Flying Below Radar
AKA: THE GREAT ENORMO RACE (REST STOP 7B)
This requires some context which is another way of me hedging, basically saying that I am not confident that the material can stand on its own.
This is a script. Movie I would guess, longer than a scene or two, but I'm blissfully ignorant enough to not know if what is contained what would be considered a standard length movie. Movie was the intention, but in hindsight, it is a short story, not so much about a 21st century “cannonball run” but more like the timeless story of two people out of school mulling over what they want to do with their lives. It was written quickly in 2002 and I recall that it included most of the touching up done in a hotel room over the weekend during a work related trip. So, what are you doing during the weekend in a hotel? Hmmm? For me it was finishing my script.
But this was not to be construed as my one shot at greatness, no, this was not that story inside of me, needing to get out to the world. It was not conceived as Rocky. Rather the creation began this way: Back in 2002 I happened upon the evil clown movie that View Askew had helped make a few years earlier. It's bad, it's not Mojo Nixon in Buttcrack bad, but…if I give that sentence additional thought, I could be convinced otherwise. What got me, aside from the sub-par production, was that the plot built and built, but was suddenly summed up through the fortuitous use of a gunshot. Wham bam and we’re done, roll credits. I cannot recall much of the movie but I do recall feeling as though it was a cop out. All due respects to the makers, they were just following a long movie tradition, but I was expecting something a little edgier from an obvious low-budget movie.
The sole intention and inspiration was to create a story line with a tension that was unknown to the unlikely protagonists, and would be grave and growing. To the point where real fear would occur and then a denouement that would be a thrilling white knuckle gunshot resolution!!!
Nope, not that. But rather, one that would build and build until a popgun of a resolution would make all the bad go away. Wow, in hindsight that's a bad idea for a movie, no wonder the clown folk went for the wham bam.
The plot device would hopefully overshadow what I could bring to the party: A funny, engrossing tale, with clever dialogue, written about listless, average people (think extras from a Replacements song) getting caught in something and riding the thrill coaster while generating legitimate fear for their lives. This is terrifying but exhilarating at the same time, for once there is something interesting happening in their own corner of the world, and just when things are at their heightened bleakness, just when they fully buy into being a part of something, wham bam, it all deflates and they're back to listless, average Sixteen Blue. Or twenty-something blue as the case may be.
That was it. Along the way I figured if the inspiration is coming from that clown movie (note: I really cannot recall the name, I know the logo, and I keep wanting to call it Shakes the Clown, but that's another evil clown for another day…) then it would serve to keep the milieu in line and write the dialogue with a nod to that Kevin Smith Clerks-style, at least in spirit. I have a familiarity with Jersey (South Jersey, not that sexy North Jersey…) and the setting lent itself well to the plot as being caught in a transient, fly-over “highways between cities” feel.
Finally, there are the main two characters; drawn from a composite as we like to say. Monk is drawn from several boardwalk locals that haunted the boardwalks in spots like Wildwood in the 80's. Casey comes from another world, the over-educated-under-stimulated types you run across in the lower rungs of big company operation centers. Since neither Casey nor Monk had the ambition or opportunity to “get out” they often found themselves nudged together in strange outposts, like an Orange Julius kiosk in a dying mall. Sid remains Sid.
A nod to my brother who PDF'd this thing back in 2002. I am not sure of the word document location and at the time PDF's were one way streets. This was PDF'd before I did more rewrites so this by default became the final final version. (That's also me hedging.) In time this not only became the final version but the only version, somehow or another that perfectly aligns to the characters contained within. (**2021 Update: PDF’s are no longer one-way-street, so this has been chunked out into 3 parts and linked below.)
Critique: I must say I fumbled the climatic deflation at the end. During the story I killed off one of the characters to give the situation some heft, but those two pieces (deflate to nothing / somebody’s a corpse) never reconciled without some serious story shoehorning. Ding me on plot points but I do love the main characters… and I still agree with the Freecell discussion. I also still maintain Monk's attitude towards work loyalty; bless his naive bitter heart.