Explain a Film Plot Badly

So, there's this guy, he's I guess maybe mid 40's? Brown hair. Pretty nice guy, he seems like. He has a wife who dresses pretty fancy. I mean he's kind of casual with maybe plaid shirts and dockers and a jacket, but she usually has her hair all done and a silk shirt and some jewelry... They're kind of a weird couple. Not weird people, I mean they're a weird match. He seems really normal, but she seems like an elegant lady in a soap opera, but I think she'd be the villain lady, a real femme fatale if you ask me. So, really different personalities with this couple. You kinda wonder how they got together. Seems to me like he kinda gets on her nerves. She's a little snippy with him.

So, I said that they weren't weird people but actually she is a little weird, you guys. When he's not around she goes into these daydreams where she's all horny... But she's such a cold person all the time, I mean she looks cold but she acts cold too, so if she's so horny, why doesn't she just warm up to her husband maybe? I guess it's really a look into marital dynamics is what this is, what with all the unsaid psychological stuff and interpersonal conflicts that really a good marriage counselor could help them with, with the body language and little remarks that the husband doesn't really like from her but he isn't an angry person, y'know what I mean? He's not much of an ARGUER, so when she says something that's a little rude to him, he usually just gives like a little annoyed look and maybe mumbles something back under his breath and goes to look around the house.

Oh, OK, the house is a whole other thing. They are moving into a house that they already own. It's in his family because his brother used to stay there. So now they are moving back into the house and that's like how I mean when I say that the guy will go wander around the house to look at nails that need hammering or creaky floorboards or whatever.

I'll tell you this much though, he should have looked harder for them nails because in this one part when he and some movers are moving a mattress, he cuts his hand on a nail that is sticking out of the wall. OWIE-ka-ZOWee it bleeds a LOT. Everyone is really worried. His daughter is like "Daddy, your HAND!" and he goes and bandages it up...

OKAY, that's another thing I forgot to talk about. He has this daughter. She's really good looking. She's about 18 or 19 probably... really cute. Now, this is the 80's, and in the 80's the hottest look a gal could have was nice teased hair, any color is fine, this girl's hair is brown just so you know, but any color looks good. But then you'd be wearing either a tank top and jeans, or maybe a white button down shirt with jeans, or a turtleneck sweater with jeans, but ALSO, a girl would wear a brown bomber jacket. It was a good look. Really 80's. Bomber jackets were really popular with high school kids in the 80's. So, you'd wanna live somewhere fairly cool to wear this outfit, and this movie is in either Canada or England, I'm not sure, but she is wearing this outfit is why I bring it up.

She is the GUY'S daughter but not his WIFE's daughter. His WIFE is her STEPmother. That's important, because you can tell that they don't get along too well. I think that, again, this relationship between the girl and her stepmother could benefit from a counselor. They could work out their different unspoken issues and they both might feel better about each other. I kinda wish more families would be more open to counselling, really.

So, after all the stuff I described, the story goes in some other directions that I didn't really expect. I don't want to give it all away but let's just say they find a puzzle box that's like a Rubik's Cube but fancier, like it's black and gold and bronze and stuff, and fellas, you wouldn't want to try to solve this one, because then some pretty spooky stuff happens.

Happy and Angry Post about my Hero David Lynch and I

It hasn't been an easy past couple of years so this post isn't pretty toward the end... Twin Peaks has been accepted by new generations and that has meant noobsplaining articles in my FB feed and FB TP groups with people making twee little TP images and I swear if I see another picture of black and white zig-zag socks or earrings I will just explode like on Scanners.... Why do these things bother me so much?

I don't know, but there is almost certainly some of that ol' "I liked it before it was cool" mentality at play, I admit it, but c'mon... 28 (NOT 25!) years later, I think I'm entitled to a little of that.  There's more to it though. As I've said to quizzical looks, David Lynch art is in my heart. My heartbeats are the pulses of David Lynch plot outlines. I have always, since Dune, felt like I was something that fell out of a David Lynch movie into this much more boring and hopeless world we live in, and when I watched his weird moviescapes, I felt like a fish that was put back into the water by gentle hands. So, I'm not trying to stake some claim for hipster style bragging rights, I am rather talking about something that I genuinely love and want others to be careful with.

I WANTED to find other Lynch fans, and sometimes I found people who at least knew his stuff, but I never ever found another actual FAN. Another person who found Lynch's scary and beautiful movies to actually be their home.

(Special mention to Levi and Thomas Ahern for our TP marathons in the misawa barracks. Jack Hope though for his funny description of Eraserhead back in 89 to me, and also to Jack, Dan Mejia, Larry Palmer, and Brian Kirke for letting me show them Blue Velvet. Eric Wade, I'm sorry that I took you to Wild at Heart, that was wrong of me. I've always felt bad about it. Chris Prewitt, you were my Donna Hayward. Jeff, remember watching the big reveal episode in your dorm room at UNL??? That was one of the best days of my life).

(Does it surprise anyone to know that Cody Grassman would insult David Lynch TO MY FACE? Now you know why Tales of Grassman exists).

There was a day, back in 96, when I was talking to a roommate of mine (not by choice, thanks military), kind of an arse, but a rare person back then who actually knew anything about Twin Peaks at all, and I said, "Twin Peaks will be back", and he said, "Dude, Twin Peaks will NEVER come back." Well, I knew that it would be, even if I had to bring it back myself. And there is one of the sorest spots over the past 2 years...

An idea that had long simmered was bubbling into coherence: I had a decent set of ideas for TP novels, prequel AND sequel. Star Wars or Star Trek expanded novel universe type novels, if you know what I mean. I had it. I just couldn't do it alone. I've always wanted a writing partner to help me get my random and chaotic ideas beaten into form, and I've approached many of my friends about collaborating, and none of them have wanted to do it. All these aspiring writers I know who don't write, and none of them have accepted my offer. But I specifically tried to recruit Jon Moore who I had thought was a kindred soul to help me put my TP ideas to paper and we would sell it to Lynch's company and become wealthy gadabouts, and he also balked. But, as you know, f*k Jon Moore.

I had such great ideas for the prequel. The teens would be Harry Truman, Jerry Horne, Hawk, and Hank Jennings, Slightly older teens would be Ben Horne, Ed Hurley and Norma, and James Hurley's mom Linda, working with Blackie at the Perfume counter at Horne's Department Store, young curious women in trouble finding their way to be exotic dancers at One-Eyed Jacks, the mysterious club owned by Elmon Horne, father of Ben, pitiless and cold as ice. Linda Hurley's dancer name? Anastasia Mysterie! Elmon's friend Andrew Packard would be there as would Andrew's admiring young sister Catherine, not yet hard and bitter, a young woman who thinks her big brother will always be there for her.

We'd see how Harry had dreams and plans to see the world, and how those dreams were destroyed. We'd see Harry's Father, the town sheriff, and how he tried so hard to set his son free but failed when his health failed him. Harry's father's best friend and fellow Bookhouse Boy Miles Lanterman (husband of the log lady), who dies in the woods when he witnesses an unholy fire and the spirit champion who rises to fight it, the spirit lumberjack from the lodge (jurgen prochnow) in FWWM hacking away relentlessly against the evil spirits in the lodge as the woods burned all around him.

How about the sequel? How about Cooper running the Twin Peaks Sherriff's Department by day and running One-Eyed Jack's by night from the shadows, using Hank Jennings as his proxy? How about Andy and Lucy's Daughter, blonde teen in pink Sandy as the Sheriff's Dept receptionist, the smartest girl in town who detects mysteries to be solved? Soon to be the first Bookhouse GIRL? Oh yes, I think so. Her boyfriend Jack, son of Bobby and Shelley?
How about Deputy James Hurley, Sheriff Cooper's right-hand man? James, always drawn to women in trouble, is married to Ronette Pulaski. You're goddam right he is. And Big Ed? WITH NORMA, NADINE CHOSE MIKE.

What about Johnny Horne, reacting to Ben's death at Doctor Hayward's hands by coming out of his autism, donning glasses and a suit and tie, and taking control of his father's business interests, with the help of his new half-sister Donna? Johnny marrying Lana, who is having an affair with Bobby Briggs and another with Dick Tremayne, Johnny's pick to run Horne's Dept Store and other commercial interests. Johnny is as cold and calculating as his grandfather was, and cultivates a friendship with James Hurley in part just to watch James' awkward encounters with Donna. Dale, in both sides of his life, sees Johnny as his main rival just as Harry saw Ben Horne as the biggest threat to justice in TP. Cooper uses James to keep tabs on Johnny, and James, who likes Johnny and wants to be a good moderating influence on him, plays along.

Johnny bought the Packard mill and has Bobby and Mike running it, and Johnny's wife Lana uses her affairs with Bobby and Dick to keep a tacit hand in Johnny's business.

As far as Harry, he is retired. He hunts and fishes, and disbanded the bookhouse boys in Dale's advice. Hawk, of course, with Major Briggs and Big Ed keeps the Bookhouse Boys secretly active, along with James Hurley. Hawk knows that Harry won't be able to delude himself for long and will be back and the Boys will be waiting with open arms. Because of some secrets that Cooper's wife Annie has shared with him, Hawk knows something is wrong with Cooper, and James thinks that's absurd, but he's starting to come around....

All the characters who seemed to be dead at the end of the series finale back in 90 are in fact dead. Sorry, Audrey. Don't stand in front of bombs. As far as the magical aspects, well, we have our known unknowns in the lodge, and maybe a certain Phantom from Inland Empire might have to show up too.

I've never shared that with anyone, and now my thoughts are yours to enjoy. I had all this for you guys. I had all of this for the WORLD. All I needed was a little help, and I asked for it, and it never f*cking came. Once the series was announced to return, I knew I had a short window to get something in writing and maybe David would like it and use from it, but I also knew, deep down, that left on my own, I would never share my ideas with anyone in business.

I had to get this off of my chest before I watched the new episodes. I bit Lu's head off this morning on FB for farting out spoilers, but you know what? I'm off my meds, and she shouldn't have tried to noobsplain. I won't have it!!!

I also know that there are little millennial shits who'd like to degrade my ideas, but guess what... I was a half-formed, unbalanced personality and disgrace to my betters before they were even born, As Richard Dreyfuss said to his enemies in Trigger Happy, "When it comes to not giving a f*ck... YOU guys are DABBLERS" Keep your weak sh*t to your damn selves, noobs.

This screed was not pretty but it is the most honest I've been in years. None of this probably answered why this stuff bothers me so much, this TP revival and its many vocal fans. All I can say is, TP is my exposed heart like in the Jesus paintings, and the internet has been poking it. F*ck you, Internet.


Signing off...

Trump v. Hillary

 Donald Trump is the ultimate Republican. He is the Republican in it's purest, loudest form. Everything he's been saying that has made people angry are the same things that FOX news has made their running themes for years, the same things that the GOP's most beloved and popular politicians have hinted around at and nudged us in the ribs about, that their talking heads have written their little books about, the EXACT same things that radio celebrities like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, Glenn Beck or Mark Levin have been saying all this time.Trump just says it out loud, and when he gets backlash, he repeats it and the media loves it and they repeat it 100 times for him.

Trump is a Right-Wing media machine, a half-man/half money cyborg from a dystopian future who has come back to our present to take over forever. Donald Trump is a celebrity. All the old fellas who've been toiling in politics all these years have been pretending to be celebrities and in their bubble they could imagine that it was true, but Trump is a real celebrity and none of them can compete with him at all. The people are baffled. They do not know what is happening. They are so confused that they thought they liked Ben Carson just because he tried to say crazier things than Donald. Well, I can wear Hanes just like Michael Jordan. It doesn't mean I'm Michael Jordan. Sorry, Carson.

Donald Trump is wealthy. The GOP LOVES the wealthy. They taught their constituents to love the wealthy. Do you think the GOP has ANYONE who can compete for the hearts and minds of their base against a wealthy hatemonger who they have SEEN ON THEIR FAVORITE SHOWS???? HELL. NO.

It is the time of Trump. Trump is going to get the nomination. There are people who thought he had no chance, but in fact it is the flabby little rascals that make up the rest of the GOP candidates who have no chance, because none of them have ever hosted a reality show and none of them ever made so much money that no one could fire them. Trump is what Giuliani wanted to be, what McCain wanted to be, what Perry wanted to be... The GOP has no one who can debate him and no one who can stand against him.

Would Donald Trump be good for America? HAHAHAHA NO. Every action he takes would end in disaster. And he would not care, and neither would all of the people who supported him. All the GOP's base needs to be happy is to get their own way, not to have success.

Hillary, on the other hand, is the modern day equivalent of Richard Nixon: an ebon shade, a doomed lost soul decades or centuries into an aimless quest that has taken her so far into the twisted woods that she hasn't seen the sun of reality since she was young. She and Bill are Hansel and Gretel, still searching in the woods, still trolling for witches, buying gingerbread house after gingerbread house and still feeling homeless. They are actual possession cases, possessed by demons of ambition that will not let them rest and not let them feel a second of happiness until they are dead, because of what they do not have (in this case the Presidency). You would not be safe in a room with the Clintons if you had one cookie and they had none. You would find yourself hounded by mysterious thugs for years until you lived in a utility closet in a service tunnel. Hillary has to live, and to live, she has to dedicate her every waking moment to seeking ultimate power. It is a story as old as Alberich the ringsmith, father of Hagen. One day Chelsea will redeem her sad, misunderstood monstrous parents' tragedy as Antigone tried to redeem Oedipus as she cradled his dying body in her arms. On that day we will all rejoice, but in the meantime we have in Bill and Hillary and their coterie a drama of epic proportions to watch unwind to its deadly, sorrowful conclusion, a tragic cycle that makes King Lear look like an episode of fcking Fraggle Rock.

We are in for a clash of monsters, Trump Vs. Clinton, and yes, there WILL be blood. Hug your loved ones and start growing your own vegetables, people. The meat is going to run out at the butchershop. Just remember, if we do all die young, we can still say we were in it for the lulz.

hers

Hulk issue explained.

One guy posted: "I don't think I've ever seen the Hulk take an injury like Red Hulk took today in AvX #8"

Another guy answered: "Aunt May back in Hulk 349. in She violated the gray Hulk with an adamantium bat and lube. Waay worse".

I wrote:

Yes, a CLASSIC issue. Described here for those who haven't read it:

IRRITABLE HULK #349, "To Rise, But Yet to Fall" is widely considered to be Roy Thomas's Swan Song, his final masterpiece as a writer for Marvel Comics before defecting to DC to write about the '40's in a Little Rascals WWII title. John Byrne admits that after reading this masterpiece he just stopped trying to write and just started phoning it in. Brian Michael Bendis reports that it was the first Marvel comic he'd ever read as a child, having received it as a get-well present from his uncle when he had the willies, and that it inspired him to paint himself green, which landed him in the hospital again a week later. Ralph Macchio, mistakenly thinking this issue was guest-written by Kirby, was this issue's most vocal critic, initially bombarding "Greenskin's Grab Bag" with a flood of angry denunciations. Upon learning the truth, he blamed Shooter.

Lavishly illustrated by Al Milgrom and Don Perlin with a killer Hembeck cover, this issue is a dizzying mix of beloved cowboys from Marvel's revered western canon, relevant 80's social commentary about the "partying students vs. the dean" conflicts which were arising all over the nation, and a loving ode to Mort Weisinger.

Jim Shooter explains that he "suggested" (cracking his knuckles) the story to Roy, who didn't want to do the story, stormed out of the Marvel offices, shoving his way past Danny Fingerfroth and Bob DeNatale and spent the next three days hopped up on Maxwell House, rampaging around NYC, spray-painting obscene Shooter-directed graphitti all over storefronts and people's townhouses (the story goes that when confronted by police, the sickly, 5"1 Thomas warned in his queroulous, cracked voice that they wouldn't like him when he was angry. Actually, they had never liked him to begin with). Roy was not tall enough to have ever been able to see Shooter's face, so his caricatures were all guesswork, and really just looked like Gabe Kaplan from "Welcome Back Kotter", who wondered aloud, "What did I ever do to him?" in an interview with Johnny Carson.

It was while cooling his heels in a 10 x 10 cell that Thomas had the inspriation to do a story. Demanding a pencil and a ream of paper, and given a crayon and an empty cereal box, RT set to work penning his masterpiece among the teeming denizens of the drunk tank. When finally bailed out by Jerry Bails, Roy stormed back to Marvel and threw the cereal box across Shooter's desk, sneering triumphantly at his victory. Looking at it, Shooter saw that it was the exact same story he had asked for, and accepted the submission. Thomas declared a victory. Shooter ate his lunch and called the Knicks to see if they were hiring.

So, onto the story. It begins poignantly with a chiarascuro splash of Bruce wandering the desert, looking for his keys. They had been stolen by the Abomination in the previous issue (IRRATIONAL HULK #348, THESE KEYS MY DESTINY). As he walks, he thinks of how MODOK actually looks really funny, and starts cracking up. When he can't stop laughing, his risible agitation awakens the beast within him, and he transforms into the Hulk, bellowing his rage to the elements, "HULK LAUGH!!!"

In the lonely desert, the Hulk is confronted by the cowboy Ghost Rider and the Rawhide Kid who are looking for directions. After a few pages of roughhousing, the Hulk agrees to lead them to the nearest town, Albuquerque, NM. Passing a nearby casino, they are attacked by the Hobgoblin, who has devised a brand new Adamantium Bat Glider, and wants to try it out in NM where there are more open spaces. If all went well, he was planning to take over the Albuquerque crime rackets.

Coincidentally, Aunt May and Anna Watson have come to Albuquerque to escape the NYC winter and play KENO, and they are walking into the casino just as the Goblin attacks the Hulk. Hulk smashes a mighty green fist right into the Hobgoblin's midsection, liquifying his insides instantly, but the bat glider flies off wildly without him, swooping down and scooping up Aunt May, who miraculously gets her feet into the stirrups just in time ("Oh, my stars!!!").

Of course, May is a quick study, but not quick enough to divert the bat glider from flying into a nearby store front. Reaching frantically for something to grab, she grabs a bottle of Pennzoil, and as the Glider bursts out of the store's side wall, she, the bat glider, and the bottle of Pennzoil smash directly into the Hulk's purple-garbed gluteous gammaximus.

All are unhurt, but Hulk now has an unsightly hole in his then 25-year old pair of purple pants and there's oil everywhere. The cowboys are no help, since all they have are chaps. Fortunately, Rick Jones pops up in his long hair and cowboy hat and plays guitar, soothing the savage beast that is Aunt May and the Hulk as well, lulling everyone into slumber as he and the two time-displaced cowboys close out the issue with a sweet rendition of "Happy Trails".

Spider-Man issue explained

"rayray" asked:

a friend of mine sent me this .gif and I can't for the life of me figure of who the other person in this picture is. Please help me out guys!!

also; this is my first post so I don't quite know how this works. I attached the pic so hopefully it'll show up?

I wrote: It's Doctor Doom.

Those are three panels (animated like a flip-book) from Roy Thomas's greatest Marvel epic, "The Atlantean-Dormammunanean War", in particular from the story "This Person, This Propeller", with art by a then up-and-coming John Byrne. Todd McFarlane and Alan Moore list this story as their biggest influence. It was this story that moved Jack Kirby to finally quit Marvel for good. He claimed that Roy Thomas had snuck into his house at night and used his evil telepathy to steal the ideas right out of the King's head while he slept (This was later proven to be true).

In the story, Doctor Doom finally fixes his face and decides to become a hero called the Crimson Cannonball. Leaving Latveria behind, he goes to New York sporting a brand new heroic red costume with a formidable looking red propeller helmet, intending to join the rest of the Marvel heroes in their battle against such villains as he himself.

Right off the bat, Doom falls madly in love with Janet Van Dyne, who was still mooning after Hank Pym, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Thor at the time. He and Peter Parker double date with Janet V.D. and Pepper Potts (fresh off of her break up with Tony Stark in the story "Madness is the Mosquito-Men"), but the restaurant is attacked by the Trapster and Paste Pot Pete (who had travelled there from the past to team up with himself, inspired by the Doom/Rama-Tut phenomenon).

The Trapster plants a spinning anti-gravity device upon the personage of Doom, while P.P.Pete keeps shooting his paste at the girls. Spidey tries to punch the device off of Doom (pictured) but he is not fast enough and keeps giving Doom gut-checks. At that moment, in the FF title, Galactus comes to earth for the first time, the FF get back from the Inhuman's kingdom, the Thing fights the Golden Age Punisher, the Surfer betrays Galactus, Johnny Storm goes into Galactus's ship, gets the Ultimate Nullifier, scares off Galactus, and Sue gives birth to Franklin.

Meanwhile, back at the Bistro, Peter finally gets the device off of Doom. Johnny Storm shows up with his best girl Doreen for some ice cream sundaes, and is dismayed to see paste all over the place. He talks the two villains into surrendering themselves because he will let them have a ride to the police station in his sweet hot rod, and he also offers them some Twinkies and Hostess Cupcakes, which I've never liked.

Doom, as the Crimson Cannonball, is welcomed into the ranks of the Avengers, and of course remains with them to this day, as their greatest hero. Peter and Pepper broke up, to the heartbreak of fans everywhere who loved having a couple with the same initials.

This story is referenced in Eric Clapton's "Layla", and Clapton himself says that the long piano bit at the end is a musical representation of the story's events. Sam Raimi said that he got literally thousands of e-mails from fans begging him to use this storyline as the basis for his Spider-Man 3, but says that he didn't feel that the medium of film could do it justice. "I'm not just going to set myself up for failing to bring to life the story that defined Marvel, what do I look like? A Schlemiel? A Schlemozzle?" The fans never forgave him, and Spider-Man 3 is widely reviled as a missed opportunity which should have been the Crimson Cannonball's. Fans today take heart that a new Spider Franchise is just around the corner, and are sure that Hollywood will listen to them this time and will bring "This Person, This Propeller" to vivid life on the silver screen.

Red Riding Hood Pitch Meeting

Monday, Jan 10, 2011 1:00 pm

Studios Development Department Offices

Ted: Whattya got?

Harry: OK, picture this: It's little Red Riding Hood...

Ted: I Hate it.

Harry: But SEXY!

Ted: I LOVE IT! Greenlight. No wait, you'd better tell me more.

Harry: Um,... really? (pauses) Gosh... OK. I got it. The Kindly Woodsman is a Robert Pattinson type in black leather pants.

Ted: You read my mind.

Harry: The wolf is really a Vampire!

Ted: Yes! Wait, what? Why?

Harry: Well, I want millions of dollars, not just hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ted: But the Wolf doesn't need to be a vampire, he can just be a werewolf.

Harry: But... (mumbles) I'm on Team Edward...

Ted: Huh?

Harry: Nothing. Fine. Werewolf. Let's move on.

Ted: Get to the Sex!

Harry: Well, she's doinkin' the Woodsman, obviously.

Ted: Go on...

Harry: And then, let's throw in a triangle... Let's see... Team Woodsman... The other guy is good-looking, but not TOO good-looking...

Ted: He DOESN'T wear leather pants.

Harry: No, he's like more of a sheepskin guy. Brown hair. No gel.

Ted: Girls HATE guys with brown hair and no gel. They always go for the gel.

Harry: So, Team Gel and Team No Gel.

Ted: Team No Gel is going to be a pretty small team.

Harry: (mumbles) If you'd let me put vampires in...

Ted: NO VAMPIRES!

Harry: No Vampires. But...it still needs something...

Ted: We got a triangle, We got the leather pants... What else...

(They are silent for a moment)

Harry: (Slams hands on knees) I GOT IT! A WHODUNIT!!!

Ted: Who done what?

Harry: Who ate the Gramma!!!

Ted: But the Wolf ate the Gramma!

Harry: BUT WHO IS THE WOLF??? RIGHT????

Ted: (kind of drops jaw in amazement) oh my gawd...

Harry: RIGHT??? IT'S A WEREWOLF!!! It could be anybody!!!

Ted: YES! So Who IS it!

Harry: Who cares? Make it anybody. But throw suspicion on EVERYBODY!

Ted: The Gramma?

Harry: YES!

Ted: The Woodsman?

Harry: YES!

Ted: Wait, I'm trying to wrap my mind around this.

Harry: What's to wrap?

Ted: Well, we're making a movie about Red Riding hood where she's doinking the woodsman and the wolf is a werewolf, OK, that writes itself, but if we're going to then try and be like, "What if the GRAMMA is the Wolf, and what if the WOODSMAN is the wolf, then I feel like we're getting too trippy.

Harry: Nic Cage.

Ted: Come again?

Harry: Nic Cage. Put him in there as a werewolf-hunting detective. Van Helsing with a sword!

Ted: Wait a minute. Who's the good guy here? The Wolf? The Woodsman? The Van Helsing? I'm confused.

Harry: .... Are you?

Ted: Yes!

Harry: As confused as... a teenage girl?

Ted: ... (pauses) BRILLANT. Harry my man, you are one sensitive male.

Harry: (beams delightedly) Chicks tell me that a lot.

Ted: So, back to Cage. Is he good or bad? He'll play whatever. He can play both. I just want to know which it is.

(Harry closes eyes. After a moment, raises hands in the air and begins to move them about, conducting music only he can hear.)

Harry: hmmmm......... werewolves, curses........religious angle...... twilight fangirls.... hot topic merchandise..... wiccans......... He's BAD.

Ted: Cage's bad? Harry: He's bad. A total cock-blocker. Buzzkill in a goatee. Bad.

Ted: So is the wolf good?

Harry: He's good because he's interesting, and he's furry, but let's be honest. The only person the girls are gonna root for is the woodsman.

Ted: Team Gel.

Harry: Anyone else is just in the way.

Ted: So OK, the wolf's bad, and Nicholas Cage is bad,... You know what? What's the conflict?

Harry: Well, I think it's classic Wolf vs. Woodsman. Plus Cage,... Wait a minute, that's two conflicts. Now I'm getting twisted up around this thing...

Ted: It's ok, I got this. You have to look though the plot and all the distractions and see, really, what is at stake for the main character? What is she trying to do?

Harry: Doink the Woodsman?

Ted: DOINK THE WOODSMAN. EXACTLY. So, who's in her way?

Harry: The other guy who wants to doink her!

Ted: No, he's not really in her way. He's just there as a trope. Think about it! Who is always interfering with teen-age girls and their boyfriends?

Harry: THE DAD!!!!!! She has a dad?

Ted: She does now! (they high-five)

Harry: The dad's the wolf.

Ted: He eats the Gramma?

Harry: She's the mother in law! Of course he eats her. He's fed up with her and her bullcrap.

Ted: No can do.

Harry: Wait, why?

Ted: My name's gonna be on this thing. Have you met my mother in law? She'll know it was me. She reads into everything. Her and my wife get together,.....You want me sleeping on the couch? The dad can't eat his mother-in-law. That's just how it is.

Harry: Well, you want him eating his own mother?

Ted: I'm OK with that.

Harry: Weird. OK, well, we got the gel triangle, the whodunit, the doinking, the buzzkilling, the wolf, ... Who's gonna direct?

Ted: Throw me some names...

Harry: Michael Bay!

Ted: Perfect! Lemme shoot some emails here... (types)

Harry: Who can we get to merchandise this? McDonald's obviously.... Do a theme with how hungry wolves get and he'll eat a Big Mac. Teenage girls in red hoodies... it's too easy. Can we get Evanescence on the soundtrack?

Ted: No, they broke up.

Harry: Shit, Muse then.

Ted: Muse with Amy Lee doing Guest Vocals!

Harry: Aerosmith!

Ted: Bad news. Bay just replied to my email. He's out.

Harry: Why?

Ted: He's doing a remake of Sophie's Choice.

Harry: That's gonna be AWESOME!

Ted: Cage is out too, he just replied.

Harry Why?

Ted: He's booked. I'm sending you a link he just sent me. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eExfV_xKaiM ).

Harry: Wow! Those all look like winners! Who else will do any movie they get offered?

Ted: Oldman.

Harry: You are a genius. I'm not worthy! (They shake hands)

Harry: OK, I gotta go, the secretary gave me a spec script she thinks I should check out. It's a movie about the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick maker. It's an allegory about gay marriage. I'm thinking Gyllenhall, musical, set in the roaring thirties. Like Newsies.

Ted: That's GOLD! I want a piece!

Harry: You got it! I'm out! (exits)

Ted: (starts typing, sings) "burnin' the ground, I break from the crowd, AND I'M HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF!!!!!!!......."

Caruso

CSI taught me that to solve murders in Las Vegas you look at bugs, and it works every time! To solve crimes in Miami you take off your sunglasses and say clever things quietly. To solve crimes in New York you actually film in Los Angeles. And, that there will always be room for another CSI as long as they dont run out of songs by The Who.

I have come to the inescapable, but not unexpected conclusion that there is not a movie in existence that would not be improved X20 if you were to go back in time and replace either the main hero or the main villain with David Caruso.

Except for the movies where he already plays one of those roles, you couldn't replace him in the other role too.

Like Face/Off, you couldn't have David Caruso vs. David Caruso wearing each other's faces pretending to be each other.

Or, wait a minute...

*goes back to drawing board and re-checks my equations...

YES, YOU COULD.

                                                         David Caruso only wants to help.

On CSI MIAMI, David Caruso portrays not a mortal, but rather an archangel of both mercy AND vengeance, with the power to sense both corruption AND desperate need. His blaze of burning ginger hair is his fiery halo, and his Colt .45 s his terrible swift sword. When Caruso shows up, it is only a matter of time before the guilty are smote and the endangered are given haven. He puts on his sunglasses whenever his holy wrath is set aflame, otherwise his gaze would incinerate Emily Proctor and Adam Rodriguez as happened at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Roger Daltrey screams at the beginning of each episode, it is the sound of Armageddon being initiated by the sins of man, and he can hear it, and he knows that he can only forestall the deluge upon this Earth by correcting the iniquity.