...i had no idea...
“Originality is dangerous.”
-Salman Rushdie-
According to the internet Hollywood has either run out of ideas, become obsessed with itself, has nostalgia problems, sequel and/or remake problems, a larger problem with overall originality, is at an all time low and/or even near the end. Now I have no data to back this up, but I think Hollywood’s all time low was likely Harvey Weinstein jacking off into a potted plant, or every single other thing about Weinstein, and/or possibly the promised Police Academy reboot.
But I’m not certain. My gooby guts tells me that Hollywood seems to be having a hard time creating original ideas. If so, I might be able to help. I think I’m inventive enough. I mean I put peanut butter and jelly on pasta, wore orthopedic shoes for style, and played Experience Unlimited at a funeral afterparty. These are cutting edge choices.
Perhaps I can use my innovative savvy to help out Cinema, and maybe even learn something about myself and my capacity for invention along the way. I think we live in a world filled with remakes, redos, sequels and prequels, because we are all trying our best to find originality. We hope to find that which doesn’t exist through the comfort of that which we are certain of. I think we find originality through the works of each other, and through our self reinventions, because if we only found it in the deep dark caves of the unknown, we are fearful that it might bite our hand or cook us a dry meal of pasta with ground pasta sauce on pasta with a side of pasta (no salt).
But I’m not certain.
I think originality is attainable.
But I’m not certain.
In an attempt to know, the following is a pile of pitches I’m throwing out there in an effort to make at least one good new original hit film…never mind that the point of a pitcher is to try and not get any hits…
Let’s make a movie!
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
-Herman Melville-
TITLE: DARYL & HIS WHO FARTED T-SHIRT
TAGLINE: His life stinked, but now he is having a gas…
SYNOPSIS: The best gift Daryl ever got was a who farted T-Shirt on a summer spring break 1992 in Alaska. From that point on everything changed. Every time Daryl puts on the shirt he ends up in a different point of time in his life that he can’t escape until he gets someone to sit on a whoopie cushion. Daryl learns the true meaning to life, through love, gas and gags until the fateful night he sits on the cushion himself and has to finally answer that philosophical question he asked so many years ago…who farted?
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 3/10 → This movie idea is basically Boyhood + Scrooged + Farts. I can do better.
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ME: I need to work harder and be weary of where I sit.
TITLE: GHOST CHAD
TAGLINE: Chad has never felt deader…
SYNOPSIS: Chad dies in a refrigerator accident and ends up in a version of purgatory where there are no other ghosts but himself. He spends the next handful of scenes at a dog park, a roller disco, a sushi parlour, a train station bathroom, a Knicks game, underwater, in a legal office, a forest, and finally at a cat cafe where a dog eats a cat and Chad cries ghost tears, which are clouds that then go the the sky and then rain on him. The twist is this all took place in a movie theater while Chad was watching Ghost Dog - The Way of The Samurai.
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 0/10 → Upon researching it looks like someone already created this exact piece of content…also Chad’s are more disturbing than I thought…and the title is just a play on Ghost Dad…really missed the ball here…
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ME: Speaking of which, I just want to watch a basketball game in peace…not eternal peace though…but if there is a basketball purgatory, it would probably be watching only Knicks games for the rest of your life…
“The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.”
-Thomas Carlyle-
TITLE: DONG
TAGLINE: Don’t wrong that bell…
SYNOPSIS: This is a movie about a killer doorbell. I think it could just be ten strung together shorts of people walking up different types of stairs, considering knocking, and then pressing a doorbell and screaming while the credits roll. If it were a full length narrative perhaps people get pulled into the doorbell world where bells and knockers battle for entrance supremacy as some sort of large scale ballroom event. Pretty sure the sequel could be called DING and be about a killer microwave beep. Tagline would be “set it and forget it…”
ORIGINALITY SCALE 3/10: This is basically just the poster for the horror movie house as a feature length…also editor’s side recommendation both horror movies named House are excellent if you are into that sort of thing…
WHAT I LEARNED: ABOUT ME: I am a knocker, not a ringer…
TITLE: SHE ILLED
TAGLINE: The best defense is truly offensive…
SYNOPSIS: An ailing Viking warrior princess Tanya is cursed by her local witch friend after cheating turns at a drunken late night game of Hnefatafl, only to awake as a tawdry foul-mouthed sassy talking shield the next morning. She accompanies a family of warriors through centuries of combat before settling into a love triangle with a talking sword and a sexy french clock at an antique store in lower Idaho. Will she beat the curse or ever stop cursing? Fawk if I know…
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 4/10 – there are movies with talking objects – there are movies with warriors – but as far as I know there is no movie with a cussing sassy sexy warrior shield lady blocking the advances of sex starved antiques in Idaho. That said this is kind of just Mannequin but instead of a department store antiques and instead of a mannequin, we get a drunk viking shield lady who is good at swearing…fawking fooking farking forking facking flucking fulking feck man…
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ME: If I were going to be a sex starved antique I think my best odds at action would be anthropomorphizing into blown glass.
“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.”
-Chuck Palahniuk-
TITLE: MAGIC BIKE XXL
TAGLINE: This bike’s popping more than wheels…
SYNOPSIS: Is that a joke about a bike getting or giving boners? Yes it is. Is this a movie about a wannabe stripper who becomes a BMX bike who has to partner with an ugly duckling dirt bike racer to win the wheelie world olympics while fighting a rival breakdancing stripper who became a fixie bike which is ridden by a super snobby greasy haired villain who has a gang of unicycles that try to deflate the bmx before the big race? Why yes it is. Is the stripper hero named Axle and his love interest, Peg? Of course they are!
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 3/10 → This is basically Magic Mike meets Thrashin’ meets Rad meets Solarbabies meets BMX Bandits. I am giving myself originality points for the bike boner tagline. I dare you to find another movie about bike’s getting boners. I dare you then to find an actual bike getting a boner. I encourage you then to run away as fast as you can.
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF: I am becoming more and more focused on sex with inanimate objects. At least I am not on my own…
TITLE: MOVIE : THE MOVIE
TAGLINE: Watch what you’re watching…
SYNOPSIS: A sentient movie decides to make a movie about itself. The movie becomes a smash hit and soon becomes a sequel, a trilogy and a widely panned prequel. No longer in global favor the movie makes an attempt to better understand itself by becoming a series of international remakes. As the years pass and the movie gets older, more and more audiences forget the original movie as it is slowly remade, redone, and used as inspiration for many new movies. The movie decides to catch a viewing of itself at an old theater and reminisces on its eternal nature. The movie finally ends, but is it ever over?
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 2/10 → I probably should have done some research before I started this task because it looks like the gang at Jimmy Kimmel already made a Movie: The Movie, and someone else made a Movie Movie. I should have gone more high brow and made Film: The Film instead or a sequel to Tootsie.
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF: My confidence in my capability for original filmmaking is waning…I went into the heart of cinema by envisioning a movie about movies and even so it had already been done before…there must be more I can do…
TITLE: THE ORIGINAL MOVIE
TAGLINE: You have never seen anything like this before…
SYNOPSIS: Let’s try tossing it all at the wall…a sleepwalking centaur bass player walks into a late night gig with a suffering bar band transforming them into a perfect funk note that attracts dragon chefs who cook meticulous tiny meals for psychic food forecasters who use their visions of gastronomical future to cook up scenarios for five different characters representing the alchemical elements that take turns dancing and singing about gravy. In the end it was all the dream of an ape baby’s emerging first tooth.
ORIGINALITY SCALE: 0/10 → Well I failed. I’m a failure. Hollywood already made an “original movie” in 1922. It was even called The Original Movie and it was about filmmaking in the prehistoric era and had dinosaurs in it (which were like the original dragons).
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT MYSELF: I might not be cut out for this originality thing…
“Mistakes are the only universal form of originality.”
-Mason Cooley-
Maybe we are being too hard on Hollywood. Originality is no easy task. Voltaire said “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another”, and the dude’s name was Voltaire. I can’t imagine there were many other Voltaire’s out there in the world, but even a man that uniquely monikered didn’t believe in the concept of originality.
In my attempts of cinematic invention I envisioned time traveling with whoopie cushions, swearing shields, sexy bikes, and making a movie consider its very own existence. But still I was troubled to find my concepts had relatives in likeminded creativity throughout the cinematic landscape. I had no original ideas.
Maybe the fight isn’t for originality then, but for quality of vision and artisanship instead? Does it matter if the concepts are entirely original if they are still incredibly awesome? The goal might instead be to make the best version of whatever we are making, instead of worrying if it has been made before. Let’s reboot Police Academy, call it Peace Academy and have it be about a potted plant seeking death wish style justice on all the scum who skuzzed skeet on their stems.
If we are at an all time low, all we really have to do is keep digging…
This bike’s popping more than wheels…
Hahahaaaaaa
"Ghost Chad" had me snorting out my tea ROFL> Well done!