Over dinner I asked Adam and Evelyn to give me a title. After Adam suggested ‘MS DOS: The Movie’ I thought I would never get a good one. Then the following question was asked, and afterwards I was told that it would be my title. Critics who throw the word around like it was candy could describe this film as “whimsical.”
Where’s the Spinach?
Farmer Tom Mallot wakes up one morning and heads out of bed. He walks past his ribbons and trophies for best spinach, best farm, and handsomest farmer in Ebbeton. He goes out onto the porch and finds a pie with a note with a heart from a local woman. He puts it in the fridge with a number of different pies with notes from different women. He stands on the porch looking out at his spinach field, admiring it.
He goes into town and everyone waves to him. He eats at the diner and people fight to sit at the counter next to him. He ignores the women of the town who hit on him. He sits laughing until we see a pretty red head walk by. He runs out and three other farmers offer to pay his tab. He chases the woman down. Her name is Jesse and Mallot is in love with her but she doesn’t seem impressed. She not a bitch or anything, just simple and doesn’t care for his flash. He’s a likable Gaston and she’s a less stuck up Belle.
She jokes about how much he loves his farm almost as much as he loves himself. He laughs it off and asks her out for the 100th time. She says no, she can’t be third place. He heads home and tends his field. Eats a small meal alone and goes to sleep. Camera pans down out the window into a rabbit emerging from a hole in the ground. Jesse calls and says she will go on ONE date with him.
Mallot wakes up the next morning and passes by his trophies down the stairs and out onto the porch to look at his field. All the spinach is gone. He screams and runs into the field. He looks ahead and sees a rabbit. He runs for it as it disappears underground. He turns and there is another one. Chases it as it disappears. He turns again and another, and another. He realizes the rabbits have surrounded him. He runs back into the house.
He goes into town to figure something out. Everyone looks at him differently as the talk goes around that he has lost his crop. He buys traps and weapons and heads home to wage war on the rabbits. Mishaps galore! He destroys his barn and his tractor. Jesse visits him to make sure he is ok after he missed the date and he seems crazy. She yells about how his spinach isn’t even there and she is still number 3.
She leaves and he goes nuts. He tries to attack the rabbits again and ends up destroying his house. He yells into the air and breaks down. The rabbits come up to him and lay on him. He begins to laugh, walks over to the ruined barn and grabs some tools and begins to rebuild.
We flash forward and he runs a rabbit farm. Selling them to pet stores and giving them to children’s hospitals for pets. Jesse shows up and he tells her that he loves her. That he was an idiot before and she’ll always be number one. They kiss.
Jump again and Mallot wakes up. He wakes past what was once the line of trophies and there are pictures of him and Jesse. He steps out onto the porch and stands ready to survey the field. He smiles and the camera turns to show her. He only looks at her, admiring only her.
MS DOS: The Movie would have been much, much better.