First draft is done... thank-you, thank-you.
Inspired by awesome 80's Action flicks, I present to you:
MOTOR-PSYCHO
A disgraced former motocross champion becomes a weapon on two-wheels trying to save the girl he loves from a sadistic band of murderous road warriors!
Here we go...
EXT. MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY - NIGHT
Dead strip of road shot with snow.
A Lone Wolf breaks from its cover -- wild, majestic. Its ears prick. Something in the distance. Approaching.
WURRRRRRRRR...
A Snowmobile rips around the bend, its RIDER leaning into the road, full-fucking-throttle.
The Wolf escapes under a curtain of pines AS...
SNOW SPLASHES the black, soulless windshield of a running hot 1968 Olds, 442 Police Interceptor, in pursuit.
EXT. INTERCEPTOR - SAME
The Interceptor skids dangerously close to the precipice of a ditch. Its tires rabid with rage. Its cherries going nuts.
The front tires catch a patch of asphalt and sling-shot the Interceptor up the ass-end of the snowmobile. The bumper nips at the snowmobile’s track. Licking, teasing its prey.
EXT. MOUNTAIN SLOPE - NIGHT
KA-BOOSH!
BOULDER-SIZED CHUNKS OF SNOW EXPLODE as the snowmobile blasts off a cliff, the track WHIZZING through the air...
A hundred feet down, the machine lands hard, bottoms-out. Stalls.
EXT. MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY - SAME
The Interceptor RAMS into a bank of snow, nails a sign that reads BEARTOOTH PASS, and CRASHES into a buried guard rail. Its lights go dim.
INTERCUT
The Rider is givin’r on the pull cord, looking nervously up as smoke rises from beyond the distant, blasted-out snow bank.
The Interceptor wakes. Its headlights sear the white snow.
It rumbles. Reverses. Its tires spinning, tail pipe bellowing. The bumper locked under the goddamn guard rail!
The Rider reefs on the pull cord and the snowmobile ROARS back to life. The Rider jumps on the seat, opens-up the throttle, and whips up a fresh tail of pow...
A few hundred feet below, the highway returns.
The Interceptor bucks violently. Tires SQUAWKING. Its bumper, pulling painfully loose, rattles to the ground and the Interceptor clamors over it -- a thick cloud of vapor left in its wake.
The chase is back on.
The Rider ducks behind the snowmobile’s shield and races between trees, over exposed boulders. But he’s going fast... too fast.
The Interceptor howls around the bend. Its cherries lit up, flashing between the pines.
The Rider is punished by relentless bumps -- almost launches ass over ears -- but across the highway’s gap he SEES the perfect getaway: a mountain trail!
Over the lip and through the air, the snowmobile launches into the path of...
BURRRRT-BURRRRT...
An Eighteen-Wheeler!
The Rider’s gobbled up by the monster’s grill, the snowmobile's chewed up and spit out from the last of the transport’s eighteen, deadly wheels.
CLOSE ON
The Rider’s helmet wobbles to a stop. The visor POPS open to reveal his decapitated head inside... Blink-Blink!
SPLAT!
The Interceptor splits the helmet like a bloody egg.
SMASH TITLE
MOTOR-PSYCHO
FADE TO:
The white, searing light of an afternoon Sun.
A bird’s CAW.
It’s a glorious American Eagle, soaring. And shitting...
EXT. MOUNTAIN HIGHWAY - SUMMER - DAY
THWACK!
On the windshield of a passing SUV towing 2 kick-ass fucking Dirt Bikes and one tricked-out motherfucking ATV.
MYA
Ewww... that’s sick.
I'd appreciate your comments. Later.
Inglourious Basterds Review
Last week I was lucky enough to catch Inglourious Basterds (presented by Eli Roth) at the Fantasia Film Festival. Lucky because the tickets were free, and lucky because I can confidently state that this film is Tarantino's master stroke.
And not in a jerk-off way, either.
Like the recent death of Michael Jackson; President Obama's inauguration, and other American 'giant leaps for mankind,' Basterds is an event: the ascension of a great cinema craftsman into the pantheon of living masters.
But you may have your doubts. I had mine: the Basterds themselves, for example. Pussies, I thought. How can those Jew Basterds be taken seriously? One answer: Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz played icy-cold by Til Schweiger.
Now I've never pretended to be smart - not since I fell out of that tree in high school anyway - but there's one thing I know in my bones like the coming rain in an old arthritic woman's hands, and it's violence. More specifically, when violence is about to go down...
And I'll tell ya what. Basterds is a slow turn of the screw that makes Henry James' Turn of the Screw sound like The Hardy Boys. An opera of destruction. From Roth's Ritalin deprived man-child, to the unrequited love of a Nazi hero, Basterds has more reversals than a Rubik's Cube.
While watching (full of malt liquor and the bladder of a preemie) I wondered if there's anyone out there that keeps *score* of things like reversals in film. You know, like in sports? Cause holy shit like c'mon you can't be serious. Just when you thought the scene had nowhere else to go - BLAM! Shit on the fan. On the walls. In the front row seats. And piss running down my leg.
After the film Eli asked us to spread the word if we liked what we saw because Tarantino is super-proud, as of course he should be, and fought to have the film screened at Fantasia out of respect for the festival and its fans. So that's what I'm doing. Not because I like writing reviews, because this shit is fucking painful.
And not because I'm *friends* with Randy Pearlstein who co-wrote Roth's Cabin Fever - because we're not really *friends* anyway. And not because I contacted Eli on Myspace and asked him to put me on a guest list for the film because the tickets were sold-out by the time I heard the film was playing, and then I embarrassingly showed up at the premiere (I was already there having seen Michael Dougherty's excellent Trick 'R' Treat just before it - you can buy that one on DVD in October) and asked if they had REPO MAN (my code to Eli in my message to which he never responded) on the list and they said NO...
BREATHE.
But because INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS reveals itself to be more than just a great film - it's the cinematic knighting of a man as a master. Truly an event to witness.
p.s. I got the ticket free because not everyone on the VIP list was present. Thanks Fantasia.
p.p.s I also met Fangoria editor Tony Timpone. Whadda great guy. Happy 30th Fango.
And not in a jerk-off way, either.
Like the recent death of Michael Jackson; President Obama's inauguration, and other American 'giant leaps for mankind,' Basterds is an event: the ascension of a great cinema craftsman into the pantheon of living masters.
But you may have your doubts. I had mine: the Basterds themselves, for example. Pussies, I thought. How can those Jew Basterds be taken seriously? One answer: Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz played icy-cold by Til Schweiger.
Now I've never pretended to be smart - not since I fell out of that tree in high school anyway - but there's one thing I know in my bones like the coming rain in an old arthritic woman's hands, and it's violence. More specifically, when violence is about to go down...
And I'll tell ya what. Basterds is a slow turn of the screw that makes Henry James' Turn of the Screw sound like The Hardy Boys. An opera of destruction. From Roth's Ritalin deprived man-child, to the unrequited love of a Nazi hero, Basterds has more reversals than a Rubik's Cube.
While watching (full of malt liquor and the bladder of a preemie) I wondered if there's anyone out there that keeps *score* of things like reversals in film. You know, like in sports? Cause holy shit like c'mon you can't be serious. Just when you thought the scene had nowhere else to go - BLAM! Shit on the fan. On the walls. In the front row seats. And piss running down my leg.
After the film Eli asked us to spread the word if we liked what we saw because Tarantino is super-proud, as of course he should be, and fought to have the film screened at Fantasia out of respect for the festival and its fans. So that's what I'm doing. Not because I like writing reviews, because this shit is fucking painful.
And not because I'm *friends* with Randy Pearlstein who co-wrote Roth's Cabin Fever - because we're not really *friends* anyway. And not because I contacted Eli on Myspace and asked him to put me on a guest list for the film because the tickets were sold-out by the time I heard the film was playing, and then I embarrassingly showed up at the premiere (I was already there having seen Michael Dougherty's excellent Trick 'R' Treat just before it - you can buy that one on DVD in October) and asked if they had REPO MAN (my code to Eli in my message to which he never responded) on the list and they said NO...
BREATHE.
But because INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS reveals itself to be more than just a great film - it's the cinematic knighting of a man as a master. Truly an event to witness.
p.s. I got the ticket free because not everyone on the VIP list was present. Thanks Fantasia.
p.p.s I also met Fangoria editor Tony Timpone. Whadda great guy. Happy 30th Fango.
Out of the Pan and into the Fire.
Before I get to the screenwriting... Some backstory if you don't mind?
I was born in a mining town in Norther Ontario - Timmins (home of Shania Twain!) - that neighbours the town James Cameron was born in...
All that shit on the sidebar to your right, the schools and stuff. That's all true. My father didn't get along too well with most of his mining employers. So we moved a lot.
My older brother's an actor: Jody Racicot. He started off pretty big, acting alongside Jon Favreau and Jeremy Piven in PCU.
I was still in high school at the time. I drank, smoked a lot of hash, and sold and dropped a ton of acid. I started to get in trouble (with the FUCKING LAW) prior to the circus coming to town when I got in that fight with the Ringmaster (did I mention his ol' lady beat me about the head with a broom before the rest of the circus monkeys crawled out of their eighteen-wheelers and proceeded to kick the living shit out of me and drag me - to what I presumed to be, the lions' cage - before the cops saved my ass?) Motherfuckers.
Anyway...
The trouble was there and I was in the thick of it. Coke dealers, dope slingers, dishwashers. That was my future. In Timmins fucking Ontario.
Then my father quit another job and we all moved to Australia. I started to read Charles Bukowski, drink white wine mixed with red cordial, and NOT get laid.
I backpacked and hitchhiked around their (the Australians) country, scribbled notes in numerous soft cover books and when I got the living shit kicked out of me by a gang of Aboriginals (with this stupid weapon made of a sack filled with sand? and swung with a rope) I flew to Los Angeles.
I stayed at a backpacker's hostel in Venice Beach then moved to the beaches of San Diego and then went back up to Hollywood. I got the best blowjob of my life from this French girl just off of Hollywood Blvd... I honestly felt like she was trying to kill me. A sex assassin. Her weapon was fellatio.
Fast-Forward >>
Back to Canada to fuck around. I hitchhiked 'cross the country a couple of times... lived in a van. In a parking lot. Down by the river. But that was Whistler. It was a lot more fun than depressing.
When I moved to Montreal in 2000, I started writing my 'First-time Writer' semi-auto biographical novel. Like George (we share the same birth day) Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London. Only I wrote about Australia, California, and the Greyhound Bus... And not getting laid.
This was during the time when 'Chick Lit' was big. What was the dude's equivalent? 'Dick Lit?'
Anyway. There was that dude Eggers that kind of made it all seem laughable. I don't know why, that's just how I remember it.
Fast-Forward >>
Shortly after writing this one hundred thousand word opus, I wrote a screenplay. It probably sucked.
Fast-Forward >>
My dad passed away and I moved to New Orleans. I tried to drink myself to death. Didn't work. I ran out of money.
Fast-Forward >>
Back in Montreal after having worked all 'round the U.S: Miami, New York, New Haven, Montana... I took a screenwriting workshop that saved my life. Or more importantly, I found a mentor who told me I had talent and encouraged me to keep working at improving my craft - that it always pays off in the end.
Fast-Forward >>
A comedy Spec Pilot, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and a half dozen feature specs have led me to this:
The Horror Movie! I grew up on Horror movies...
Four years old and I'm watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Alone. In my uncle's basement. As my parents smoke hash and party upstairs... Terror Train - kindergarten... Friday the 13th - every Friday... And An American Werewolf in London. I was a teenager before I could get through the whole thing - and it's funny?!
I'm presently work shopping my first horror spec with Randy Pearlstein (Cabin Fever) and it's a kickass motherfucker of a non-stop boot in the balls sunovabitch. Here's the logline:
While celebrating Spring Break at a secluded lake house, a recently returned soldier and his former high school friends are terrorized by a madman stalking the surrounding woods.
I've got a second draft.
Wish me luck.
I was born in a mining town in Norther Ontario - Timmins (home of Shania Twain!) - that neighbours the town James Cameron was born in...
All that shit on the sidebar to your right, the schools and stuff. That's all true. My father didn't get along too well with most of his mining employers. So we moved a lot.
My older brother's an actor: Jody Racicot. He started off pretty big, acting alongside Jon Favreau and Jeremy Piven in PCU.
I was still in high school at the time. I drank, smoked a lot of hash, and sold and dropped a ton of acid. I started to get in trouble (with the FUCKING LAW) prior to the circus coming to town when I got in that fight with the Ringmaster (did I mention his ol' lady beat me about the head with a broom before the rest of the circus monkeys crawled out of their eighteen-wheelers and proceeded to kick the living shit out of me and drag me - to what I presumed to be, the lions' cage - before the cops saved my ass?) Motherfuckers.
Anyway...
The trouble was there and I was in the thick of it. Coke dealers, dope slingers, dishwashers. That was my future. In Timmins fucking Ontario.
Then my father quit another job and we all moved to Australia. I started to read Charles Bukowski, drink white wine mixed with red cordial, and NOT get laid.
I backpacked and hitchhiked around their (the Australians) country, scribbled notes in numerous soft cover books and when I got the living shit kicked out of me by a gang of Aboriginals (with this stupid weapon made of a sack filled with sand? and swung with a rope) I flew to Los Angeles.
I stayed at a backpacker's hostel in Venice Beach then moved to the beaches of San Diego and then went back up to Hollywood. I got the best blowjob of my life from this French girl just off of Hollywood Blvd... I honestly felt like she was trying to kill me. A sex assassin. Her weapon was fellatio.
Fast-Forward >>
Back to Canada to fuck around. I hitchhiked 'cross the country a couple of times... lived in a van. In a parking lot. Down by the river. But that was Whistler. It was a lot more fun than depressing.
When I moved to Montreal in 2000, I started writing my 'First-time Writer' semi-auto biographical novel. Like George (we share the same birth day) Orwell's Down and out in Paris and London. Only I wrote about Australia, California, and the Greyhound Bus... And not getting laid.
This was during the time when 'Chick Lit' was big. What was the dude's equivalent? 'Dick Lit?'
Anyway. There was that dude Eggers that kind of made it all seem laughable. I don't know why, that's just how I remember it.
Fast-Forward >>
Shortly after writing this one hundred thousand word opus, I wrote a screenplay. It probably sucked.
Fast-Forward >>
My dad passed away and I moved to New Orleans. I tried to drink myself to death. Didn't work. I ran out of money.
Fast-Forward >>
Back in Montreal after having worked all 'round the U.S: Miami, New York, New Haven, Montana... I took a screenwriting workshop that saved my life. Or more importantly, I found a mentor who told me I had talent and encouraged me to keep working at improving my craft - that it always pays off in the end.
Fast-Forward >>
A comedy Spec Pilot, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and a half dozen feature specs have led me to this:
The Horror Movie! I grew up on Horror movies...
Four years old and I'm watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Alone. In my uncle's basement. As my parents smoke hash and party upstairs... Terror Train - kindergarten... Friday the 13th - every Friday... And An American Werewolf in London. I was a teenager before I could get through the whole thing - and it's funny?!
I'm presently work shopping my first horror spec with Randy Pearlstein (Cabin Fever) and it's a kickass motherfucker of a non-stop boot in the balls sunovabitch. Here's the logline:
While celebrating Spring Break at a secluded lake house, a recently returned soldier and his former high school friends are terrorized by a madman stalking the surrounding woods.
I've got a second draft.
Wish me luck.
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