Eight

September 4, 2009 —

I spent the morning at an old friend’s house pitching Jerry Bruckheimer on my new movie idea. The film is titled “Eight.” Basically, it borrows from the “007” franchise. But it’s better. And American.

I know what you’re thinking. Why Jerry Bruckheimer? I’m not really sure. And, now that I think about it, it was actually Sir Richard Branson, but he wasn’t speaking with an accent.

Anyway, the film opens with George W. Bush watching “Casino Royale” and getting irritated with the bad poker scene. So, W (played by Will Ferrell) calls Cheney and charges him with putting together an “Amer’can spy team.” “One that kicks ass. And knows how to play poker.”

So, Cheney gets George Clooney to recruit a team of base Amer’cans for his 008 outfit. An NYC firefighter (played by Peter from Office Space,) a NASCAR driver (played by Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, and Cameron Diaz,) an MMA fighter (or maybe an Irish boxer,) and Zach Galifianakis.

Something goes wrong during training — I haven’t fully worked this part out yet, but there’s an explosion — and Zach, Peter and the female pimp from “Hung” get lost in small town America with partial details of their mission.

Their training’s also incomplete, so random stimuli (e.g., a barking dog) make them go all Jason Bourne. But they hadn’t gotten to the hand to hand combat or weapons training yet. So, basically, the fight scenes are like the narrator’s first fight outside the bar in “Fight Club.” (Zach punches a townie in the ear.)

I guess that’s about the time I woke up, because details go fuzzy from there. I know there was a hang glider incident, and I’m pretty sure Sarah Palin was expected to make a cameo. But that’s about it.

I tried to twitter this, but it was like -2000 characters.

I’m still confused

February 18, 2009 —

I think Donnie Darko would have made more sense had I understood the hero possessed telekinetic powers and ripped the jet engine off the passenger aircraft with his mind. I mean, I got that Donnie knew when and where the tunnel would appear. I even understood that the jet engine was the glitch that signaled the tear in the universe. But, telekinesis never occurred to me. And it wasn’t quite clear that the jet engine had to go back to keep the world from ending.

Seven years later, it all makes sense. Not really, but thanks all the same to the Internet.

Also, I should mention I wasn’t able to sleep last night.