Wednesday, October 30, 1996

Woody Allen's "Crash"


INT, NEUTRAL STAGE SET
Woody Allen addresses the camera ...
WOODY: How's it going? I hope you enjoyed the banjo music and my signature use of the Windsor font in the title sequence. Before we start, I'd like to apologize to all you David Cronenberg fans. Uh ... Apparently he had some problems with the Canadian tax people and asked me to finish this picture for him. It's based on a novel about sex and car crashes by that kid in the Steven Spielberg movie who got bad advice from John Malcovich in a Japanese prison camp and grew up to be a writer. His name is James Ballard and that's the name of my character. It's "James" in the script but I changed it to "Jimmy." I like vowels. Other than that, I tried to stay true to Mr. Cronenberg's vision. I mean, I put my personal stamp on it, come on. Strictly speaking, the picture hasn't started yet. OK, now we're starting. One, two, three ...
Go to black --
Fade in on JIMMY against the same neutral background.
JIMMY: A relationship is an example of chaos theory in action. This one started by accident. I’d say "literally," but the expression is overused and often used incorrectly.
EXT, CAR DRIVING DOWN ROAD – NIGHT
Tracking shot; side view of JIMMY driving a car. A BMW.
JIMMY: This is a German car. I should know better.
A car crashes into him, head on. The unseatbelted driver, a man, flies through the windshield, turning into so much human pizza on the crumpled hood of JIMMY’s car. The passenger, a woman, exposes her breast. JIMMY sees her through the windshield. They lock eyes.
JIMMY: (to her) Ah, displacement activity. Freud explained it succinctly in “Civilization and its Discontents.” Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very nice breast. A very, very nice breast. I’m sure the other one is too. I’d reciprocate but I appear to be somewhat pinned.
HELEN: La-di-da. Are you hurt?
JIMMY: (looks down) Well. I am experiencing some significant swelling. (looks at body on hood) Ohmigod, is that James Spader?
INT, HOSPITAL ROOM
JIMMY's in a hospital bed, casts on both arms and both legs, and trussed up with pulleys like a Thanksgiving turkey.
JIMMY: Jesus. How am I going to pay for this?
HELEN: It's Canada, stupid.
He sees her standing there. Dressed in a white lab coat.
JIMMY: Thank God. (beat) What are you doing here?
HELEN: I'm a doctor. Your doctor.
JIMMY: Jesus, my doctor? You?
HELEN: La-di-da.
JIMMY: Jesus, I can't believe it. Look at you! Not even a scratch. I look like I’m auditioning for a Dalton Trumbo movie.
HELEN: How are you feeling?
JIMMY: Well, considering the fact they've pumped enough Morphine in my system to make Allen Ginsberg join the Republican party, pretty good.
HELEN: You look good.
JIMMY: I'm wounded.
HELEN: (stroking his hair) I like that in a man.
EXT, SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF HOSPITAL - DAY
JIMMY, bandaged up and in crutches, is hobbling along next to TONY ROBERTS who’s jogging along in a jogging suit.
JIMMY: You're the actor, right? Not the self-help guru with the freakishly enormous jaw?
TONY: I'm the actor, Jimmy. The actor. What's this all about?
JIMMY: I’m in trouble, Tony. My life is starting to resemble one of those horrible driver’s ed movies with a porno subtext. “Sex on the Highway” is apparently the title.
TONY: What are you talking about?
JIMMY: I met a girl. Strictly speaking, a woman. She has two X chromosomes and a driver’s license.
TONY: That’s great.
JIMMY: No, it isn’t. I met her under extremely unusual circumstances. In terms of understatement, that’s on the level of saying Hitler had an anger management problem.
TONY: Where’d you meet her?
JIMMY: In a car –
TONY: Well that’s normal. Christ, Jimmy. That's all-American!
JIMMY: A car crash. We ran into each other in the Newtonian sense. And then she exposed her breast.
TONY: OK, that’s not normal.
JIMMY: You’re telling me. (snorts) I had an erection the size of a Buick. When does that happen?
TONY: Well, there was that embarrassing incident at the Shirley Temple film festival.
JIMMY: You want to know something? She likes my .. there’s has to be a nice way to put it…accoutrements of recuperation.
TONY: Uh… your wounds? Your casts?
JIMMY: Don’t forget the sutures. She thinks they’re erotic.
TONY: Stay away from her, Jimmy. She’s bad news.
JIMMY: Yeah, well. No news is good news. No sex is bad sex. Let me tell you something. Despite the limitations of the hospital environment, she is very good news. Anyway, she’s a doctor. My mother would be thrilled.
TONY: She’s sick, Jimmy.
JIMMY: Sick. (snorts) Sick? That's a value judgement. It happens to be right, but ... It’s completely understandable. If she’d pursued a career in accounting, her juices would start flowing at the sight of The Wall Street Journal. She deals in blood and tissue, naturally her erotic fixation attaches to car crashes.
TONY: Come on, Jimmy. There’s nothing erotic about car crashes.
A car runs him over.
JIMMY: You’re right. That wasn’t particularly erotic. Hey, you're lucky this isn’t a Cronenberg movie. You could turn into a fly or an evil gynecologist or something. Your death could take hours. His directorial style is essentially a two-hour gross out session.
CRONENBERG: Oh really? (O.S.)
David Cronenberg walks into the scene.
JIMMY: Christ, it’s director David Cronenberg.
CRONENBERG: I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work!
JIMMY: Jesus, what are the odds? Hey, I can’t even watch my own movies. I’d love to stay and talk, but I’m late for a meeting.
HELEN walks into scene.
CRONENBERG: With her?
JIMMY: With ... (turns around, sees her) Yeah, with her. Christ, where are my manners. Helen, David. David, Helen.
HELEN: La-di-da.
She exposes her breast.
JIMMY: I’ll drive.
INT, CULT MEETING
Various wounded loonies sitting around in metal folding chairs. There's donuts and coffee.
VAUGHAN (played by Christopher Walken) welcomes JIMMY.
VAUGHAN: Welcome to our cult, Jimmy. Or may I call you James?
JIMMY: No. (to the group) Hi. My name is Jimmy Ballard and I'm an alcoholic.
VAUGHAN: Wrong meeting, asshole. We believe in auto-eroticism.
JIMMY: That’s hilarious. I suppose I should buckle my seat belt. There’s a bumpy road of comedy ahead.
VAUGHAN: Whatever, cupcake. Here, our lives revolve around two things. Violent car crashes and old Jean-Luc Goddard movies.
JIMMY: Which is more painful?
VAUGHAN: We’re still trying to decide.
JIMMY: Artistically, I have the same problem.
VAUGHAN: You’re an artist, huh?
JIMMY: Well ... Failed. Hack. But yeah.
VAUGHAN: Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist, I think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving... on the road at night... I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The... flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.
JIMMY: This is all vaguely familiar. (to HELEN) What do you think?
HELEN exposes her breast.
VAUGHAN: I find your woman strangely alluring.
JIMMY: We're leaving.
INT, CAR - NIGHT
Two-shot JIMMY and HELEN in car. He's driving.
HELEN: We need to take our relationship to the next level.
JIMMY: The next level? Relationships have levels?
HELEN: That’s what Vaughan says.
JIMMY: That’s what …If Vaughan said drive over a cliff would you ... Forget I asked.
HELEN: La-di-da. Can I drive?
JIMMY: No.
HELEN: If you loved me, you’d let me drive.
JIMMY: Love is unconditional, sweetheart. (to us) Let’s see her get out of that one.
Jump cut to --
INT, CAR - NIGHT
Two-shot JIMMY and HELEN in car.
HELEN is driving. Calm at first. Then she floors it and spins the steering wheel madly.
The car careens down the road.
JIMMY Ten o’clock and two o’clock! Ten o’clock and two o’clock!
The car slams through the railing of a freeway, flies through the air, crashes into an Aquarium and pins a large marine predator. Glass shatters. Water floods. People run screaming. JIMMY and HELEN sit there, contemplating the moment.
JIMMY: What we have here is a dead shark.
HELEN exposes her breast.
JIMMY: Jesus, always the left one.


Sunday, October 27, 1996

Pirate support groups



INT, CRAPPY MEETING HALL - DAY
We see a bunch of pirates sitting in a circle of metal folding chairs. BLACKBEARD is the leader.


BLACKBEARD: Yar. This here pirate support-group meeting be called to order. Feel free to share.

SMEE: I'm a bloody pirate. Sharing ain't me nature.

BLACKBEARD: Not yer gold, matey. Yer feelings. Spill yer guts.

Stabs him in the gut with a sword.


SMEE: Ya mean ... what's inside me?

BLACKBEARD: Yar. Until this moment.

SMEE: Yar. I'm sexually attracted to ...

He collapses in a pool of his own entrails.


BLACKBEARD: Guess we'll never know. Who be next?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Yar. (draws sword) I warn't born yesterday.

BLACKBEARD: Share or be damned to ye!

LONG JOHN SILVER: Ye first.

BLACKBEARD: What be on yer heart?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Oy have no heart!

BLACKBEARD: Sure. But what de ye love, matey?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Gold. (smiles a gold-toothed grin)

PIRATES: Aye, gold, aye, aye.

CAPTAIN MORGAN: Rum.

BLACKBEARD: Sure. We all love gold, matey. Thar be general agreement on that score. What be the problem, then? (smirks) Ye ain't got it, do ye?

LONG JOHN SILVER: No! Damn yer black eyes! No.

BLACKBEARD: Tell ye tale.

LONG JOHN SILVER: Aye. T'were a dark night for dark deeds. Four score and twenty men I lured to death to sink ye Black Pawn's treasure. A Carrib isle t'were its final resting place, what shape be like a question mark. X marks ye spot. As belike the map would indicate. Writ in blood in me own hand!

BLACKBEARD: The one yer missing?

LONG JOHN SILVER: (gestures with hook) Aye.

BLACKBEARD: Try a pen next time.

The PIRATES laugh.

BLACKBEARD: Had it all planned out, did ye?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Aye.

BLACKBEARD: Came back for it, did ye? Years and years later. When the trail be cold? The naughty Board of Trade be off yer back?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Aye.

BLACKBEARD: So ye waited.

LONG JOHN SILVER: So oy did.

BLACKBEARD: And retaaarned.

LONG JOHN SILVER: Aye.

BLACKBEARD: But there be no sodding treasure.

LONG JOHN SILVER: No. No! (sobs) Oy want back and found nought but nothing nowheres!

BLACKBEARD: Why?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Meself be me self's worst enemy. Aye.

BLACKBEARD: What be ye quarrel? Twixt you and ye?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Twixt me and me father, arrr. That be the truth of it. A banker he was. And a right bastard what rejected me! Counting out his money he were. All the time! Money, money, money. Scribbling in his sodding ledgers! Day and night! He had all the time in the world for his precious money! But no time left to watch Little Johnny in the school play. Gold ... t'were all that mattered to him! I thought I returned the favor what by living a reprobate's life of plunder on the high seas. But I see now ... (chokes) All those years, oy were just trying to please him! (sobs) Me own love of gold be ye spitting image of his own!

The PIRATES applaud.

BLACKBEARD: A breakthrough this be.

REDBEARD: Then ... where be the gold?

LONG JOHN SILVER: Where? Ar. Ask the devil when ye see him. (stabs him) In the meantime, fuck off.

He gets up and leaves.

BLACKBEARD: Have a donut on yar way out, John. Well, well. A jolly time we've had today. (to CAPTAIN BLOOD) What be your issue?

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Oy had farted.

BLACKBEARD: Fartin's not an issue.

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Arr. It affects me self-image it does.

BLACKBEARD: Fine. Stop farting so much.

CAPTAIN BLOOD: Can't help it.

The PIRATES groan, look disgusted, back their chairs away.

BLACKBEARD: Then stop calling attention to it. And stop wasting me time! (to CAPTAIN PHLEGM) What be yar issue?

CAPTAIN PHLEGM:(indicates guano-stained shoulder) Polly died.

BLACKBEARD: Arr. Ye be in the wrong support group, matey. "Pirates without parrots" be next door.

CAPTAIN PHLEGM: Ar. Thanks.

He leaves.

BLACKBEARD: Arr. Sorry. Well, I guess that be that then. Arr. Time for rousing tune! "The Pirate Self-Help Song!" With a will, lads!

BLACKBEARD blows a pitch pipe to set the tune. 

The PIRATES sing the chorus in unison:

We're co-dependent no more, lads.
Co-dependent no more.
We're balanced and centered and open and real.
We're co-dependent no more!


(individual PIRATES sing lines)

I have issues of personal boundaries.
I'm passive aggressive and snore.
I like to find women and kill them.

(in unison)
He just runs them through with his sword!

We're co-dependent no more, lads.
Co-dependent no more.
We're balanced and centered and open and real.
We're co-dependent no more!

Monday, October 14, 1996

Conspiracy? We don't need no steenking conspiracy!


A sign announces ...

SECRET CONSPIRACY OF RICH BASTARDS
an equal opportunity employer

Below the sign, we see the freaky, paranoiac image of the eye on the floating pyramid.

Below that, there's a bigass table. With a bigass meeting in progress.

That meeting is attended by MR. BURNS, RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS (aka the MONOPOLY MAN), RICHIE RICH and the MONOPOLY OCTOPUS.

MR. BURNS: Well, gentlemen. (bangs gavel) This meeting of the Secret Conspiracy of Rich Bastards is hereby called to order. Old business? Monopoly Octopus!

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS shrugs.

MR. BURNS: Excellent. New business?

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: The destruction of the middle class proceeds.

MR. BURNS: Splendid! How shall this be accomplished?

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: I defer to Richie Rich.

MR. BURNS: Very well. Richie. How do we destroy the petite bourgeoise?

RICHIE RICH: You're going to die, grandpa. And I'm gonna piss on your grave.

MR. BURNS: You're a little shit, Richie Rich. But I like the way you think. Now answer the bloody question, whippersnapper. How do we kill the middle class?

RICHIE RICH: With these, pops! (whips out credit card)

MR. BURNS: Ah! The ever-tightening vice of compound interest.

The assembly laughs.

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS: But .. why? Why give stuff away?

MR. BURNS: Why? You cretinous cephalopod! You ask why?

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: Because we shipped all the real jobs to China. Nobody's getting paid, dumbass.

RICHIE RICH: The economy should crash.

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: But a crash in the standard of living might lead to a peasant's revolt!

MR. BURNS: Yes. And the peasants are definitely revolting.

MR. BURNS looks up. No laugh. Not a titter. 

MR BURNS: The point being ... they don't actually revolt.

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS: Why not?

MR BURNS: Because the peasants don't know they're peasants. Don't you see?

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS: No. Uh. Why don't they know they're peasants?

MR. BURNS: Credit cards, you idiot! Credit cards! By means of these magical plastic lozenges, the great unwashed can magically beam money from the future! They can maintain their standard of living! Buy cars, and stereos and so on and so forth ... for a time.

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS: I still don't get it.

The assembly laughs again.

RICHIE RICH: We boil the frog, dummy.

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: Delaying the inevitable.

MONOPOLY OCTOPUS: Ah! Until the bottom drops out.

MR. BURNS: Now you're catching on!

MR. BURNS presses a button. A trap door opens beneath the MONOPOLY OCTOPUS. He falls into a boiling pit, screaming in agony. The trap door closes, cutting off his dying wails.

RICHIE RICH: Stupid octopus.

MR. BURNS: Next order of business, William Jefferson Clinton. He must be punished!

RICHIE RICH: Why, granddad? His sexual indiscretions?

MR. BURNS: No! Because we had a deal! Grease the skids for our complete domination, and we'll soften the blow for the wretched Baby Boomers. Touching medical insurance was never part of the deal!

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: I should say not, sir! That's where we keep our money!

RICHIE RICH: Yeah. State the obvious, pops. That'll keep you out of the nursing home.

RICH UNCLE PENNYBAGS: Fuck you, you little shit! Fuck you!

RICHIE RICH laughs.

MR. BURNS: Belay this squabbling! (whips out enormous paddle) Summon the miscreant!