Fake Sequels

Saving Hollywood time out of the kindness of my heart.

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Fight Club 2: The Hunger

When we last saw Raymond K. Hessel, the hapless convenience store clerk tormented by a deranged Tyler Durden, he was sprinting down the street, chased by the threat of a bullet and the promise that the next meal he eats will be the finest he’s ever had.

And it was. 

Bodies react to stress in different ways.  Fear can induce vomiting in some; for a number, it’s sexual arousal. Still others feint away, choosing to abdicate awareness from whatever horrors may come. 

Raymond’s very being burned with an insatiable hunger as he sprinted up the street.  With each step the command reverberated:  Eat.  Eat everything.  Unused to strenuous activity, his body cried out for sustenance, and five minutes after the moonlit conversation with Tyler, he turned a corner to behold a 24 hour Chinese food storefront.  Stomach rumbling at a disturbing volume, he obliged, and entered.

With the third heaping of General Tso’s, he confronted the ultimatum bestowed at gunpoint.

“What is the one thing you want to be?” Tyler had asked.

“A veterinarian,” he had answered, sputtering. It seemed innocuous, even slightly altruistic.  

The only problem: it was a lie.

Raymond never wanted to be a veterinarian but he had been reading about one while hunched over the counter, before the armed lunatic burst through the doors and changed his life forever.  So he blurted it out, and now he’s tied to it. 

The second problem: he sucks at biology.

After consuming the remainder of the menu, Raymond staggers home realizing with each step that his life is now changed.  He was informed that if he does not chase this (arbitrarily decided) dream and become a veterinarian in six weeks, he will be dead.  He remains in bed for the first 24 hours of this enforced crossroads, wrestling with how best to pursue a new life as well while also resisting the urge to gorge. For that need is even then beginning to blot out the fear of leather clad, shaved headed death…the hunger.

Raymond awakens mid-bite from a blackout period of indeterminate time with the remains of a doughnut binge strewn around him.  Powder covering his face, he frantically searches for the date, terrified that his six week grace period has passed.  Using his expanding waist like rings of a tree, he gauges the time elapsed as no more than a week. 

He suffers a perilous run in with his former employers, the owners of the convenience store, when he literally bumps into them loitering at a butcher stall within their local market.  Crisis is averted when they don’t recognize his new, hefty frame, simply believing that some tubby stranger was shoving them out of the way for a fresh ham hock (he was).  Suddenly anonymous, he questions his next steps.

Raymond devotes the next two weeks attached to his laptop at the local Arby’s, absorbing fledgling internet pages devoted to animal physiology and subsisting off of a steady stream of Beef ‘n Cheddars.  Listless no longer, he begins to enjoy this new purposeful life of intake and consumption. 

Frightened by what he fears is a vengeful Tyler checking on him (it is really a panhandler draped in a leather throw rug), Raymond books a ticket to Lawrence, Kansas, seat of the premier veterinary school in the country.  He is now close to 300 lbs.

At the airport he confronts a twin dilemma:

Will he score high enough for admittance to his school of choice? He has, after all, just been memorizing the body parts of randomly selected animalia.

Will he be able to afford tuition AND the cost of servicing his burgeoning bulk?

The first act concludes with the flight attendant telling him, in tones heavy with concern, that his paunch will require purchase of two seats (cliffhanger?).

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Confidence

Me: Did you check out that new site I sent you?

My Brother: No.

Days later...

Me: So did you check it out?

My Brother: Yeah.

Me: Thoughts?

My Brother: Do you really think anyone will like or want those ideas?

YES.

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Godfather 4: Sins of the Grandfather

Michael Vito Fredo Santino Corleone hails from a lineage of proud Italiano-Americans.  Like his grandfather and semi-namesake, the protagonist before him, he suffers as only one with elevated intellect surrounded by philistines can: by shaking his head, muttering, and planning for the next disaster.

Michael has inherited both a surname and a dream: to make the family business legitimate.  A series of car washes and laundromats in New Jersey technically constitute an empire, but one with limited upside.  He longs to see Corleone emblazoned in something other than neon, printed in the business pages rather than the police blotter.

To that end he uses the surplus from the prostitutes and cocaine trade, conveniently embedded within the aforementioned businesses, to finance a back room stem cell research operation in Paterson, NJ.  Burdened by vociferously doubtful constituents within his family and his Family, with profits dwindling,  Mikey needs a breakthrough.

Enter Bart Corleone.  Hailing from an equally proud yet ignominious lineage of illegitimate Corleones, Bart possesses the charming smile and killer instinct of his forefathers.  Caked in blood from a hit, he returns to his apartment in Bayonne one evening  with some takeout capiccola, only to find that his pothead roommate, Phil, has passed out on the couch watching Breaking Bad.  To make matters worse, the remote is lost!  Bart is put off by the unfamiliar topography and scientific vernacular of the program at first, but unable to turn the channel, he forcibly acclimates to the misadventures of Walt and Jesse.  By the time Phil wakes up, Bart is enraptured.  Capiccola consumed, he calls up his cousin Michael.

“What now?”

“Cuz, I’ve got it.”

Mike has been reviewing financials.  His Hugo Boss suit is rumpled.  One cuff link is missing, gone.  He has no time for his idiot cousin.

“What have you got Bart?”

 “Meth!”

“Congratulations, you’ve admitted to a felony.”

“No cuz.”  Bart is laughing now while Phil sits terrified on the couch.  Sober for the first time in months, he recognizes that it is not marinara staining his roommate’s hands.  “We sell it!”

The laboratory in Paterson is split by a sheet.  Employees work in double shifts, cooking meth and exploring genome manipulation, while Bart charts lines of distribution and Mike brushes up on his Excel proficiency. 

Familial bonds will be tested when one inquisitive lab tech notices a desperate tweaker staggering around the parking lot.  Will he go to the Feds?  Will Bart verify his legitimacy after finding Phil’s laptop open to Ancestry.com? Will Michael legitimize the business, be forced to murder his shareholders, or pursue a long dormant passion, and enroll at University of Phoenix?

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The Shawshank Redemption 2: False Gold

We begin where we left off: two men reunited on a white sand beach in Mexico.  Their shared experience and cerebral attenuation makes verbal communication almost unnecessary.  Andy and Red are comfortable in the silences.

They frequent a local hardware store for nautical supplies and befriend the owner. They call him “Amigo,” the only word actually uttered during their visits.  Familiar with their connection, the proprietor goes along with it.

Conversing by simple gesture and grunt, the two men construct a seafaring vessel within three months.  They cook crabs for dinner and sleep under the stars.   It seems ideal, a volunteer, cathartic task.  However, Red senses darker motives at work.  There is something seething beneath the stillness within his dear friend.

One cold evening he awakens to find Andy gone. Suspicious and afraid, he wanders down shore, where he encounters a silhouette pacing stark naked in the moonlight.  Trailing this wild man, he discovers a cave adorned with hand paintings.  There is just enough moonlight to reveal the face of Rita Hayworth, painted in coal.

A brusque cough forces Red to whirl.  He’s past his prime, he’s repentant…but he’s not going down without a fight.  The figure detaches from the shadows: it’s Andy.

“Do you think we are here by accident?” he snarls.

A drunken bonfire conversation ensues, where Red risks all by demanding information from his friend. 

“I thought you were serene! Good ol’ Andy, wading through shit and having none of it stick? You’re free!”

With a sad shake of his head, Andy admits to being haunted by his swim through shit.  “The only thing that kept me afloat was the promise of what lies beyond this beach.”

Their reunion was part of a larger plan.  During a chance encounter in the prison library, Andy had overheard talk of a galleon sunken off the shore of Zihuatanejo.  The speaker, a new inmate, was summarily abused, but not before professing the truth of his claim, with the additional detail that the ship was overflowing with vast stores of bullion.  Verified through the same whisper channels that proved his own innocence, Andy committed to finding this prize.

“But why?” Red presses.  “It’s false gold. A fairytale.”

Andy simply stares at the cave paintings, now becoming more visible with the dawn.  Red follows his gaze and gasps.  Illuminated, the cave depicts a tapestry of disembodied heads, wrought in exquisite detail, staring back at them.  It is everyone from the first film.

“I haven’t told you the whole story,” he says.

What haunted past will be dredged up far from shore? What dark harbors lay in the offing of their future?

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The Origin Story

During the course of excavating a folder of old writing, I came across a handwritten submission of my first movie review.  It was a joint venture with my friend Greg, created when we were 13, and submitted to the school newspaper, which was printed biannually.  Why I did not retain the actual publication escapes me, but it may have had to do with most copies being crumpled upon delivery, and promptly used as projectiles during first period.

It was primarily composed of vague pronouncements, hyperbole, regurgitation of promotional text and repetition of the title.

The teacher loved it.

In case you can't decipher the handwriting, it goes:

The River Wild

A cinematic achievement!

Those of you seeking the roller coaster ride of a lifetime, look no further than THE RIVER WILD. A family out on a regular vacation encounters danger when they run into convicts on the loose near the river.  Threatened by bad guys, unsure of their safety, is Meryl Streep willing to risk everything to protect the ones she loves?

Have you ever gone into the wild, felt a twig break, and spun around uncertain of the cause? This movie had moments like that at least every few minutes.  The reviewers had their hands in fists they were so nervous at times.  THE RIVER WILD is a perfect getaway from the stress of school or work.

Treat yourself!

Dive into the murky depths of THE RIVER WILD for a thrilling adventure the whole family can enjoy. Tense worry will keep you on the edge of your seat for the full running time! Don’t drink too much or you’ll miss the tensest parts of…THE RIVER WILD. 

Great performances by the father, family, and Meryl Streep. The villains were threatening and believable as well.  A+

It would make a great ride during the summer as well.

Love the self serving last line suggesting a tie in for Disney.  I full expected to visit Orlando, get on a River Wild themed ride and have a check bestowed for inspiration upon disembarking. 

Pretty bland and entirely undeserving of any distinction whatsoever.  However it did spawn a follow up review, which turned out to be our final contribution to the school paper. 

 Emboldened and perhaps bristling at the undeserved praise lavished by our teacher (we were lauded for simply completing a full page in 20 minutes rather than actual quality), Greg and I attempted an act of subversion that involved sketching our next review amidst a giggling fit while said teacher had removed herself for an extended bathroom break. It was decidedly sophomoric; again, we were 13.

We delivered the submission to her desk as anonymously as two adolescents desperately trying to stifle laughter could possibly hope to, and then we waited.

Again, for those that dislike pencils:

Jurassic Park or...Jurassic Puke?

JURASSIC PARK is a new film by Spielberg that asks the age old question: What if dinosaurs existed in present day?  That’s what the old guy who owns an island wanted to discover when he hired some paleontologists, scientists, and a wisecracking genius and tried to make a vacation park. It was a great idea, obviously. Who doesn’t want to see a T-Rex?

Things quickly go downhill for our heroes when there is a security breach and a super smart dinosaur named Herman breaks into a cage where the power source is. He chews on some cables, releasing the rest of his friends into the park. It is a free for all!

The dinosaurs are of a wide variety, but all of them have cool weaponry. The most effective of the skinny, kind of wussy ones (a Galimimus) was its spew.  Basically it barfed all over the enemy, which were people.  That’s how the fat guy is killed, in a scary scene.

The T Rex is pretty awesome, and it eats a few people, but that is expected. Its best attack was to leave large piles of dino dung after eating somebody. This dung then was a trap for other people on the island because it was like lava and if you stepped in it you died.

Great film, but unlike the book (we read it).  A+

A few observations: 

I have no idea why we traveled back through time to review Jurassic Park, which was released a year earlier.  It must have coincided with a weekend rental from Blockbuster, or perhaps it was symbolic.  All films were within our purview, unconstrained by date of box office release.

We apparently thought direct address of the reader was an appropriate tactic for engagement.  There is a decisive break from the actual narrative early on, with the introduction of “Herman,” a mentally enhanced dinosaur mastermind responsible for the tribulations wrought upon the cast, and clearly fictional.  I remember Greg spending most of our next period drawing Herman, but sadly, none of those depictions survive today.  He had a space helmet, of that I’m certain. 

Despite our criticism, it still got an A+.

Needless to say, our teacher was not amused.  Her lips stiffened as she scanned the page, concluding with an audible expression of disgust.  We were called forth to receive a chastisement so unremarkable that I retain none of the details other than a vague pronouncement about standards, Greg failing to suppress an impish smile, and the inevitable revocation of our roles as movie reviewers.  It had been an official tenure of two weeks.

I find this interesting in retrospect because it was that mild act of unnecessary censorship that spurred my infatuation with film.  This experimental flight of fancy, the conjuring of Herman, was the first venture down an unexplored path that ran (and still runs) concurrent to the established narrative.  No sooner do I sit to enjoy a film than I begin creating my own endings.

Most of them are free of dino dung.