and his baby daughter Hope that he is forced to raise as a single dad after his one night stand baby mama was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. (Trust me, it sounds sad, but it’s funny). Lucas Neff plays Jimmy with a wonderful naivety, but it’s his supporting cast that carries the show.

Helping Jimmy is his mom and dad Virginia and Burt. Martha Plimpton plays Virginia and still looks exactly like same as she did when she was younger in some classics like The Goonies and Parenthood. She carries a certain class to their lower middle class lifestyle with the confidence of a woman with all the money in the world. Garret Dillahunt is her husband Burt, and he is the perfect idiot. Amazing comic timing, and dialogue that comes out of left field that catches you astonishingly off guard even when you know its coming. He is the man child that you love to love.
Despite all that, it is the iconic Cloris Leachman that is the heart and soul of the show as Jimmy’s great grandma, Maw Maw. Maw Maw is very old and lives in her own head. There are moments of lucidity in which she can do anything like fix a car or be a genius at Jenga when Istabul (Not Canstonople) is playing, but for most of the time she’s lovingly delusional. It’s funny every time, it doesn’t matter if she thinks the other men in her house are her dead husband, or when she gets caught trying to breast feed Hope, or even when Maw Maw gets in the candy again.

You can’t help feel weirdly comfortable watching this family go through the problems off everyday life with a skewed sense of reality. They do it with such a sense of self you can’t help but smile when you watch Maw Maw ask a guy if she wants to see her ass or when Burt says stuff like “I put a condom on a banana when we had sex, and she still got pregnant. And it made the banana taste terrible.”

Take the time to go back and watch this season of Raising Hope. By the time you stop laughing you will realize your family is definitely not as dysfunctional as this one but can’t help but enjoy watching the love they have for life and each other.

The Jump Bum

That’s right I’m goin’ old school. Thanks to my friend Heidi and her Netflix account I am in the middle of the second season of one of my favorite childhood shows, 21 Jump Street. When it was first on it was somewhat compelling at times, now it’s comically ‘80s, but still entertaining. Jump Street broke new ground when it began on FOX in 1987 showcasing any and every problem a teen could have. It was pretty much an after school special on steroids.


21 Jump Street follows the exploits of a group of young looking cops that are brought together on a task force to stop crime in schools. They are led at first by Captain Jenco, played by Frederic Forest. Jenco lived as a contradiction of himself. He was a hippie and a cop, and he was great a both. Unfortunately, Jenco's craziness only lasted five episodes before he was replaced by the straight laced Captain Fuller, played by Steven Williams. I guess the producers figured there were too many kids on the show, and there should be at least one adult running things.
The biggest selling point of the whole show was obviously Johnny Depp. The show made Depp a huge star, but we all knew that. I think it’s the guest stars that are fun to see. There were a whole bunch of big names that had some early roles guest starring on Jump Street, like, Brad Pitt, Josh Brolin, Christina Applegate, Peter Berg, Vince Vaughn, and so many others. For me every episode is just a blast from the past.
Holly Robinson, Peter DeLuise, and Dustin Nguyen didn’t build up much of a career after the show ended. I don’t know about you, but I do not count Holly Robinson-Peete’s appearance on last seasons Celebrity Apprentice as a thespian accomplishment.

Unfortunately, the series ran out of story lines quickly, and eventually the actors started to look to old to be in high school. Even Depp got sick of the show after a while, and hired a lawyer to get him out of his six year contract after three years. So what did the producers do? They brought in Richard Grieco, and Peter DeLuise’s little brother Michael to play his little brother. Everything was downhill from there; including Booker, the half assed short lived Richard Grieco spin-off series.

For the short life that 21 Jump Street had it was one of the shows that put FOX on the map as a legitimate network. As a fan I love watching all the old episodes, but it’s that damn awesome theme song that will get stuck in your head for days. “…I said jump, down on jump street”.

The Super Bum

The screenbum hiatus is finally over and I figured that since my final posting was about the opening of the NFL season it would be apropos for the screenbum to make a triumphant return with Super Bowl XLV.


Super Bowl Sunday is arguably one of the biggest holidays in America. It’s no secret why a thirty second commercial is going to cost around $3 million dollars. Over 100 million people are going to be watching the Packers take on the Steelers, and many of them are watching more for those commercials then for the game. Not me though.

There are two reasons why I will have my eyes glued to the screen for every snap. The first is simply that it’s the frickin’ Super Bowl, and pro football is hands down the best sport in the world. Secondly, the boxes. Those funny little squares you all see hanging behind the bar at your favorite watering hole. It’s simple, if the scores at the end of each quarter match the numbers you randomly get on the grid then you win. Seriously though, box pools have been around for years. They make the game a whole lot more fun to watch, even for the girl at the party that has no idea what’s going on. The sad thing is that, that’s usually the person that wins the big money, and is completely surprised when it happens.

So the question now is what’s going to be better, the game? Or the over priced & over produced ads? We will see soon. I am going to be watching the big game with some friends, and will continue this article right after the game. I will say before I go that I think that this is going to be a great game, one of the best ever. These two teams are truly, in my opinion the two best in the NFL, and no others this season deserve it more. Unlike many other super bowls where one of the teams had a distinctive weakness the other team could exploit. The Steelers and the Packers have great skill players on both sides of the ball. Eventually something’s going to give, but it’s going to be real close. I think in the end the Packers are going to take it, so let’s find out.……and yes I am aware that I’m posting this after the game is over, but your just going to have to trust me.

Now that the game is over………..

I was right (again you’ve got to trust the writer). The game was close, and the Packers took it home. Aaron Rodgers got a little disrupted by the Steelers defense but he still played a great game and was the clear cut MVP.

As for the boxes my gambling partner Terrance and I came close to winning, and we even celebrated for about 20 seconds until we realized that the Steelers were going to go for a 2 point conversion, and I literally collapsed. We at least had some of Terrance’s slammin’ wings and sweet potato pie leftover to drown our sorrows.

By the end of it all, the commercials sucked (except for the Darth Vader kid, and the cheesy Doritos guy), Christina Aguilera forgot the words to the star spangled banner, and the halftime show was ridiculous. It probably would have helped a little if they remembered to put the Black Eyed Peas microphones on, but not much. At least we got to hear Slash jam out some Sweet Child of Mine. To bad Fergie destroyed it, where you at Axl? When it all ended, despite the fanfare and the talk of everything that surrounds the super bowl it was the game that was the most entertaining thing of the night.

Congrats Packers. Aaron Rodgers is going to Disney World and says….suck on that Farve.

The NFL Bum

It’s been a while since the screenbum has appeared, and unfortunately it’s because screenbum doesn’t pay. It’s a labor of love. So your favorite video-phile has to work to keep the lights on. I am proud to say that I’m back, and just in time for my favorite time of year. It’s football time.

The NFL kicks off its 90th season bigger and better then ever. Professional football has become the most watched sport in the country, surpassing baseball as America’s favorite sport. I can talk about and watch professional football 24/7. Sure, there are a lot of people out there that love college ball more then pro ball, but I grew up in Brooklyn. New York has always been, and will always be a pro sports town. Some of the college fans are people that cheer for their alma maters, but most are individuals that grew up in a part of the country that didn’t have one of the few pro sports franchises in the states. It’s understandable, but I’m proud of my pro sports roots.

The game has grown in popularity year in and year out. I think the thing that has catapulted football over everything else was the explosive excitement of fantasy football. No matter how popular football was initially, fantasy football players had a reason to not only watch their own favorite teams, but to watch every game that’s on no matter the matchup. I guarantee if you look at the numbers you will see the rise of fantasy football participants parallel the rising viewership of the game. It’s not rocket science. Whenever you have something invested you’re going to pay more attention to it.

There are fantasy games now for everything, including baseball (which started all of fantasy sports), nascar, and golf. There is even a fantasy fashion game, where players try and figure out which designer certain stars are going to wear on the red carpet, but its football that trumps them all. Believe it or not there are still plenty of people that have no idea how it works, including plenty of women that hate when their husbands and boyfriends completely ignore them while watching a game, or trying to figure out who to start in the next game. So let me give you a quick tutorial.

You pick players, and then you get points based on how those players perform in their respective games. That’s it….it’s simple. Then, just like any other game, the guys with the most points win.

This is the most exciting time of year for me, and after years of confusion as to why I love this game so much, my loving wife has finally adopted a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude and now she watches my games with me. I couldn’t have gotten any luckier to get a woman like her. I would love to know what the statistics are of divorces and breakups due to fantasy football. Oh, yeah I’d bet you 100-1 that it’s happened plenty of times.

This isn’t like baseball where there are a ridiculous 162 games. With football each team plays 16 games over 17 weeks, that’s it. Every game counts. Compared with most other sports the entire regular season is like the playoffs. From kickoff of the season, to the final whistle of the Super Bowl the NFL’s season is by far my favorite time to bum around in front of the screen. It doesn’t matter if I’m relaxing watching a game on my own or with a huge crowd cheering for their favorite team, getting to watch football is always the ultimate time to be a screenbum.

The Emmy Bum

The Emmy awards started in 1949, and are still going strong today. Unfortunately last night’s show was a complete bore-fest. The show actually started off really well with this year’s host Jimmy Fallon and a few members of the cast of Glee starting to round up a collection of actors walking around the studio to do a glee-like send up to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. It was a lot of fun until they all actually hit the stage. Then it looked like something you could watch at Great Adventure while you’re waiting for your kids to stop throwing up from the last ride they went on. Jimmy Fallon might be funny at times, but he needs to realize that he cannot sing.

It’s too bad that the singing continued many times throughout the broadcast, including a musical montage devoted to all the shows that completed their runs, like Lost, and Law and Order. Fallon’s schtick was just an unfunny recycled bit from his late night show. Seriously? You couldn’t even think of something original for the emmys? We didn’t see the masturbating bear when Conan hosted. Fallon also tried to get some popular stars involved in the mix by getting some of them to do some ridiculous short duets to introduce each category of the evening.
The lone bright spot of the night was the Modern Family sketch that featured George Clooney. It was the only laugh out load moment of the whole show, and it’s totally worth you taking the time to look it up on You Tube.
Some of the winners included some surprises like Jim Parsons for one of my favorite shows The Big Bang Theory, Eric Stonestreet for Modern Family, and the most deserving person of the year Jane Lynch for Glee. Bryan Cranston won for the 3rd year in a row (and the 3rd season) of Breaking Bad, and a nice complaint was the victory of Cranston’s co-star Aaron Paul for supporting.

Mad Men won again for best drama, and Modern Family took won the prize for Best Comedy, and it really was the best comedy on television last year.
The surprise wins of the night were the best part of the Emmys, but all in all the whole show just felt like it was out of pace, slow, and completely boring. The writing was horrible, and the direction was noticeably off kilter. I say bring back Conan, and leave Jimmy to his night time gig. This year’s Emmy will defiantly not get an Emmy.