DRAMADIES
“A Movie” - Intro at diner (coffee shot) and Stella is enjoying breakfast with Cody, her son, when rude teens ruin it; she kills them nonchalantly. Cut to Stella and Cody conning a man out of money in a parking lot. Cut to Matthew getting in a van and going to robbery with 3 others (Mark, John, Luke); they rob a bank, then Matthew kills them all, takes prize for self. Cut to Jackie robbing house when owner comes back; she hides; she finds what she wants along with a dress, gets seen and escapes. Cut to Peter and Dean talking in an IHOP, they leave (abandoning a briefcase under their table) and talk to the cashier real friendly; they leave, IHOP blows up—mission accomplished. Cut to Matthew and Jackie, meeting up and exchanging gifts: they went through the robberies to get each other anniversary gifts for their 5th year anniversary; Matthew got her a hefty diamond bracelet and Jackie got him a diamond-studded gold watch; Matthew explains that, to get his gift, he hired a crew anonymously and hired himself to infiltrate his own crew, to eliminate them; Jackie says the way she got her gift was just “a usual burglary” (she doesn’t kill); they do poon. Cut to Stella who sees a cop parked in front of a fire hydrant outside a donut place, and when he comes out she says tells him that just because he’s a cop doesn’t mean he can break the law; he tells her to calm down; she says they are calm, it’s just that he’s abusing his power; he acts like she’s being hostile but she explains that they’re both calm and she’s just talking; he feels threatened and tells her to calm down; she repeats that she is calm, but gets back to her point; he then tases her in front of Cody and arrests her for assaulting a police officer; her flailing from the electricity is seen as “resisting” so he pepper sprays her; then she’s in the back of the squad car yelling out the window how she didn’t do anything and was just using her rights protected under the constitution and the bill of rights and freedom of speech and etcetera; another cop shows up and takes Cody into his car and Stella freaks out about her boy being taken from her. Cut to Cateline showing up at Dean & Peter’s apartment; Stella calls and needs bail; Dean leaves. Cut to the police station, where Stella sits in the cell, defeated; Dean comes and pays her bail. Cut to Dean coming home to find Peter and Cateline shagging, so he leaves. Cut to lawyer’s office (meet McNulty mid-shag), Dean asks about how evidence of suicide would be judged, and the same for mugging, and McNulty describes; McNulty asks why, saying he’s legal consul—trustworthy; Dean explains (to kill Cateline first way, Peter second); McNulty shocked; Dean calls Cateline’s house phone to break up with her “because he’s seeing someone else;” McNulty is in office, removing hidden tape recorder and tape and hiding tape in hollowed out book. Cut to Stella meeting with her older son (Matthew), his girlfriend (Jackie), and the brothers (Peter and Dean) to plan to give the corrupt cop his comeuppance; Dean gets a call that his girlfriend was found dead. Cutaway to narrated sequence of what they think happened interspersed with footage of what actually happened (she killed herself over Dean’s voicemail as opposed to being killed by the hitman). Cut to Cateline’s funeral. Cut to Cody at the farm—the foster family where CPS sent him: some dozen hillbillies and another dozen foster kids, notably five cruel ones. Cut to the brothers and M&J bagging the cop, then cut to bros’ torturing him interspersed with M&J sabotaging his life; tell him not to tell anyone about this or they’ll kill his kids. Cut to Stella meeting with McNulty over breakfast (coffee shot); McNulty makes Vs with his toast and explains what a Toast V is and why it beats just eating the whole thing (the middle bite is the best) and Stella disagrees saying the crust is the best part, and that she’ll eat his crust if he doesn’t want it, and he’s like “you’re not my mom, you don’t have to” and she’s like “I want to though”; she goes to pay for the bill but McNulty says he’ll get it, and slides the check to himself, but he gets a call and excuses himself and goes outside to take it; McNulty’s gone for a while so Stella pays for it and she steps outside when he finishes up and turns around and thinks she dined and dashed but she says she paid for it and he gets mad. Cut to hitman prepping for the day, praying for God’s strength to carry out his will, doing a job, and then going to that diner and spying on McNulty and Stella meeting; Hitman tells Dean, Dean calls McNulty who goes outside to explain that he isn’t telling Stella a damn thing—he’s trying to get Cody back; Dean is hesitant to believe him. Dean calls hitman back and says to eliminate lawyer. Cut to M&J finding Cody’s location after J infiltrated CPS records under guise of adopting (and M distracting). Cut to Cody at farm. Cut to hitman killing McNulty: shot while driving, he crashes, while on call with Stella; in last words he tells her he always turns to a certain book when he has questions (“The Bible?” “No, [something else].”) and he dies. Cut to McNulty’s funeral; hitman masquerades as attendee, repenting, and he and Dean share a glance of resolve; Stella sees him as well. Dean and Peter go on a walk near refinery, talk; Dean is working up to something (confession) when a mugger (the hitman) comes up and asks for money; Dean stands still while Peter goes to stop mugger who shoots Peter and kills him; mugger and Dean stand there and lean down, Dean gets Peter’s wallet and gives it to mugger, who runs off (Peter confused) and Dean whispers nicely to Peter “maybe, next time, you shouldn’t sleep with your brother’s girlfriend”; Dean then sad and angry, crying, repenting; Peter dies. Cut to hitman running into alley and to bag where he puts his hoodie and gun into a bag and changes into his normal church-going clothes, then leaves alley as police cars race past. Cut to Dean carrying Peter like Cain and Abel to the hospital, not-faking sadness (he hates that he “had to” do it). Cut to Peter’s funeral (hitman there, too; he and Dean share a forlorn glance—Stella recognizes hitman); at end, Stella asks M&J to get Cody and she’ll get the documents from McNulty’s office and relay info to them. Cut to Cody at farm. Cut to Stella at McNulty’s office; she sits, she remembers his words about the book: finds book and inside is a flashdrive; listens to the recordings; sees photos of hitman who McNulty thought was stalking him, remembers the man at the funerals—gasp. Cut to M&J driving to rural area: front seat is cozy with snacks and music, back seat is loaded with guns and shit. Cut to Stella at Home Depot getting murder/clean-up equipment; the cop scans and bags it for her (he was released from the force and now works here, and recognizes Stella—she smiles, he doesn’t); Stella calls Dean and asks if he knows “someone who can kill the police chief for her”; Dean says he knows a guy—perfect. Cut to hitman arriving at a bowling alley; he goes to the pool table and racks up the balls, eyeing the police chief in his bowling shirt as he bowls with his buddies; the chief is up next—hitman walks to bowling area edge and pulls out revolver and shoots chief a couple times; his buddies are shocked but immediately respond by pulling out their state-issued pistols and killing the hitman. Cut to Cody at farm. Cut to outside farmhouse: M&J arrive, they kiss once and M approaches door while J goes around back; Dad answers, “Sign says no soliciting”, and M shoots him in the chest with a shotgun; J sneaks up back wall; M gets behind car and prepares for shootout; family inside wrangle up guns and take positions; J sneaks into bedroom and finds Cody in another room; M is shooting hick fools; J gets Cody downstairs into the kitchen—a daughter is waiting there with a gun, J barely dodges; she hides Cody and moves into another room, tosses a chair at daughter, runs past her into kitchen, grabs knife, knocks gun away when daughter comes in and they struggle with knife—J wins, takes gun, brings Cody to doorway, sees M finish the last hick, but one more slinks up from the side and shoots M, who falls behind car; J thinks he’s dead and shoots hick, runs to M, who’s alive—relief, and Cody’s all good. Cut to Stella at a 24/7 diner (coffee shot again); Dean shows up, hushed, tells her that the hit was botched; Stella is biting her toast into Vs and she tells him that he caught Peter with his girlfriend so he had her killed by that hitman, and he had McNulty killed because he knew too much, and he killed his own brother for one stupid unethical error, even though their whole line of work is unethical; Dean feels sorry about it, but Stella says it’s a little late, or that he if was sorry he wouldn’t have done it; Dean apologizes, truly sad; Stella says that he can’t apologize, though she is sad, too; she says she won’t turn him in and that he’ll have to live with it for the rest of his life instead—a better punishment; she slides him a picture of Peter and leaves; Dean sits and looks at it, then sees a briefcase that Stella left at the booth—he realizes what’s up; Stella’s sitting in her car when the briefcase blows up and kills Dean; She turns the car on and drives off to Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”. Cut to M&J showing up with Cody at Stella’s apartment; reuniting him with his mom. Cut to nineteen years later: Cody is 27 and M&J are celebrating their Opal anniversary and have three kids; Cody is a joyous ne’er-do-well just like the rest of his family, who are all living cushy in partial-retirement (now any havoc they wreak is for fun); Cody hugs an older Stella and says he’ll be back in an hour. Cut to cop’s shitty house: Cody shows up, rings doorbell; cop answers, takes a while to recognize him as Cody stands there silently; Cop recognizes him and Cody shoots him dead. Credits roll with “Radar Love”.
Their clothes colors are reflective of their moods and states of being at that time: tan = normal, grey = blasé, red = anger, white = innocent, pink = gaiety, etc. (10/19/2013)
Note: I actually wrote a significant amount of this film, in what was then my first screenplay (composed with an improvised format in Microsoft Word) during a trip to Washington DC when inspiration struck and we were waylaid in our hotel room. I still like the general idea but it needs a shitload of rethinking and retooling.
“A Heist in England” - Ocean’s Eleven meets Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. A heist perpetrated by the personalities of this VICE documentary on ‘stealing in England’, called How to Get Away with Stealing:
Main character, fraudster, tough guy who is smarter than he looks: Tony “Hotts” Sales.
Two young scammer punks, who yearn to be like main character: Young Cee and Calley.
Internet-abuser and scammer, who is friends with main character: Alias.
Old hoodlum and Nigerian fraudster who isn’t afraid to scam the IRA: Mr. Gold.
Main character’s punky lackey, right hand man, and fellow fraudster: Simmer.
Main character’s ace-in-the-hole, the femme fatale to weaken men: Kelly.
Main character’s idol, the rich old perverted tough guy, ruthless ex-gangster: Dave Courtney.
Ex-gangster’s stripper mistress, who is infatuated by strength and wealth: Flora. (01/22/2015)
In 1919, Boston underwent a police strike. Governor Coolidge had Police Commissioner Curtis bring in extra help: a coffin is dragged [on the ground] into the city by the commissioner on horseback. Inside is a formerly-dead, immortal man who's a gun for hire. (He's like a non-vampire vampire mixed with a non-zombie zombie—like a “Solomon Grundy” type but not actually a grey-version of Hellboy.) The mercenary quells the violence of Boston while the Governor replaces the police department with more “enticeable” people who won't go on strike [for the right rate]. The merc has a crossbow and small gatling gun, in addition to a Thompson sun machine gun and dual pistols. He quells alcohol smugglers and bank robbers, along with rebelling cops, but eventually turns on Coolidge and Curtis—the true oppressors of the people. (This, clearly, is not a movie that takes itself seriously, historically-speaking.) (08/27/2013)
The way Pulp Fiction is a Camelot tale, write a film that's a veiled elaborate story from olden days. Perhaps it’s the story where "God promised to Abraham that if he could find for Him (God) 10 righteous men, He would not destroy Sodom." — So, in this modern-day adaptation, ten “good” men need to be assembled for some kind of job in a place of vice, like Las Vegas, lest this place be otherwise destroyed (or, if we keep to the inverse, a degree of destruction must be completed in order to ensure a proper balance). (03/29/2014)
“The Narrator” - A narrator tries to tell a story, but cannot remember the set-up that results in the conclusion, prompting him to recall/concoct multiple storylines that could have led to it, until he recalls the correct one except it isn't as mesmerizing as he remembered, to his dismay, so he returns to a different storyline to retcon the conclusion to match it, but then gets hung-up on redoing the story entirely to better fit his retcon and, to our dismay, the film ends just short of that. (The set-up explains "who it was" that was responsible for the conclusion, so—unable to remember who it actually was, which is critical to the storytelling—he reimagines the set-up, each time with a mostly-obstructed view of the female protagonist so that her hair/clothing doesn't give away which storyline it takes place in; the reveal itself is the female protagonist climbing some stairs, going toward a door, and opening it to reveal the person responsible. — The film is divided between shots of the stories being told and the narrator as he traverses his daily routine, speaking directly to the camera/audience.) (08/28/2013)
The Film Universe Film — A film following a man who lives in a movie universe, but isn't the protagonist-type: he's a normal guy who works in as an analyst in an insurance company. He works in a skyscraper in the city of Los Angeles, lives in a quaint suburban neighborhood, and commutes on the highway in his decent Toyota Camry; his wife is a bank teller and soccer mom, and their two kids go to public school. All of them suffer from knowing [for a fact] that they live in a world of protagonists and extras, and they're among the throw-away characters, who have to live normal lives in order to keep the world being normal, so that “more important others” can have their adventures. (This man, in particular, desires deeply to someday be revealed as a protagonist—to have his own “important” story begin.)
On his way to work, his car is damaged in a car chase between a stolen armored truck and a fleet of police cars; he has a tow truck take it to a mechanic, and he'll pick it up later. At work, the neighboring skyscraper and his are damaged in a fight between two superheroes, and they have to evacuate. He meets his wife for lunch and, while eating, together witness a romcom meet-cute. His wife returns to work while he goes to see a doctor about his increased blood pressure, which is worse since he moved to the city, and the victim of an unusual disease arrives (with a medical-detective type person, who is investigating) prompting the hospital to go into lockdown. Finishing-up work for the day, the wife’s bank gets held-up by robbers—again.
At home, the neighbors are gone so their kids throw a house party like Project X—and the wife won't let her teen go; the teen is in the same class as a nerd who gets picked-on by jocks (as preppy girls gossip about geek girls) but all they do is watch; later, the nerd gets his comeuppance in a bout with the head jock. The family’s middle-schooler attends school on a day when another kid pulls a wacky stunt and upsets the principal; that other kid is the hero of the school, and the middle-schooler is friends with someone who is friends with the hero, but they often choose to hang with the hero rather than the middle-schooler, especially after that wacky stunt gets the hero kid acclaim and reverence.
The wife watches television and sees that a volcano has sprung-up after an earthquake in Los Angeles, but that a team of scientists are working on delivering a nuclear payload into the fault, to trigger a second earthquake that will loosen the rocks to close up the gap. The man finally returns home after the lockdown is cleared, and they discuss moving back to the country, where it's quieter, but the wife doesn't want to risk another abduction (their neighbors were abducted by aliens, prompting the visit from some government paranormal agents); they also talk about how they had a few heroes in their family lineage—a pirate who swashbuckled against the Spanish kingdom, a woman who robbed banks with her husband in the early 1900s, and a WWII soldier who held strong in the Philippines. The teen sneaks-off to the party and stands in the back of the room, talking to people with a drink in his hand, while the nerd plays with his band and surprises everyone with his social value.
The next day, the woman is doing shopping downtown, walking the street, and passes a negotiator talking a suicidal person off the ledge of a building—and she just passes through the scene because she's seen it before. The man is taking the bus to work, since his car is in the shop, and a different bus passes them all, speeding, since it's been hijacked to the tune of the movie Speed: everyone aboard the bus with the man are relieved for having made it to the bus station five minutes earlier, catching this one instead of the Speed one. The middle-schooler is at lunch when a time travel machine materializes in the middle of the cafeteria: everyone watches and waits for the person to exit, and it opens up and this futuristic man steps out, with some historical figures behind him, followed by a young girl (kid’s protagonist peer) on a Bill & Ted-style adventure. At work, a coworker finally returns, after being stranded alone on a desert island for four months: he is ecstatic that he turned-out to be a protagonist because he always thought he was an extra; the man is envious, despite the circumstances.
The wife is getting lunch at a food cart when a gang encounters a rival gang on the street, and they exchange gunfire: the wife is clipped by a bullet. The nerd at the high school gets his revenge against the jock by winning-over his on-again-off-again girlfriend after having given a spectacular rock show with his band at the party the night before. The man's boss is the protagonist of a financial success story (rags to riches) and basks in it while overlooking the cubicles and giving a soliloquy to himself, while the man and others look-on from the cubes. The wife is at the hospital when she witnesses a soap opera unfold, as a doctor realizes that he is going in to operate on his evil twin: coupled with the pressure of cheating on his wife with the man she's cheating on him with, it's too much to bear and he resigns. The nerd's high school band gets signed to a record label as school ends, and they bust out into a musical—all while the teen waits for his bus to arrive and pick him up. The man goes out to the bar after work with the ‘stranded’ coworker and some others to celebrate the coworker’s return, and they witness a low-brow "male comedy" between some dudes at the neighboring table; at another table are the meet-cute couple, uncoupling (an argument).
The man comes home to find the wife and two kids standing in front of their home, which is one of many that were struck by a rampaging Godzilla-like behemoth (which is still rampaging in the background): their house isn't too damaged, and they have insurance (obviously); as the military mobilizes in their neighborhood and fighter jets zoom towards the behemoth, the family decides to take a vacation—to a tropical island (they worry because tropical islands are often horror, survival, and action/adventure locations, but they don't care: they want the warm beach). At the airport, they are going through security when the guy of the meet-cute couple runs through saying he needs to stop a girl he loves from getting on a flight; as the family heads to their gate, they pass the scene of the guy stopping the girl and the crowd applaud as they hug. On the plane, the wife and three kids sit in front of the man and a soap salesman; the soap salesman has the man describe to him what he does (analyzes hazards and sets plans for insurance company to consider coverage for, as it's popular these days); the soap salesman leans over to him and begins to describe some form of ‘Fight Club’, but a half-dozen terrorists hijack the plane; the man sits, panicked, when he realizes that this may be HIS reveal as a protagonist, so he unbuckles and goes to stand up, but a person coming down the aisle pushes his shoulder down as he runs down the aisle grabbing at seatbacks for support (and the man sits): this person is a gruff everyman like John McClane, and the passengers stay seated as the everyman incapacitates the distracted guard, then goes to the cabin, busts the door in, and has an unseen fight scene (the plane rocks a bit and then steadies); the everyman comes on the PA to announce that everything is okay—and all the passengers cheer, except for the man.
They arrive at the hotel to find the couple in front of them at the front desk asking if their room is haunted (because of noises and movement and flickering TV screen and breathy silent phone calls in the middle of the night) and ask to change rooms, but the front desk says that they're booked solid; our family checks in and goes to their room. They plop onto the beds and turn on the news: the Nazi base that was discovered on the moon was attacked by NATO forces today and a glorious space battle resulted in a NATO win; there's another giant radioactive mutant spider infestation in Tokyo; gay marriage for cartoon characters was finally legalized; and there's an outbreak of zombies in Europe that was centralized out of Paris, after a person with a mysterious illness came home from visiting a US Air Force base outside of LA—so the wife double-checks with the man because of his story about the hospital lockdown, and the man says he thinks it's the same person they speak of: she asks if he feels ok, and he says yeah—maybe he's immune, he thinks, which could mean he's maybe a protagonist after all (if there's a zombie apocalypse, he'll survive, but they know that all apocalypses never do everlasting damage—the meteors and the miniature ice age and the hell demons and the robot uprising all came and went).
The family goes to dinner, where some mafia men debate how to deal with eliminating some enemies and betrayers: they talk about a synchronous group of assassinations, and the man tries to keep his kids from listening to it and its graphic detail, by asking how their school is going—but they're interrupted by the couple from the meet-cute, who are also eating there, and the guy drops to a knee and proposes, she says yes, and everyone is happy, and their dinner is on the house (whereas the family has to pay for theirs). The family goes back to the room that night, and the man lies awake since he can hear the neighboring room dealing with a ghost-demon attack: the couple inside are struggling and yelling a bit, while there's whooshing and things breaking. The next day, the family is at the beach, and the man is asking his wife if she ever gets tired of living in such an exciting world when their lives are so boring: she agrees, but says that most of the world is just like them, so it's nothing to complain about; then a group of tennis players run in slow-motion down the beach (with a triumphant movie score echoing around them) while everything else is normal speed and noisy; the kids are playing in the sand when someone yells frantically for everyone to turn and run, so the man looks behind them and sees that a bunch of velociraptors are pouring out of the jungle; they stand up to run when a T-Rex (one a leash) and a band of post-apocalyptic bandits on ATVs roar out of the jungle and fire automatic weapons at the velociraptors (while the T-Rex bites some); the beachgoers all stand there, confused, and slowly sit back down since the threat is abated; they are all hesitant to resume their day, but resign to do so—until moments later when a megashark leaps out of the water and eats a boat, at which point all the beachgoers reach exasperation and, seriously ticked-off about the inability to relax, meander back into the resort.
The family wanders the streets of the resort's town, and pass a church where the couple from the meet-cute are exiting after having just recently being married: they get into a car together and drive off. The family passes a tenement whose door has been blocked-off because it's a crime scene (noir detectives discuss the crime and how the serial killer hasn't been caught yet, but needs to be—but what's the trend?!) and the family hears a screech and crash, and into view comes the crashed wedding car of the couple, and a localized somber movie score (or “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam) plays as the guy leans over his dying bride and apologizes and says he loves her and they kiss and she dies. The family keeps walking and enters a café; they order some food and sit down, and watch in boredom as a detective at another table pieces together a scenario and has mind-bender revelations that the killer has been around them the whole time: it's someone whose fingerprints were already at the scene: it's someone who could pass a lie detector because they wouldn't remember doing it: it's himself, or rather, his split personality—and the man groans at hearing this. The family walks back to the resort and passes a hobo telling that the end is near; they walk into the hotel and overhear a rugged man in a suit telling someone over the phone that they want their daughter back, and they'll kill if they have to (basically, Taken).
The family sit in front of the TV in their room and watch the news: the US president is badass and foiled his own assassination in Philadelphia; the coach of an underdog football team gave a speech that rallied them to have a comeback in the second half, getting three touchdowns and a last-second field goal to win; a blind lawyer convinced a grand jury not to convict a soulful black man who was wrongly accused of murdering a businessman; a harlot-turned-trophy wife (basically, Pretty Woman) became a black widow as she killed her husband in order to get his inheritance; and a room in [the hotel that they’re staying at] had a ghost-demon in it, which was confirmed by local ragtag occult investigators who found a portal in the laundry room, directly beneath the hotel room in question—and the family turns to look at the wall connecting their neighbor’s room…
The family are woken up to a call from concierge that says there’s a plague going around, and that everyone needs to evacuate the hotel; the family reluctantly packs and leaves. On the flight home, the wife and kids sit in the row ahead of the man, who sits next to a scruffy guy: after the man asks the scruffy guy if he’s ever disliked not being a protagonist, the scruffy guy goes into an inattentive monologue about how his great-great-grandfather was a sheriff in the Wild West, and he tells a tale of the sheriff stopping a couple of banditos; the man falls asleep during this story and dreams of himself in that position, as the sheriff of a Wild West town, except nothing happens in the town, which is really quiet and boring; he awakens to the scruffy guy climbing over him, since the plane has landed and he’s trying to get out; the man gets up and exits the plane with his family; they’re followed by the guy from the meet-cute, who is in mourning. In the lobby of the airport, the rugged man in a suit comes down the escalator and chases a goon, and the rugged man has a vicious, brief shootout with some other goons—and he kills them all except for one, who he interrogates as to the whereabouts of his daughter; this goon says that Mikhail Rodorov has her, and the rugged man kills the goon and hastily commandeers an idling motorcycle, left by a hapless pizza deliveryman.
The family waits outside for a taxi to pick them up; exiting the airport is a sheltered, conceited pop star who is being denied access into a limo and is complaining about not being swarmed by paparazzi (her gruff agent tells her that she has to redefine her attitude, after her fame and fortune were dissolved). Exiting the airport elsewhere is an uptight businesswoman who doesn't have time for love, but she needs it, so when a laidback dorky guy [from her flight] is desperately flirting and she isn’t biting, she reminds herself that her friend encouraged her to try dating, so she strictly agrees to give one date a try: she agrees to that night, at a restaurant of her choosing, and she lays down the rules. Also exiting the airport are a group of college frat boys who had a wild night that ended with them drunkenly flying to another country and going on a crazy adventure; they have come back and learned a single moral about youth and responsibility. The family finally gets into a taxi and heads home.
The family arrives home to find their house actively being repaired, as have many other homes in the neighborhood before them (the response for these kinds of things is quick because of the large, well-trained, and proactive construction repair industry in this universe). They go inside and go to bed, but the man has a problem falling asleep. The next day, he’s entering the elevator; as it goes up, it stops and grinds, then it snaps and drops a few feet before becoming snagged on a mechanism, tilting slightly; the people inside are nervous; rescuers are bringing people out one by one, with the man being left for last; the elevator starts creaking, and there’s suspense as he decides whether or not to exit the elevator, because he could die and get on the news, or he could live and continue being unimportant—and he ultimately steps back from the rescuers’ outstretched hands, choosing to die, as the elevator creaks… and, as he backs further into the corner, something in the elevator CRACKS, and it plummets, crashing with a fireball at the bottom of the chute.
The family, at home, is not mourning—rather, they sit and watch the news: a heinous and devious serial killer has broken out of prison again (again-again) and is back on the loose (again-again); a robot uprising began in Taiwan and is begin suppressed by the Chinese government; and an elevator plummeted in an LA skyscraper, “killing one”, after a hacker dismantled the access to the penthouse in order to hold the CEO hostage (but the terrorists were taken down and the CEO survived): the man is not mentioned at all in this news report, and his family doesn’t expect a thing. From the kitchen, an Assistant Director (with headphones and clipboard) ushers a “new man” into the living room, reminding him of his character, because the “new man” is a replacement extra: ushered on stage by necessity for the background elements, and told to fulfill the niche of the man—his family won’t know the wiser, and neither will the world. End. (02/11/2015)
Original documents created on the dates parenthesized following each item.