Author Archives: russ

Dec 23 2016
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Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday Vol. 2: Fight Christmas

Extended prologue

The story takes place in a small Cleveland, Ohio town.  Assume all the stranger things kids are in this.  Long story short, but Santa Claus, played by a scenery chewing Mark Strong, tired of kids being naughty and wasting all of the gifts his elves make, decides to take Christmas into his own hands.  He, along with his elves and raindeer, decide to leave the South Pole and occupy Cleveland.  This santa seems angrier than most, but the people of cleveland, still in a Cavaliers induced championship hangover, welcome santa with open arms.  They feel as though their city is finally getting it’s due.  However, once Santa gets to Cleveland, he gets out his ray gun, and shoots Lebron James’ kid straight in the face, killing him instantly.  Lebron, noticeably upset charges at Santa screaming “WHYYYYY?!?!?”  Santa cooly replies, “He was on the naughty list.”

Title card: FIGHT CHRISTMAS in 3D

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Dec 09 2016
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Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday Vol. 2: #DeadAF

Working in a high school means a LOT of my movies will take place in one now…

#DeadAF

This is a teen slasher much like the slashers of the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer vein.

We open on a packed high school football game.  Wellington High is losing to rival Regency South by a score of 20-14.  There are 10 seconds left in the game, when star Quarterback Jeff Worthy, decides to audible the play and instead of passing the ball to a wide open Leon, the best receiver, he scrambles on a broken play and runs the ball upfield before being tackled at the 1 yard line.  Wellington loses.  The crowd boos heavily.  After the game, Jeff’s teammates are giving him shit for losing the game for them and he says, at least he tried…Shortly thereafter, Jeff is in the shower still after the game and hears his phone go off.  He gets out of the shower to check the message,  and it’s from twitter.  The name is @redacted and the message is, “Tonight, you’re gonna be #DeadAF”  He laughs it off and starts changing. He hears a tap on one of the lockers, when he goes to investigate, he hears it at a locker on the other side of the locker room.  This goes on once or twice, and Jeff says “haha very funny, cut it out.” Right at that point, our killer, wearing all black and a Heath Ledgers, Joker Mask jumps out and stabs Jeff in the face repeatedly.  He then takes a picture of Jeff’s mangled face and posts it to Jeff’s instagram.  The caption is “I’m #DeadAF”

TITLE CARD.

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Dec 02 2016
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Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday Vol. 2: Rex and the City

If this doesn’t make sense, I wrote it in and out of sleep last night.

We open a nerdyish boy and girl (both 15) on a class field trip heading the Queens Museum of Science.  As they sit on the bus, other high school students are making fun of them calling them typical high school insults.  The Earth Science teacher, Mr. Warren, played doofishly by David Arquette tells the other kids to leave Ben and Milla alone. Ben and Milla are our nerds and we can assume they are played by any combination of the Stranger Things kids, I don’t really care.

Anyway, the class gets to the Museum and Mr. Warren tells them they have 2 hours to explore the museum, but not leave or get lost.  The rest of the kids seem mostly disinterested in the museum as a whole, but Ben and Milla really love it.  They spend their day exploring all of the different areas of the museum until they come across one part of the museum that explicitly states “no trespassing”  Milla, who always seems to goad Ben tells them they should sneak a peek inside. Ben, the more reserved one, says they shouldn’t but Milla wears him down.  When they peak in, they see what looks to be a space ship in an below-ground hangar.  They cautiously approach the door of the spaceship, which is glowing bright red, and as soon as Ben puts his hand on the door, it flies open and a giant creature flies out.  For dramatic effect, the lights in the room flicker off and on, and Ben and Milla look ahead as a Tyrannosaurus Rex stares right back at them and says, “Thank you”  Ben and Milla both go “WHAT?!?!?” and they pass out simultaneously.  SMASH CUT to the title card REX and the CITY

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Nov 18 2016
Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday Vol 2: The Tuscan Milf

We open on a digitally aged-down Sophia Loren, playing Vincenza, a very beautiful woman.  She is a single mother in her early 40s in the 1970’s.  She has two small children, a boy and girl and she lives a very hardscrabble life as a baker’s apprentice in a small village in the Tuscan province of Italy.  She barely makes enough money to survive.  That is until she meets Donnatella DeDonnalo, The Tuscan Milf. Donnatella tells  Vincenza, that she could live a much different life if she’d like to.  Donnatella is getting too old to continue on as the Milf of Tuscany, to which Vincenza asks “what is the milf of tuscany?” Donnatella tells her, “you have NO idea.”  We cut to a title card.

(We cut to 40 years later) Continue reading →

May 08 2013
Movie Movie News

C’mon Marvel: Pay Up!

We are living in a post Iron Man 3 world, which only means that Marvel’s Phase 2 is upon us.  With Thor 2 out later this year, Captain America out in less than a year and Guardians of the Galaxy a little over a year away, it is time for Marvel to start thinking Avengers 2.  This movie will be bigger than big as evidenced from the box office of the first film and Iron Man 3 this past weekend, but a slight problem is brewing on the horizon.  The actors don’t want to work for peanuts again.  Basically if you decide to act in a film for Marvel you are working for a few hundred thousand dollars, and you will be signed to a multi-picture deal.  Smart move on Marvel’s end.  They get the actors they want locked in long enough so that they can retain consistency throughout their cross-over films.   The only re-casting so far has been Terrence Howard swapped out for Don Cheadle.  Terrence asked for too much money to come back for a sequel, so they booted him.  Also The Hulk has been recast three separate times.  I don’t count it as a recasting for money purposes however.  They wanted someone who worked better in an ensemble capacity.  Ed Norton does not command a large paycheck, but he LOVES having script control. Enter Mark Ruffalo

Right now, Marvel’s biggest problem is that Robert Downey Jr is out of contract.  Iron Man 3 was the last film he was contractually obligated to make, and he was the only one who ever got paid what he was worth.  There has been talk that Iron Man can be replaced with a different actor, but would Marvel REALLY want to test those waters?  Iron Man’s success and Downey’s portrayal is what ties the Avengers films together.  Without him, you have a problem.  So now Marvel has to renegotiate with Downey Jr., but he’s also planning on playing hardball for the rest of the heroes.  Chris Hemsworth and Scarlet Johannson are both said to be chapped over their awful contracts in their previous films and no longer want to work for nothing for a film that will make over one billion dollars.  Neither currently has a contract for Avengers 2, and rumor has it that Marvel would consider either getting other actors or just inserting other characters if need be to replace them.  I get that on paper.  Comics are a revolving door of characters.  They come in and out with little explanation, because certain writers like certain characters.  Thus the absence of any character could be explained away in two seconds: “Oh Thor, he’s up in Asgard protecting the realm.”  See? It’s that easy.  There is already talk of including Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther, and Iron Patriot in the next film.  All really cool characters yes, but not at the expense of the ones we already have.

My advice to Marvel: Just pay up already.  You were fortunate enough to make an awful lot of money, without having to pay much for the work, but in doing that, you built careers.  Chris Hemsworth IS Thor.  That and women, namely my girlfriend love him.  Don’t upset the apple cart so early.   No, I am not saying that you’ll have to pay them Downey Jr. money ($50 million), but a decent salary, or a backend of the gross would be fair.  With a backend you can worry about paying them after the movie has cleaned up at the box office.  The films are universally beloved, and make you more money than you ever had as a company simply printing comic books.  The frugal nature of Marvel, and Disney for that matter with actors has allowed them to make some great movies, but when the only people getting paid are Johnny Depp, and Robert Downey Jr.  that is a problem.  If this contract dispute becomes more public than it already has, it will not go well for Marvel and Disney.  I, like many other comic book film fans, want to see as many of the characters I’ve grown up with on screen as possible.  Not less.  If I find out Thor isn’t in Avengers 2 because he couldn’t get one million dollars, I’ll lose my ever-loving mind.

 

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Mar 27 2013
Movie Movie Trailers

The Wolverine Trailer

It looks ok, but when you compare it to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it looks oscar worthy, so theres that…

See for yourself!

Mar 20 2013
Movie Movie News

Reboot-o-Tron, Set A Course For Pete’s Dragon

So Disney seems to be perfectly content a mandate of no new original content, or “if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!” because now they seem intent on remaking the old 70’s kid flick Pete’s Dragon.  Most people probably don’t even remember it, but I do.  I grew up spending a lot of weekends with my grandparents and I’d almost always watch Pete’s Dragon.  It was a hybrid live-action/animated film about an abused kid (by Disney standards) who had an “Imaginary” dragon named Elliot.  No one else could see him, but they’d have adventures and hijinks and stuff in a coastal town in New England.  Theres also a ton of hillbillies.   It’s a fun, simple movie that all kids will like.

Here is where I get worried.  Disney only makes a few movies a year, and none of them have budgets below $150 Million.  They are going to turn Pete’s Dragon into a franchise and Narnia or Alice it.  It’ll likely be epic in scale, have little comedy and probably have some sort of prophecy involved.  It seems we forgot kids are relatively easy to amuse.  They don’t need wild effects budgets and swirling Hobbit-level adventures.  Sometimes keeping it smaller in scale works better for their little brains and isn’t boring or expository.  Look at those Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies for example.  They cost nothing, but make a lot and are only for kids.  Why can’t Disney use that model sometimes, albeit on a larger scale?  The only effect needs to be the cartoon Dragon.  Let everything else be bumbling old people and Pete.

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Mar 08 2013
2 Comments
Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday – Holy Water

This film will be some actor’s directorial debut and it will be controversial, but more than that, it wont be good.  It will be about the church.

Holy Water.

We open on a man and woman having graphic sex in a confessional booth. You already know the type of movie you are for.  Father Leary is new to the priesthood, but hasn’t taken his vows seriously.  He’s a hotshot young priest in 1970’s boston.  He’s a die-hard Celtics/Sox/Bruins fan and smokes cigarettes regularly.  A monologue of Father Leary giving an impassioned sermon begins as scenes begin to unfold showing Leary gambling, fornicating with women in teh confessional booth, and taking money from the collection.  We see he takes the collection money and buys himself a pack of cigarettes.  As he leaves, he sees a homeless person and tosses him $10 bucks, saying keep the change.

The next scene is Leary at home with his family.  He comes from a family of criminals and deviants, and he’s considered the one who got out.  All of his brothers are scumbags, and his father is in jail.  His mother is tough (think Melissa Leo in The Fighter).  His mother asks him when is he gonna quit with the priesthood and give her a grandchild.  All the other kids will be lucky to find a woman much-less have a child with one.  He says his life belongs to th lord.  You can tell she sees right through what he’s saying.

The Cardinal of Boston comes to Leary’s church one day right after Leary finishes having sex with some sad housewife.  Imagine he’s played by Brendan Gleeson.  He tells Leary that the other priest think he’s a joke, and if he doesn’t get himself together he’s going to be excommunicated. Leary tells him to go fuck himself.  That he’s been working in the highest crime district in the nation.  That trying to save these souls is pointless.  That what the church claims to defend is pointless.  He’s got an early oscarbait moment where he tells the Cardinal he knows about what happened to those boys last summer.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist.  If he loses his priesthood, he’ll blow the whole situation out of the water.  The Cardinal tells him to be careful about his threats.  Leary tells the Cardinal the same and he leaves.

Later that evening after some more carousing, he goes to buy a pack of smokes and sees that same homeless person from a day ago.  He notices the person looks familar and realizes its one of the same kids that was molested a year back.  He tells the kid, named Charlie, he’s not like the other priests who gang-molested him.  He’s into women.  Leary brings Charlie back to his home.  Here Charlie tells him that after it happened, no one would believe him and his extremely devout parents kicked him out on the street.  He’s been there ever since.  All he ever wanted to do was be a good altar boy, and he was, until it all went bad.  Leary tells him he can stay until he gets himself together.  Charlie asks Leary to help tell his story.  Leary tells him he can’t, he’ll lose everything if he does (somehow). Charlie accepts this momentarily.

As the movie continues we see that Charlie’s influence around Leary starts to turn him into a better person.  He begins only having sex with one  woman and he realizes he might love her.  During a sermon one day he says he loves someone above all else, and right as the congregation says “Jesus” he says “Mary” and he says she’s made him a better person, Charlie’s made him a better person, and sure God has helped too, but what he’s learned is that sometimes god doesn’t answer prayers.  He goes into explaining how Charlie was molested and how the church did nothing.  How they failed him.  How he failed him.  Of course the Cardinal was at this service and begins casting Leary out as a heretic, but he says it’s all true, and that’s why he’s stepping down.

The next scene we see Charlie and Leary have pooled their resources and opened a home for boys and Leary is no longer a priest, but married to Mary.   Charlie asks Leary one night, if he regrets what he did (a flashback of all the sex and weird stuff Leary used to do quickly comes across the screen) and Leary, a bit older now says, “Do I regret it?”

End.

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Mar 01 2013
Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday – Dead Baby Jokes

I’m already sorry about this one.  This is a really awful idea and I can’t shake it, so i’m just going to write it away.

Dead Baby Jokes

We open on a cop running into a circus.  He’s obviously in a rush, but when he gets backstage of the circus he’s too late.  He sees a dead baby dressed up like a clown.  He was too late to save the baby and the serial killer got away.  At this point the title card plays. 

We cut to 5 years later

Detective Hanson, the cop from earlier, has retired.  After chasing Baby Jokes all over Seattle for a summer, he’s seen enough of the horror, the mayhem, the dead babies.  He decides to become a private security consultant instead.  It’s easier hours and less stress.  One day while on the job he gets a call from his old captain, telling him that Baby Jokes has struck again, and this time he asked from Hanson directly.  Hanson refuses, says he’s out of that life, but the captain asks him how many babies can he leave on his conscience? 5, 10, 50?  At this point there is a really tasteless flashback of other dead babies and Hanson decides to come back to the force.  Only this time he wants a partner.  The captain pairs Hanson up with Aaron McCordy, a younger, but seasoned detective.  McCordy looks up to Hanson as somewhat of a criminal profiling genius, so they get along well.  When they get to kennel, they see a dead baby.  It was obviously the joke “How do you know when a baby is a dead baby? the dog plays with it more”

Both Hanson and McCordy figure that one out really fast, but while on the scene, Baby Jokes leaves another half joke in one of the cages.  It reads “What do you call a dead baby with no arms or legs hanging on your wall?”  After giving it some thought they realize the answer is art.  In some Fincher style quick editing, we see Hanson and McCordy on the phone telling the station to get them a list of every gallery and museum in Seattle.  They get the list and gamble on what location to go to and because it’s a movie they get there just in time to see someone running away from the Seattle Museum of Art.  McCordy chases after him and Hanson frantically searches the museum to find a hopefully living baby.  He doesn’t the baby is dead and McCordy comes back having not been able to catch the potential killer.  Hanson takes out his flask and starts drinking again.  This is what made him unravel so many years ago.  As usual there is another clue from Baby Jokes.  This time he says it’s his last clue.  Hanson says it’s just like last time.  He does a few regular baby killings before a grand spectacle final killing.  The joke reads “what’s worse than a dead baby in a trashcan?”  Right here Hanson realizes Baby Jokes is going to stage a mass execution.  He just doesn’t know where he’ll get all the babies from.  McCordy suggests an orphanage or hospital, so they split up and go to both.  At the Orphanage, Hanson sees the staff very despondent. They tell that all the babies have been kidnapped.  Hanson says he’s going to save them, he just needs to realize what will be the “trashcan.”  Here we realize the answer is multipart.  100 dead babies is the answer, but what’s worse than that is that the one at the bottom is alive, and he has to eat his way to the top (metaphorically).  Hanson calls McCordy, but he doesn’t answer, he leaves a message saying that he thinks Baby Jokes is going to strike at the Seattle landfill.  And drives there really fast.

When he gets there, he sees McCordy is already there.  He asks how he got there so soon? He says he had the same hunch.  Anyway they go to this giant pit of babies, none of which have been killed yet.  There is a giant demolition ball hanging above the baby pit.  Hanson says that have to move the ball and save the kids,  they are ahead of Baby Jokes this time.  Only McCordy shoots Hanson right in the leg and says they aren’t.  Now it becomes clear that McCordy was baby jokes all along (theres flashbacks that help it make more sense).  McCordy goes into a long story about how he was given up for adoption, and had a tough life etc etc.  When he was a teen and old enough to meet his parents, they had a young baby at the time.  He confronted them and they said they were too young to make a mistake.  A MISTAKE! He apparently thought this was a good enough reason to kill babies all the time.  Hanson calls him sick and twisted and McCordy agrees, but now with Hanson out of the way, he can kill all the babies. Hanson despite being shot in the leg gets up and charges at McCordy.  They both fall and ground scuffle.  McCordy beats him up pretty bad and says he wants to keep him alive to witness his greatest failure.  He gets into the demolition ball cockpit thing and begins lowering to ball slowly.  The babies are crying like they know they’re gonna die but at the last minute Hanson tackles McCordy and the entire demo ball machine topples over.  Hanson starts gun butting McCordy until there isn’t even a head left to gun but.  He kills McCordy and calls the entire police force to get the babies out of the pit.  The captain comes to the scene and asks what happened.  Hanson just says, “I quit.”  It rains. 

Movie Over.

I’m so sorry everyone.

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Feb 22 2013
Fake Movie Friday

Fake Movie Friday – Good Cop, Dad Cop

It’s been a very long time since I’ve writted a Fake Movie because I’ve been incredibly busy, but I promise to get these out more regularly.

Anyway…

Good Cop, Dad Cop

Jake Hart is a newly minted detective in the NYPD.  He’s brought down some of the largest gangs in New York while working on the task force.  He’s good at what he does, and he does it by the book.  Police chief Raines likes him so much that he tells him as good as he is on the gang task force, he’d like to see him where he could more, and that’s on the drug enforcement force.  Jake is very hesitant to take the position.  He thinks he’s better served where he is, but then the chief tells him there hasn’t been a cop on the force assigned to drugs this young ever, except for FLINT HARTMAN 20 years ago.  (the screen jump cuts to Flint Harman, chomping on a cigar, blowing away bad guys left and right before ever getting any information from them, whilst laughing).  The chief says, “you should hope to be half the man Flint Hartman is.” Jake says, “I don’t have to, because I am.”

TITLE CARD: GOOD COP, DAD COP and the movie starts.

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