GREATEST MOVIE CHARACTERS OF ALL TIME: BUD

"A Repo Man's always intense! C'mon, let's go get a drink!"

Holy rolypoly, it's been a long time since I updated this thread of my favorite movie characters. I've got two coming at you. Here's the first one, the next one's tomorrow.

The first one is the inimitable 'Bud'; Harry Dean Stanton from Repo Man.

Repo Man is one of those quintessential movies for me. If you follow the latitude lines of punk rock and the longitude lines of low-budget movies, you end up in a bizarro land where these guys exist, drinking generic beer and living by an unrecognizable code. There is no other movie ever made quite like it.

Harry Dean Stanton was the only Hollywood made guy in this movie, and he picked up the role because he met the director (Alex Cox) at a party, and told him his soul was dead, or that he was a ghost, or something to that effect. The real story's on the DVD commentary, I just don't remember it now.

Harry Dean Stanton could chew the fire out of a candle without blowing smoke. The guy's a veteran of World War II, shown up in 100 different movies and TV shows, but is always himself, and a cut above everyone else. Bud *is* the Repo Man code that he spouts through the movie, which is based on Isaac Asimov's three laws of Robotics. The repo men work at 'Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation', and I always get the sense that Bud really believes he's helping people by jacking their rides.

Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of scenes that other guys steal; Dick Rude's fantastic death scene, the rodriguez brothers, Sy Richardson firing into that house, Otto's parents getting sucked into the televangelist, Miller proselytizing about the aliens (Bud, Miller, Lite...the repo men are named after beers, that's how you know you can trust them). This movie could've easily been a Big-Lebowskiesque tongue-in-cheek joke, but Bud anchors it. He lives what he teaches, and you're always pretty certain that HDS isn't even in character. If he showed up at your house for your car, you'd just give it to him. Without Bud, this movie is a romp where guys with mohawks get sushi and not pay.

I leave with my favorite Bud quote, which says it all: "I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees."



Take witness with these clips:

1

2 (there's no way they paid for that)