Freaks of the Industry

by Adam Novak

  Lester: “So dark, I love it. Walter, get Screen Gems on the phone. Call it Sin Utero. Who else has heard this pitch?”

  Right on Twenty-Ninth Street, left onto Q Street, right on Wisconsin Avenue, Rodney keeps ranting about the volunteer nurse who raised the imp only to die in a mysterious fire, their vanished triplet growing up to exact revenge, running over their elderly parents, seducing the brothers at her place in Alexandria, this is not a pitch, this is real, shouts Rodney, he has to get to Starbucks—

  “Seek help,” says Lester Barnes, hanging up, regretting the call.

  On Wisconsin, Rodney finds a space, hops out of his car, and sprints toward the ambush. Turning left on Thirty-Fourth Street, green Starbucks awning now visible, he arrives at the coffee house parking lot, and barges into—

  A candlelight vigil for Maggie Katz.

  Rodney searches for his brother among the faces of DC Statehood advocates, political mosquitos, homeless dudes sipping coffee, and butch members of the Bethesda Lesbian Avengers singing “Happy Birthday” for their fallen barista at this anti-violence observance/birthday celebration.

  Flash of Maeve among the lesbians; flame hair shorn off like an army grunt or cancer patient, unclear which team drafted her; glimpse of Scott in the carnival-esque parking lot; Rodney runs past a fire-eating demonstration to save his brother when an unsmiling Violet enters the frame—

  Targeting her like a drone strike, Violet finds Maeve, planting a soulful kiss on her lips, tongue sliding around her girlfriend’s eager mouth, leaving the Muir brothers staring at the Sapphic couple.

  Scott: “Well, that explains that.”

  Rodney: “Violet didn’t do Starbucks.”

  Scott: “T’was beauty she wanted.”

  Rodney: “I can think of a worse ending.”

  FRED 62

  Screenplay by Pat Hobby

  Lame LA noir/tame pastiche of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang paints a moody portrait of Los Angeles dripping with cocaine, murderous goons, hot dames, and a silver Ferrari Testarossa Spider racing the streets of the big nipple*, signifying nothing; a total bore. Hipster and local “fixer” Fred 62 can get rid of any problem; anything you need, Fred 62 can wiggle it for you. A chiseled lead who talks his way out of every jam, Fred 62 is tasked by mysterious Korean businessman Ike to find his missing daughter Julia just as he’s about to purchase the LA hockey team (Ike is buying the NHL franchise to launder his illicit profits). Fred 62 rescues Julia from her Yakuza kidnappers, survives a plane crash, turns Ike over to the Feds, and moves to Miami without Julia, who pours herself a glass of Drano rather than return to a life looking over her shoulder. For Antwon Legion, the prose is slick, edgy but not really, Shiite script, a talkfest that goes nowhere fast.

  the big nipple

  Michael Tolkin introduces the author of the hour at a 7:00 p.m. SRO crowd at Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard:

  “How many studio executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

  (wait)

  “Does it have to be a lightbulb?”

  (laughter)

  “Most of us here knew Rodney when he was a weasel at Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, and some criminal outfit called Bellerophon, where he oversaw production of sixteen motion pictures. Those guys stiffed me for that polish I did on Plasma Sluts.”

  (laughter)

  “Entertainment Weekly described his debut novel Sin Utero as ‘House of Cards meets Stephen King.’ Please welcome an exciting new voice, Rodney Muir!”

  (applause)

  At the podium with a microphone, the novelist addresses the packed house: “Thank you Book Soup for having us. Thank you, Tyson Cornell, for publishing me. Seeing all of you here tonight under one roof reminds me of my first wedding.”

  (laughter)

  “Hopefully you’ll read the book and not the coverage.”

  (laughter)

  “This is from my first novel Sin Utero.”

  (silence)

  “‘Not good—thought the suicide bomber as he tried unsuccessfully to catch a cab on La Cienega, waving his arms and shouting “Taxi” to indifferent and off-duty drivers who sped past him. Clinking down Olympic, the eighty pounds of nails and screws and metal shrapnel he had purchased at Home Depot made walking almost impossible and his vest was starting to itch. Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun’s harsh rays, a yellow LA Taxi pulled over and he climbed into the backseat, holding his bellybomb, appearing more like a pregnant man than a martyr who intended to destroy the forces of evil that had already occupied Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Laurel Canyon, parts of Beachwood, and Malibu Colony. The cab driver, Palestinian, first name, Yousef, recently diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer, would eventually die in a Cairo dungeon after his rendition did not produce the information desired by the State Department. As Yousef picked up his clipboard, the passenger in the back seat coughed ostentatiously to cover the sound of the Glad bags sloshing with Hexamine, H2H2, sugar, and Citric Acid C6H8O7. For an instant, the passenger feared he would prematurely expostulate. A silence filled the taxicab as they hit traffic on Olympic heading toward Century City and the end of the passenger’s life. The suicide bomber powered down his window to feel the sun on his forehead as the taxicab rode up the Avenue of the Stars ramp and arrived at Nakatomi Plaza, where valet parking attendants opened his door. Alone in the elevator, he looked at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling until the doors opened, revealing a posse of unsmiling agents waiting for the janitor to emerge from the lift and release the IED—’”

  Later, during the Q & A with the audience: “As a studio executive, you developed hundreds of scripts and passed on thousands, did you always want to be a writer?”

  Rodney: “I think I was born to write this book.”

  “Congratulations on Sin Utero. I chased the rights after I read the galley.”

  Rodney: “Thank you, where do you work?”

  “I work at Hulu. My question is: when you were writing this loosely autobiographical novel about the Starbucks murders, did you ever think if Sin Utero became a best seller, your psychotic triplet sister might show up at the launch party? Maybe she’s here tonight. Maybe you’ll sign her copy.”

  Rodney: “That’s your novel.”

  (laughter)

  “You have a blurb from the biggest movie star in the world. What’s Legion really like?”

  Rodney: “Antwon’s the best. We first met when his agent Lester Barnes called me to suggest Antwon for the role of the psychiatrist in Faith Don’t Leave. I took Antwon to dinner at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and I left the table convinced he was the shrink.”

  “Were you on set when Justice for Janitors gunned down the writers and the craft service guy?”

  Rodney: “No, but I went to the ‘Faith Who Left’ memorial at Hollywood Forever. I overheard these assistants talking about the funeral and one of the assistants asked the other if she knew the victims and the assistant said she didn’t know anyone. ‘Then why did you go?’ And the assistant said, ‘Are you kidding? I went for the contacts.’”

  WHOREGASM

  SPACE INVADER

  Screenplay by Chip Ganem

  Think Alien. Think Gravity. Now stop thinking. Imagine a contained genre script set on a space station after the discovery of life on Venus. Imagine a single cell escaping a microscope and consuming everybody on board. The real star of this show, nicknamed Marge, is the carnivorous amoeba, not the scaredy-cat astronauts trying to avoid getting eaten. Two possible roles here for Antwon Legion: Lt. Pippen, the sole survivor of this space ordeal who unknowingly escorts Marge in his escape pod to complete her buffet of humanity on Earth, or the more interesting part of cyborg astronaut Owen, who gives up the ghost in a death match with Marge near the halfway mark. Director did Stockholm Chill. Not familiar with his work. Not enough character beats for the other astronauts to shine. Not enough mem
orable lines. Script desperately needs more trailer moments. On the flip side, Marge could find fame as an iconic boogeyman* in this space opera about life on Venus ending life on Earth.

  boogeyman

  “The real Anti-Christ is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.”

  —Eric Hoffer

  FALLING SNOW

  Screenplay by Michelle LaVey

  Intimate tale with powerful imagery, an existential character journey, set largely in snow-drenched Montana. For Betsy Yarborough, lead Yetta is on every page and almost every frame investigating the mystery of her life: Who was my mother? Who was my father? Who am I? Told through a series of stunning events, Yetta works at Whole Foods in San Francisco when her grandmother dies and she inherits the family farm in Montana. Yetta confronts her estranged father in prison, a serial rapist who murdered her college roommate, and the convict tells Yetta she was adopted. An embarrassing one-night stand with a rancher in Kalispell leads to an unplanned pregnancy* she debates keeping but decides to abort. Yetta regrets that decision, settles into her ranch, learns how to raise cattle and aims to start all over. Powerful last scene has Yetta at a nursing home where her Alzheimer’s-afflicted birth mother first mistakes Yetta for her nurse, then starts calling Yetta her daughter, unaware this stranger actually is the child she once gave up for adoption. Truly compelling character-driven female quest movie is worth considering, a star vehicle about a stranger in a strange land.

  unplanned pregnancy

  Libra Livingstone spent her whole life praying for her dad to die. Arthur Livingstone spent weeks praying for her abortion. Libra’s mother Yalda Frazee chucked a career as a top TV packaging agent at Omniscience to raise her love child in the Hollywood Hills with the head of motion picture talent who never gave his kid so much as a hug. Famished for affection, she maintained her size zero by taking up long-distance running along with years of bulimic purging. When her boobs got too big and Libra was taken out of high school for breast-reduction surgery, she remembered her dad calling her “selfish, selfish, selfish.”

  As an agent trainee at Omniscience/Ragnarök right out of Bennington, Libra lied to everyone about her last name, no one, not even the janitors, knew she was Arthur Livingstone’s kid. Libra dressed conservatively, never wore makeup, and enjoyed her anonymity as she rolled calls, floated on desks, and sorted envelopes in the mailroom. Interested in writing script coverage, Libra started making out with Larry Mersault at lunchtime in his office, which led to quickies on his couch while everyone attended the Wednesday morning staff meeting.

  (Late at the office, a janitor walked in on them 69-ing: Libra, lapping away, oblivious; tortuous orgasm flooding out of him; office door closing; Mersault glimpsing the janitor’s warty tail, no earlobes, not of this area code, a day player from a Thør Rosenthal movie.)

  Arthur Livingstone learned of their relationship and arranged for Libra to get a job elsewhere as a reader at Bellerophon Pictures, where she could pick up scripts, learn the ins and outs of the business, and avoid bringing shame onto the agency. When Benny Pantera invited the new girl to his latest production, Plasma Sluts, Libra had no idea the set visit would be the first time she did it for money. At a derelict warehouse in North Hollywood, Thør Rosenthal was so smitten with his ravishing visitor he cast Libra on the spot as a murdered hooker retrieved from a trash dumpster by a madman plastic surgeon utilizing body parts for his own twisted ambition. Libra refused to have her throat slit for free. Benny Pantera suggested she should jump into the makeup trailer for a hundred bucks before she jumped into the trash container; Libra haggled for five hundred; three Benjamins later, she was topless, covered in garbage, and ready for her close up.

  JITTERS

  Screenplay by P.T. Sparks

  Dark romantic comedy apes Pretty Woman without the humor, charm, and universal appeal. Unpleasant characters, bitchy dialogue, yet a tight structure keep things moving. Implausible tale has aspiring restauranteur Oscar falling for a black stripper on the eve of his loveless marriage to Sophia. Put on a subway train unconscious, wearing a ball gag, black leggings, and dressed in a negligee by his groomsmen, Oscar wakes up (no wallet, no memory how he got there) in a Bronx pigsty with the bachelor party stripper Rwanda, a heroin-addicted prostitute who agrees to help him get to his wedding for three thousand* bucks. After enduring a string of grim ordeals to get to the Plaza Hotel, instead of saying “I do” at the altar, Oscar follows his dream to open up a restaurant in California with Rwanda at his side. Premise of a guy falling for his bachelor party stripper is given an unexpectedly gritty flavor. However, the writing doesn’t sparkle and the story is mostly a flat line. Low point of the tale is when Rwanda prostitutes herself to pay for their plane tickets; at the wedding, she meets Oscar’s lecherous father-in-law and it turns out he’s the john who hired her. Call this one Runaway Groom.

  three thousand

  Three Thousand by J. F. Lawton was originally developed at now-defunct Vestron Pictures by cult filmmaker Donald Cammell (1934–1996) as a stark drama about a cocaine-addled streetwalker who gets paid $3,000 by a businessman to be his escort for a week. Disney acquired the script, called it Pretty Woman, hired Barbara Benedek to do a page one rewrite, and cast Julia Roberts as the most beloved whore of all time.

  EFFERVESSENCE

  Screenplay by Guido Valentin

  Beautiful, sexy, fractured tale of amour, more high-brow euro art film than anything else. Actors and audiences will likely be reminded of The English Patient. Gripping romance between Sugar, an ex-model turned clam diver who risks her life on a commercial fishing boat, and new boyfriend Charlie, handsome Brooklynite, an “oil consultant” held hostage by ISIS militants in Kurdistan, near death, unable to communicate with Sugar, who’s caught in a terrible storm that threatens to drown everyone on board. Engaging script has the two lovers dreaming of their first meeting at a motel in sweltering Abilene, Texas, followed by kinky sessions in bed; Sugar finds her true calling under the sea; ex-Mafia hitman Charlie joins the CIA to fight jihadists and ends up in captivity. Sugar survives her catastrophe but Charlie isn’t so lucky (it’s unclear if his rescuers arrive in time to save him). Last scene finds the two of them 69-ing* back in Abilene, hinting this might be Charlie’s final thought, or, more hopefully, a flash-forward to their reunion in the not-too-distant future. Best script so far this year.

  69-ing

  “Get dressed. We have to check out by noon.”

  “You got pretty wasted at the premiere last night,” says a butt-naked Libra, lounging on her belly in bed, surrounded by Four Seasons pillows, half-watching the surgical procedure butchering the star of MY 800 POUND LIFE on television.

  “How was Effervescence? I don’t remember any of it,” says Rodney, looking for his socks under the California King.

  “Why did you hire the guy who directed Stockholm Chill? The script was so much better.”

  “Benny owed a favor to Lester—what’s wrong? Did I say ‘I love you’ again? I’m sorry.”

  “Could you help me make rent this month? My dad’s not supporting me anymore.”

  “Your dad’s a pretty big deal in this town—”

  “You’re either with the terrorists or against them.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “I need two grand,” says Libra, biting her lower lip.

  “Will you take a check?”

  “Cash is safer.”

  “ATM limit is three hundred,” says Rodney.

  “Can you go into the bank today, please? Otherwise, I’m clucking in the henhouse.”

  “I’ll give you the dough tonight at Hama.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  BAD GRANDMA

  Screenplay by Danny Dortmund

  Not the sweetest romantic comedy, BAD GRANDMA crackles with blunt language, blunt sexual situations, blunt characters talk
ing about HPV, how to be rude to a clitoris, the friend zone, low self-esteem, and love/sex addiction. There’s an off-putting story here about Jake, a womanizer who cherishes his best friend’s grandmother who took his virginity in college. That grandmother Elaine has her own infatuation with a married obstetrician who’s been sleeping with her for thirty years because she’s still the best lay he’s ever had. When Jake and Elaine reconnect later in S.F. she’s planning her funeral and he’s worth millions after selling his company to Microsoft. When Elaine doesn’t wake up after a night of marathon sex, Jake realizes she was “the one” at her funeral. Script references Misery and Pretty Woman for a reason; fairy tales set in San Francisco where women cry at the opera sometimes end badly. Awkward script has explicit scenes of fisting, masturbation, and “romantic” kisses with your best friend’s grandmother. Audience may be limited.

  THINK STRAIGHT

  Pilot by Charlotte Jensen

  Compelling pilot establishes an intriguing character you want to follow but suffers slightly from rich white people disease. Lesbian therapist Janet loves her oncologist husband Paula, adores their young daughter Chloe, and enjoys a thriving shrink practice in Manhattan. After listening to patient Melissa complaining about her selfish ex-BF Jeremy and their matching π tattoos (she thinks 3.1415926 looks dumb on her neck yet cool on Jeremy), Janet becomes infatuated with a singer-songwriter at her coffee shop who flirts with her, she calls herself “Lola,” and the nameless guy invites her to his show. Janet suspects Paula’s new secretary Val is trouble and she’s right, with Val going down on Paula in the office elevator. Janet lies to Paula and journeys to the nightclub as “Lola” to hang out with the singer who turns out to have a π tattoo (!) on his neck. Their flirtation leads to an unprotected quickie in a bathroom stall and the pilot ends with Janet uncertain about her marriage, uncertain about Jeremy, and uncertain about her sexuality. As a series for Betsy Yarborough, think Mary Tyler Moore on steroids; a therapist in need of a therapist; plenty of uncharted psychological territory to explore week in, week out, through this compelling pursuit of a double life*.