Freaks of the Industry Page 2
Inside Omniscience/Ragnarök, Legion clutches his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, I Am Legion, relating his horrific childhood in abusive foster homes, a lifetime on the streets, and his rescue of an HIV-infected crack baby from drug dealers and indifferent bureaucrats.
As motion-picture, branded lifestyle, and television agents introduce themselves, the puffy clouds outside the floor-to-ceiling windows make the gathering celestial. Legion starts by giving thanks to his guru Lester Barnes for putting together Ignition, telling the room he can’t wait to be on set with his director Thør Rosenthal and costar Betsy Yarborough.
The corporate consulting agents realize Legion’s dream of being a Memphis barbecue sauce entrepreneur with the launch of “Brimstone BBQ” on fellow client Rachael Ray’s cooking show; a Legion-inspired cologne will be offered exclusively at Macy’s as well as a line of homeless-chic apparel in partnership with Target/Isaac Mizrahi. In addition to Legion’s lucrative Claymation commercials for Coke Zero, a trio of book agents declare they have closed an eight-figure deal with HarperCollins for his inspirational tome FINDING ANTWON. Legion searches the room for the one person nobody thought to invite, his thousand watt smile disappearing—
“Where’s reader-guy?”
The room has no idea who Legion is talking about. Unscripted TV agent Bramley Nazarian announces Legion will produce and star in a new ABC reality dating show where top sororities from the number one party schools in the nation compete against the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, USC Song Girls, and famous MILFS like Kate Hudson and Jennifer Lopez to win his heart—
“People, we need to hit the pause button.”
The room temperature turns Arctic; north of the eightieth parallel, everybody freezes.
“I need Larry Mersault in this meeting.”
Fingers are snapped and an agent trainee is dispatched to retrieve the star’s favorite minion.
LET IT SNOW
Screenplay by Clive Metzger
Movie on the page. Though script is a little bloated, every scene in this cocaine-fueled actioner crackles with unbearable tension. The smartest guy in a room* full of nutjobs, Jeb Huston gets arrested by the Feds, cuts a deal to save himself, betrays best friend Pablo Escobar, helps the DEA seize tons of cocaine smuggled into the country, gives up his sidekicks to prove his loyalty, marries a Colombian beauty who used to be Escobar’s mistress, and plays both sides of the law against each other before jumping into the Federal Witness Protection program, where he lives today. Better than Blow, similar to Goodfellas with its terse narration and criminal behavior, bloodthirsty script offers a grimy canvas with plenty of car chases, blowjobs, and booger sugar; if this falls into Thør Rosenthal’s hands, well, let it snow.
The smartest guy in a room
Wearing distressed jeans and a James Perse T-shirt with food stains that says “668: Neighbor of the Beast,” Larry Mersault is greeted by Legion with a soulful dap followed by an elaborate secret handshake, with every agent in the room hatefully wondering what the fuck is going on.
The movie star places his reader between Fruity and Balthazar in the nosebleed seats behind the oceanic conference table. Legion causes a covering agent to blush when he thanks her for getting him a meeting with Spielberg. A senior agent with white hair raises a project at Universal his client is directing called “The Carthaginian” about the elephant-riding Hannibal that could be his Gladiator. When the star catches Mersault yawning, Legion declares he doesn’t make movies with titles he cannot pronounce. Another agent, Korean, raises his hand. Lester Barnes nods, and the agent in Prada brings up Legion playing the heavy in the next James Bond installment. Lester suggests maybe MGM should consider Antwon as the next 007. Legion tells the room he doesn’t want to play a villain, not yet, and he doesn’t want to be James Bond—
“Are there any scripts out there about Jesus Christ?”
The room laughs, thinking Legion is fucking with them.
Larry Mersault raises his hand. The room goes quiet.
Mersault suggests an unproduced script called “Golgotha” by writer/director Thør Rosenthal.
The room detonates with dollar signs.
“It’s Se7en meets Last Temptation of Christ. Pontius Pilate hires a private detective named Judas to investigate a serial killer who may or may not be the Messiah.”
Legion hushes the room the way a quarterback silences a stadium.
“Is the script as good as Faith Don’t Leave?”
“Better,” says Mersault.
Legion steps around the flesh peddlers to Fruity and Balthazar sandwiching Mersault and raises the reader’s paw like Buster Douglas in Tokyo—
“It’s Miller Time.”
MOO
Screenplay by Palmer Jessup
Based on a true story, Silkwood on a farm, so-so script relates the horrors of the beef industry and Big Agriculture’s grip on our food chain. Unevenly written, sometimes this literal shit show of an industry can be riveting, but it’s the people who disappoint. Kenny Barkley returns to his hometown as a lawyer for an Arkansas billionaire beef mogul after a viral video erupts about horrific bovine abuse. Anybody who attempts to expose the slaughterhouse is murdered and their death arranged to look like a suicide; Kenny discovers an industry-wide conspiracy of fattening the cattle to obscene levels, which causes the cows to cannibalize each other before they are clubbed to death; the farm’s tainted milk causes birth defects, and the water in town is fecally poisonous. Kenny thinks he’s found true love but he’s been seduced by a Jezebel* secretly working for the beef mogul to gather information on him. Kenny blows the whistle, escapes with his life, but he can’t save his farm friends. Ambitious script tries to be a suspenseful message movie and ends up being neither. Much a doo-doo about nothing.
Jezebel
White House press secretary Scott Muir grabs a drink with his notorious brother at Church and State on H Street to discuss his tsunami industry wipeout before attending the ceremony at the Irish Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue honoring their dad, a human rights activist recently awarded the Tipperary Peace Prize.
Scott is surprised to hear Rodney has already gotten a job at the Starbucks in Georgetown on Wisconsin Avenue like that Tom Hanks movie where the disgraced stock broker starts over as a barista with a bunch of misfit college kids serving decaf peppermint mocha lattes.
That night, after the medal ceremony, Rodney eyes a familiar redhead in a black mini-dress staring right at him, trying to place him; she, moving through the crowded embassy residence, he, brushing up against bare skin of backless dresses; everywhere Rodney looks, there she is, eye-fucking him like a vulture circling a motorist stranded in the Mojave Desert.
A sloppy drunk, his brother actually, blocks Rodney’s view, raving about this “firecrotch” when he catches the enigma machine exiting the event. Rodney leaves his brother dissing the “ginger” immune to his charms, and cuts through the crowd, out the door, and there she is, bumming a cigarette from the valet guy—
“I can’t let you pull a French Exit without getting your name.”
“Maeve,” she says.
“Is that your real name or your Starbucks name?”
She laughs, exhaling a cloud of regurgitated nicotine.
“You remind me of a guy I knew who ran from his apartment to my place with a six-pack of beer and a box of donuts.”
“You remind me of this girl I never knew because I didn’t run after her.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” says Maeve.
“You say that like you’re doing a stretch in prison or something.”
“Or married,” she says.
“Ms. Macchiato,” he snaps his fingers.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s what you always order at the Bux on Wisconsin.”
Maeve flicks away her smoke. Rodney introduces himself.
“You�
��re the reason I keep going back to that Starbucks.”
“Is that right?”
“I like scars, Rodney. Do you have any?”
“Let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you.”
Making out in a guest bedroom, Maeve and Rodney agree to postpone the inevitable and, still kissing each other, decide for propriety’s sake he should return to the party first. Maeve waits five minutes and rejoins the event as if they hadn’t just torn each other’s clothes off. Imagine Rodney’s shock when Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, about to give a speech recognizing the peace efforts of the guest of honor, aka his father, takes a moment to introduce his second wife, aka Ms. Macchiato, face flushed, to the celebratory participants. Soon they are regularly steaming up the windows of her Range Rover in the Starbucks parking lot during his lunch breaks. Ms. Macchiato tells Rodney not to worry about the ambassador; if they get caught they’ll have diplomatic immunity.
On his way into work a couple of days later, Rodney notices a film set in Georgetown and pulls over to check out the production. He approaches a bearded crew member and learns the title of the movie they’re filming is Ignition.
Rodney: “Ignition?! Where’s Thør?”
The professional familiarity throws off the second AD, who looks at Rodney like a deranged civilian instead of the former studio executive responsible for everyone on this set having a job. Rodney decides to return the next day in his barista apron and approaches a production assistant who points out the director to the man from Starbucks. Rodney goes right up to Thør and hands him a Venti Red Eye spiked with Tabasco sauce. The Norwegian takes one sip, grimaces in disgust, and hurls the poisoned cup to the ground.
Rodney: “You’re dead, Rosenthal.”
The director, a member of the industry assassination league KAOS (Killing as An Organized Sport), can’t believe Rodney came all the way to DC to whack him.
Thør: “Who sent you, the janitors?”
(The assassination game pitting studios vs. management companies vs. assistants vs. publicists vs. movie stars vs. agencies coursed through the industry like a California wildfire. The extremist group Justice for Janitors recently claimed responsibility for slitting the throat of literary agent Jerry Makos, significantly upping the stakes for every coffee, lunch, and pitch meeting.)
Rodney explains he’s currently VP of cappuccino at the Wisconsin Avenue Starbucks. Thør tells his former Deathbed executive to hang out by the video village while he huddles with Roger Deakins. The barista waits about ten minutes before going to work, not caring he would be late this morning.
MONTEZUMA’S REVENGE
Screenplay by Virginia Despres
Sweaty crime piece, chick two-hander, not terrible, Despres spins a period seventies tale about strippers Vicki (vicious sociopath) and Norma Jean (sweet but dumb) who flee a snuff* film set; kill the director who set them up to die in self-defense; carjack a Porsche and hide out at a touristy resort in Ensenada. Vicki and Norma Jean party with vacationing UCLA students Marcus, Bryan, and Karl. Vicki seduces water polo captain Bryan; NFL-bound running back Marcus struggles with explosive diarrhea; Norma Jean falls for aspiring novelist Karl. The vacation turns grisly when Vicki murders Bryan after he catches her going through their suitcases. Karl walks in on Vicki dragging Bryan’s corpse and she butchers Karl while Marcus holds his breath in the bathroom. Climactic struggle between BFFs ensues as Norma Jean lops off Vicki’s cabeza, dashes for the border and gets shot to death. Marcus only survives because he was on the toilet the whole time. Edgy script makes Spring Breakers seem like Frozen with its angry attitude, delicious dialogue, and sleazy set-pieces.
snuff
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE yellow tape cordons off the crime scene of the Wisconsin Avenue Starbucks when Rodney shows up. Questioned and released by DC police, Rodney spends the rest of the day assuring everyone he was not brutally murdered after a local newscaster erroneously names him as one of the coffee baristas found face down on the floor, shot multiple times, with the female manager executed by a single bullet to the head. The next day newly-married Thør Rosenthal and Betsy Yarborough messenger him a shirt: “I Survived the Starbucks Murders and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt.”
Rodney calls Maeve to say he is alive. Maeve is short with him, on the other line with her husband, explaining why the Secret Service is questioning her whereabouts on the morning of the Starbucks murders and quizzing her about the nature of her relationship with the lone survivor barista. Maeve calls Rodney back and blurts out she was parked outside the Starbucks hoping to see him before his shift started. The ambassador’s wife says she didn’t hear any gunshots and wonders if the robbers used silencers. Rodney is put off by her stalkerette confession when he is summoned by the Secret Service to explain his connection to an open investigation in Los Angeles involving a prostitute found bludgeoned to death in a backyard Koi pond.
During the interrogation, Secret Service agent Violet Rutledge mentions her screenwriter BFF Stefani Dupin and Rodney says he made an offer to buy her time-traveling serial killer script “Infamous” when he was at Fox but the lit manager Josh Makos sold the spec to MGM. Right then, Violet calls Dupin, who’s working on a TV pilot at Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake and puts her BFF on the phone with Rodney. The call is brief and awkward; awkward because the former studio executive is involved with a triple homicide and the screenwriter is very aware of the Koi pond scandal; brief because they have precious little to say other than Rodney admiring her unproduced script and Dupin wishing him luck avoiding life in prison without possibility of parole.
For Rodney and Violet, there is intense mutual curiosity, not to mention sexual attraction, so they make plans to watch Netflix and hang out at Violet’s place in Old Town Alexandria. Rodney starts going to Violet’s place every night, sending Maeve to voicemail, ignoring the frantic emoji texts declaring her marriage is over; writing her off as too clingy.
Blasting “The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance” on repeat, Maeve tails Rodney leaving Starbucks down Thirty-Fourth Street in her black Range Rover, turning right on M Street, crossing Key Bridge into Roslyn, down Arlington Boulevard, taking George Washington Parkway to Slaters Lane, right on Henry Street, right on Cameron, left on Peyton, clicking off Sinead O’Connor at King Street, where she watches Rodney and Violet making out on the steps of an apartment complex. That night Maeve goes on-line and sends Rodney a T-shirt: “Sorry About What Happens Later.”
INFAMOUS
Screenplay by Stefani Dupin
Nifty time-travel thriller delivers the goods on its diabolical plot. Unemployed sanitation worker Leo Wyck chases a serial killer from the future named Sander after he discovers the murderer’s personal organizer with sickening holograms of every victim he’s left behind. Wyck goes to LA to save Sander’s future targets only to fall head over heels for Janine, one of the women whose murder hasn’t happened yet. Hapless Wyck gets blamed for the crimes he’s trying to prevent since he’s always at the scene of the murders. Script stumbles when things get too expository but that’s a quibble. Ace plotting escalates the tension in every scene as rising dread envelopes the characters. Electrifying climax delivers as the holograms in the Filofax fade away, the future killings will never happen, and Sander gets jettisoned to the Stone Age. Genre material all the way, but boy, is it well-written.
TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART
Screenplay by Lex Sprinkle
Imagine Bonnie Raitt working at a Home Depot by day and singing nightly in a bar band, a heroin-snorting absentee mom to her grown children who live in Canada, a big fat wedding disaster, and you get this funny vehicle for our star/producer client Betsy Yarborough. Sharp script sends rock star mom Lita Dobbs on a vision quest to test her humanity when one daughter’s marriage ends and her youngest son Nick is about to have a wedding in Montreal, forcing the golden oldie rocker to confront her d
odgy past, her pathetic current situation, and uncertain future. Over the nuptial weekend, shenanigans erupt, culminating with Lita and her band hijacking the wedding to play her favorite cover song, Santana’s Winning, bringing her broken family on stage for an encore. An actor’s piece, everybody in this wedding is well-drawn with Lita’s fading star turn most resembling Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Best line in the script is when an oblivious guest at the rehearsal dinner asks the mother of the groom where she first met Nick and Lita replies, “In the C-Section*.”
C-Section
Locking hands to cross P Street, Liam and Anna Muir are struck and killed by a hit and run driver after getting double scoops of ice cream at Thomas Sweet’s in Georgetown. With the Vice-President, members of the Foreign Service, friends and family in attendance, Scott Muir gives a moving eulogy about the lifetime they shared, comparing their parents to his favorite Greek myth about Baucis and Philemon, an old married couple who welcomed the Gods into their home as guests when they visited in human form disguised as homeless people. In return, the Gods granted the couple’s one wish that when the end came for one of them, the other would die at the same time. When Baucis and Philemon passed away, the Gods turned the couple into trees with branches intertwined so the couple would forever be holding hands. His brother did not speak at the funeral.
Alone at the house in the country overlooking the Potomac River, a grieving Rodney pores through family photo albums, preserved schoolwork papers, Super Bowl souvenir seat cushions from San Diego, Bolletieri tennis camp trophies, library shelves filled with biographies of political figures, countless cookbooks with flour-covered pages, and signed novels authored by Liam and Anna’s friends over several decades. In the pages of a Nancy Friday book called My Mother, My Self, Rodney stumbles on something completely unexpected: a folded up sonogram of triplets in utero. Their mother had wished loudly and often for a daughter but her production deal shuttered after their delivery at Sibley Hospital. The sonogram reminds Rodney of a crowded selfie at the Oscars. Heading back to the city, Rodney texts his twin—