Friday, April 29, 2011

Christopher Nolan's next project: Rainbow Brite Begins

The following is a script from a trailer for the forthcoming Christopher Nolan film, Rainbow Brite Begins.  (Many Bothans died to bring us this information.)


INT.  PRISON CELL.  DAY

Two GUARDS throw WHISP (soon to be RAINBOW BRITE) into the cell.  We see the outline of a figure standing in the corner.  This figure is MURKY, played by Lliam Neeson.

MURKY
Is this how one of Earth's orphan girls spends her time?

WHISP
How do you know who I am?  Who are you?

MURKY
My name is Murky.  But I represent.. the King of Shadows.

WHISP
Huh.  A Vigilante.

MURKY
No, no.  A vigilante is someone who is out for revenge.  He can be destroyed.  But if you could make yourself a symbol, you could become something greater.

WHISP
What?

MURKY
A legend, Ms. Whisp.  Take this box of Crayola Crayons to the top of the mountain.  There, we will train you.

EXT.  MOUNTAIN.  LATER

Whisp trudges up the mountain.

INT.  NINJA COMPOUND.  LATER

Montage scenes of Whisp training.  Whisp has trouble choosing between a red and a blue crayon.

MURKY (V.O.)
You know how to color with ten colors, we can teach you to color with ten thousand colors...

Murky shows her a purple crayon.  She nods in understanding.

EXT.  LAKE.  LATER

Whisp and Murky are sword fighting with those giant novelty crayons.

MURKY
Always learn to mind your surroundings...

He trips her up with the crayon and draws a frowney face on her forehead.

EXT. STREET.  LATER

TWINK (played by Michael Caine) opens the door of a limo for Wisp as she approaches.

TWINK
Ms. Whisp... welcome back.

INT.  LIMO.  MOMENTS LATER

Twink sits with Whisp.

WHISP
I need to make myself into a symbol.  Show the people of the colorless world that there is still justice.

INT.  R & D LAB.  LATER

ROMEO (played by Morgan Freeman) shows Whisp a prototype color belt.

ROMEO
This is a Kevlar Color Belt, with forty-two thousand pixels.  

WHISP
(pointing to something behind him)
What's that?

Pan to reveal Starlight, a horse w/ wings.

ROMEO
Starlight?  A yes.  He is a horse that was originally designed for rampless jumps.

EXT.  CITY.  LATER

We see Wisp as Rainbow Brite riding the horse through the city.

INT.  WEARHOUSE.  LATER

A bunch of Thugs, led by LURKY, are startled by a sound.

LURKY
She's here...

THUG 1
Who?

LURKY
The RAINBOW Brite...

A rope pulls Lurky to the rafters.

Wisp, now RAINBOW BRITE, is holding onto the other end of the rope, grabs Lurky by the hair.

BRITE
(low gravely voice)
Where are the color kids?!

LURKY
I don't know!  I swear to God!

BRITE
Swear to me!

She uses magic markers to color all over Lurky's face.

EXT.  ROOF.  LATER

Rainbow Brite is about to jump off the roof.  the MALE LOVE INTEREST stops her.

MALE LOVE INTEREST
Wait!  You could die!  At least tell me who you are!

RAINBOW BRITE
(low gravely voice)
It's not who I am underneath, but what I doodle that defines me.

MALE LOVE INTEREST
...Wisp?!

Rainbow Brite jumps off, landing on Starlight.

They swoop toward the camera.

RAINBOW BRITE BEGINS







Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Virgin's Kama Sutra

POSITION 1:  I hate my fucking life and I want to die, aka child's pose.

Start out face down in the fetal position, arms outstretched (unless you are completely without hope, then, if you choose, you can cradle yourself).

           KAMA SUTRA FUN TIP:  If you're feeling like you're about to cry, but you're not quite getting over the hump, just remember that you didn't say goodbye to your grandmother when you had the chance.

POSITION 2:  Cherry Blossom Opens in the Sun.

Taking a moderately expensive piece of equipment, throw it toward the ceiling while uttering one of the following curse words.  "Fuck," "Bitch," or, if the situation calls for it, "C--t."

POSITION 3:  Naughty Monkey spies on the Tigers.

With your underwear around your ankles, seated at the edge of your chair,  surf the web for a porn clip that compliments your neuroses.

          KAMA SUTRA FUN TIP:  Use your non-dominant hand to masturbate.  It'll take a bit longer for you to get yourself off, due to the hand's lack of experience.

POSITION 4:  Injured Viper Spies Prey, but Decides Against It.

WARNING:  This position requires you to actually be in a public place, with other human beings.

Go to a coffee house to work on a screenplay that is sure to not be produced.  Find an attractive woman seated nearby, ask yourself "what am I going to say to her" and do nothing as she walks away.

       KAMA SUTRA FUN TIP:  Find a reason why she would not be a good person to get to know--the shallower the reason, the better.

POSITION 5:  Naughty Monkey spies on Tigers Again.

(see above)

POSITION 6:   Cantankerous Panda watches Babylon 5 on Netflix.

It's all in the title.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Seinfeld does Streisand (the PG version)

Am I right, people?

People, people, people who need people, people,
are the luckiest people in the world!  Am I right people?


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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

From the writer's room

Contrary to popular belief, this blog is actually written by a team of five writers.  Below is a transcript from one of their last writing sessions:

BURT:  We should do something about linguistic philosophy, shouldn't we?

CAROL:  As long as we get in those crude vaginal jokes we were talking about earlier.

TIM:  I don't remember talking about crude vaginal jokes.

ROGER:  Neither do I.  By the way, my name is Roger, and I've been an accomplished staff writer now for seven years...

CAROL:  We all know that.

ROGER:  I'm just saying it out loud, in case somebody is making a transcript of this.

CAROL:  Nobody is making a transcript of this.

ROGER:  How do you know for sure?

CAROL:  Burt would have mentioned it earlier.

TIM:  At what point did Burt talk to us about the possibility of transcription?

CAROL:  He mentioned it to me last night.

SUPERINTELLIGENT VELOCIRAPTOR:  I may only be a super-intelligent Velociraptor, but I think this blog should reveal something about the inner feelings of the blogger.

CAROL:  You want to remain an unknown super-intelligent velociraptor for the rest of your life, or do you want to amount to something?  These blogs have to have a gimmick.  That chick who wrote that blog about cooking all of Julia Child's recipes in a year?  Look at her now.  That's what I was talking to Burt about last night.  I think crude vaginal jokes will put us on the map.

TIM:  I disagree.

CAROL:  And what would you know of crude vaginal jokes?

TIM:  Plenty.  I wrote a good deal of crude vaginal jokes in my day.

CAROL:  Let's hear one of them.

SUPERINTELLIGENT VELOCIRAPTOR:  Does anybody else want coffee?  I'm going for coffee.

BURT:  No thanks.

CAROL:  I'm good.

TIM:  Thanks, but no thanks.

ROGER:  No thank you.

(SUPER INTELLIGENT VELOCIRAPTOR leaves the room)

ROGER:  Does the super-intelligent velociraptor have a name?

BURT:  I don't know it.

ROGER:  I'm too afraid to ask him.  He may be super intelligent, but he's still a velociraptor.

TIM:  He asked me to go hunting with him, once.  But he was being a big baby because HE wanted to be the one to attack the pray from the side.

CAROL:  I think we're deviating from the main point here.  Crude vaginal jokes will get us on the map.  I was trying to explain this to Burt while he was ramming a half empty bottle of Francis Ford Coppola red wine up my vagina last night.

TIM:  Everything is always half-empty with you.

CAROL:  I'm a realist.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A message from George Bernard Shaw

Tonight, we have a guest blogger, and that guest blogger is none other than playwright/critic George Bernard Shaw.

SHAW:  You might at first be wondering how the devil a man who's been dead for some time would have the capacity to blog in this newfangled hell you people call the twenty-first century.  I reply with the only conceivable explanation.  I. Am. George. Bernard. Shaw.  Death, something that proves to be far too complicated for the rest of you, is a minor knot that I can untie with the two slightest fingers of my non-dominant hand.

I've come here today to discuss a disturbing trend in humanity.  That trend is humanity.  Why haven't you people destroyed yourselves yet?  (I don't consider myself entirely human, because for the last sixty years of my life, I wore only wool.  That suggests an ascension of some note).

Seriously.  Please end your existence as soon as humanly possible.  You've disappointed me on every other level, whether it be compassion, art, auto design--

Incidentally, I object to the new Honda designs.  Profusely object.  Too boxy.

--But I digress.  You disappoint me in all areas except your ability to destroy yourself.  With one exception.  I did find the first five seasons of the X Files enjoyable.  But other than that, you're a sorry lot.

How have I been making out, you ask?  And if you're not asking, you should be.  I've been in the next level of existence, literally kicking Shakespeare in the balls.  Turns out he can't defend himself.  But he deserves it for "As You Like it."  So now, I torment him as I like it.

In summation, destroy yourselves as soon as possible so as to give mother Earth a reprieve.  Also, just stop writing plays.  Please.  Stop.  They're... they're no good.  No good at all.  I won't lie to to you.

That is all.  This transmission from George Bernard Shaw ends now.

--------------------------------

The following is a scene from ROBOCOP that was left on the cutting room floor.

(ROBOCOP points his gun at one of the villains)

ROBOCOP:  Dead or alive, you're coming with me.

ROBBER:  That doesn't make sense.  If you kill me, you wouldn't bring me with you.  You'd leave me for the CSI team, wouldn't you?

ROBOCOP: ... probably.

ROBBER:  Unless you WOULD take my corpse with you.  But that would imply a nefarious motive on your part, which hardly fits your idiom.  

ROBOCOP:  All right, all right.  Alive, you're coming with me, but dead, you're not coming with me.

ROBBER:  When you say it like that, you loose the poetry.  Strike what I said.  Just say it the way you said it.

ROBOCOP:  Are you sure?

ROBBER:  Yeah.  Poetic License.

ROBOCOP:  Dead or alive, you're coming with me.

-------------

A review of the third blog.

We are now joined by online blog reviewer Jacob Jacobson, who will be reviewing the third blog in this series.

JACOB:  Not the best of the blogs, thus far.  But it's not surprising that Josh has hit a bit of slump here in the third blog--it happens to the best of them, and he is by no means the best of them.  You can begin to see that he is relying on a bag of writer's tricks.  the Robocop is essentially another example of parody, which he did extensively in Blog 2.  The George Bernard Shaw, I felt, was lacking in depth.  He could have gone a lot farther with Shaw's thesis, but instead managed to throw in the bit about his disapproval of the new Honda designs, which felt a bit more like it came from Josh than from George Bernard Shaw.  Shaw would probably have not favored one Honda design over the other, but one can speculate about that until one is blue in the face.  Long story short, he's loosing steam here, and he's going to have to give us something different the next time around if he intends to keep his audience, let alone build it.

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Monday, April 18, 2011

Maxim (not the magazine), report (not Minority) misc (I have nothing for this)

I reference the famous quote by Confucius, which he uttered to an Abbot at a Chinese Monastery.

CONFUCIUS:  Excuse me, but I think you're out of toilet paper.

ABBOT:  I actually don't work here.

Commentary:  By confusing the abbot with an employee of the Monastery, Confucius is actually confusing fate with destiny.  Fate involves a lack of free will, while Destiny connotes an absence of freedom of choice.  Either way, as Lao Tsu would say:

It is worse to be up shit creek without a paddle than it is to be without toilet paper.

*The above sketch is highly influenced by the writings of Woody Allen, and more importantly, Allen Woody.
----------------------------

Open Mic Report:  Did two five minute sets an an open mic this evening.

SUPPORTIVE SELF:  A lot of good premises, a few laughs here and there, promising stuff.

JUDGMENTAL SELF:  Remember that scene in Schindler's List where the Jews were escorted into the showers?  Much funnier than what happened tonight.  At least, when the shower spurted water instead of gas, that was a punch line.

-----------------------------

The following are two goals that I will not live up to:

*Blog every day for a year.
*Start a Blog that will turn into a novel.

-----------------------------

Rejected scene from the last Transformers movie.

MEGATRON:  Starscream?

STARSCREAM:  Yes, Megatron?

MEGATRON:  Do you ever... dream?

STARSCREAM:  What?

MEGATRON:  Never mind.

(beat)

STARSCREAM:  I dream about the willow trees.

MEGATRON:  That sounds like a nice dream.

(And then, right after that is where they fight around the pyramids for about twenty five minutes)

-----------------------------

IF DAVID MAMET RE-WROTE THE FIRST SCENE IN STAR WARS EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE

QUI GON:  Fucking trade federation.

OBI WAN:  Fucking trade federation.  I think some shit's going to go down.

QUI GON:  Keep your head out of your ass.

OBI WAN: Yoda would say....

QUI GON:  Fuck what Yoda would say.  It doesn't matter what Yoda would say.  What Yoda would say bears no relation to what needs to be said.  Yoda is an academic.  And that's academic.

QUI GON:  Shit's going to go down.  I choose to maintain that opinion.

QUI GON:  If you choose, you choose.  Your choice.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Of Smelting

This is my first official blog.  I expect it to ripple across the internet the way the movie "The Extra Man" did (unfamiliar with the movie?  You should see it.  Kevin Klein delivers a sensational performance.  A lot of whimsy involved.  High on the whimsy.

The topic this evening:  Smelting.

I can't think of a reason why I don't approve of smelting, except for the fact that it probably contributes to the destruction of the earth.

I'm fairly certain they were doing a lot of smelting in the movie "Princess Mononoke," and it was said smelting that infuriated the forest Gods.  But on the upside, think of all the metal ash trays that have resulted from our pioneer smelters.  Oh, and important machine parts for important machine things.

I don't think all of my blogs are going to be this thick on whimsy.  I should probably take a moment to drop the mask and reveal something about myself.

Shit.  I just realized that I did not put the end parenthesis after the bit where I'm describing The Extra Man.  Should I go back and correct myself?  Possibly.  But that would involve going back and correcting myself. I'll just put the parenthetical here, but be it known that it is meant to go up after the word "Whimsy.").

There.  Now, a serious note.  Hm.  There's more to me than the fact that I am a 29-year-old virgin.  I walked past a wall with vines. The wall itself had recently been painted white.  Clearly, the painters did not remove the vines when they painted, because low and behold, here and there amongst the white wall were outlines of the leaves.  There was something poetic about the laziness of it.  Now if I were getting laid, would I have had the time and desperation to make this observation?  Probably.  I have lost my own argument.

But back to the point of smelting.  Can one smelt a smelt?  (Smelt is a fish, isn't it?)

I'm concerned that this stream of consciousness thinking sounds a bit too familiar to the stream of consciousness blogging that Jason Rue was doing a few years ago.   He has now moved onto cubist blogging, but still, I hate to be accused of ripping somebody off.  I get no respect.  That was a cheap joke.  I'm sorry to the spirit of Rodney Dangerfield, and for good measure, the spirit of President Taft.  You can never be too careful when appeasing the spirits of these dead presidents.  That was a movie, wasn't it?  Dead Presidents.  I should probably see that movie.

Conclusion:  smelting does a lot for us, but what have we done for smelting?  Precious little.