Some Literate Film Alternatives To Mindless Blockbusters Of Summer 2004

By J. D. Finch

Well, it seems that -- for better or worse -- postmodernism is the taste du jour in Hollywood. And now that "Lord Of The Rings" has given us its final chapter and Spiderman is making so much money that it's in a league of its own, it's time to see if the pen is mightier than the sword and sorcery. Will the works of ink stained scribes past and present continue to be box office boffo (The Hours, Adaptation), or will the hix nix lit flix? One thing's for sure, if you don't like the folks from McStoney's, cute lit mag for the sensitive and seriously ironic, you might want to stay away from theaters this summer, because they're on celluloid like ticks on a mangy hound.

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MFA Spring Break: (Direct to Disc After School Special) The Traveling Writers In Transit (TWIT) kids go to a New England estate to “get it on, postmodern litly speaking”. When they go into town (Lowell Massachusetts) they are appalled when they visit a local writer’s museum and find that it is devoted to Jack Kerouac. “Ewww,” says Muffy. “He was that creepy guy who rode on old trains, drank cheap wine, took ‘uppers’ and wrote about ‘life’. And I think he typed his manuscripts on rolls of toilet paper! And without any irony. Eeeeewwwwwwwwww.”

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YBABAME: (Epic) Well known literary irritant who goes by the faux moniker “McStoney’s Guy” (MG) turns out an adaptation of his influential pomo book “Your Brickbats Are Butterflies Against My Ego” that had the lit world buzzing a few years ago. Can he make the same splash in the world of film? His adaptation includes the story of his struggles in getting his book made into a film and his battles with the Wrebel Writers, the group of lit iconoclasts who dogged his every step. Cinema verite aspect was enhanced when Robby “Buddy” Taylor (who played MG’s uncle Jib, who notably died in the book) actually died on the set. It is rumored that the WW will mount a protest demonstration at the premier of the film: The MG has reportedly already filmed a scene of them doing just that.

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A Trip Downriver (Original Title “A Couple Of Jerks Now”): (Docudrama/Adventure) A character known only as “The Journalist” looks for missing ex-McStoney’s writer Nihil Podunk, who had some sort of bizarre unexplained falling out with the McStoney’s Guy. His journey takes him down the frightening and barbaric Amazon (Customer Reviews) River. Docudrama also has appearances by the McStoney’s Guy who plays a Jim Jones cult-like figure. F. F. Coppola, originally set to take the directorial reins was forced to back out after he fell into a vat of his own wine: he is expected to remain “faced” until sometime in 2006.

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Gone With The Wind In Sixty Seconds In Cancun: (Reality-Docudrama/Semi-Verite Indy Romance) Yasmine Bleeth stars in this 21st century adaptation of the venerable Margaret Mitchell classic as Bunny O'Hara, who loses control of her kite on the beach in the titular resort getaway and in her plight meets professional surfer and scoundrel Red Rutler (Lornezo Llamas), who -- with a Corvette and a Thermos ® full of Margaritas -- takes Bunny on a whirlwind chase after the kite. Sensitivity is on display in the bar scene:

Bunny: Another Margarita Red?
Red: Frankly Bunny, I could dig a banana daiquiri.

And in the bent, but unbroken Bunny's vow after the kite flies hopelessly out to sea:

Bunny: Tomorrow's another day, Red. I may be hung over, but I know I can buy another kite!

Halfway through flick Bunny gets rid of Red when she inexplicably falls for more cerebral Don Feggman (playing himself) from the “actual” reality show ReaLib where a bunch of Gen X slacker librarians live together in a library for six months.

The limits of Bunny’s affections are tested when she sees the episode where Feggman brings a blow-up sex doll into the house.

Trashing him she says: “It was a reality show you dork, what the hell were you doing with a blow-up? What, you didn’t have my number?”

Shown in theaters with Gone With The Wind...Cancun will be a documentary short based on Feggman's latest memoir "I Shall Learn Her PSI" about his affair with the blowup doll and what happened after the rest of the ReaLib had a meeting and told him he must either deflate the thing or leave the library.

(The latest buzz in the Hollywood trades is that the always ingenious and inventive Feggman says he plans to outfit the doll with Chatbot software, and take her along on a book tour so “she” can answer questions and do readings in his place while he is out in his van getting it on with his groupies.

"It's one of the perks of having a blow-up for a girlfriend," enthuses Feggman. "'She' couldn't care less what I do or who I do it with."

Feggman plans to call it "The Full Of Hot Air Tour".)

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Hammer Of The Zinesters: (Indy-DIY) Kinkos Culture comes under the cinematic microscope when directors the Con Bothers (Lowering Nevada, Largo) follow a Kinkos employee through his day. “It’s basically ‘Clerks’ in a Kinkos,” said one of the confusingly similar brothers. “Even clever guys like us eventually run out of ideas and have to rip off somebody.” Publishing tie-in; “Makin’ Zine”, an adaptation of the movie by the Wrebel Writers, done in their favorite media, a twenty-four page photocopied zine, that will only cost one third of what the damn movie ticket costs. And last forever.