Screenwriting & Life... as I've written it so far.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas (Happy February)!! Also: Keep the change, ya filthy animals..

It's just barely [ed. note: and now long after] Christmas. Under only two circumstances should you be reading this; two circumstances and an exception, really:

A) You're on your new laptop and decided to test your wireless internet connectivity on my blog. This automatically entitles you to receiving a gift from me next year.

B) You received, and are already sick of playing, the 90's board game "Nightmare." This automatically entitles you to banishment to the black hole.

EXCEPTION: It's no longer Christmas day [ed. note: seeing as it's now February]. Children the world over cry as visions of gumdrops are ripped from their heads.

I thought, however, given the shamelessly social nature of this 'holiday,' that it would be useful to cover the 'required viewing' bases for anyone unfamiliar with modern society/popular media (read: YOU). This happens, also, to be a cheap and time-affording method for Merry Ho-Ho-ing anyone that I might have missed with the yuletide shuriken that is the gift card.

Ready?

Set.

Let me lay this right out there for you in simple chatroom verse. Home Alone is the gr8est holiday movie of all time. If you disagree, you're wrong. If you object, you're also wrong. Even concurring puts you dangerously close to public ridicule for being such a blatant fool. You'd like to know why, I'm sure, and it's simple. Home Alone has every single thing that a good movie needs.

Let me explain.

When Christ was born, he asked one thing of his storytelling disciples. That one thing was that they never, under any circumstance, sacrifice situational hilarity for the sake of realism - unless said realism already resides dangerously close to too much for an audience's suspension of disbelief.

Home Alone, while clearly a circumstance out of the ordinary, is hardly one that is completely out of reach or out of line with what humans consider to be an acceptable, realistic realm. Let me put it this way: if Moses were to bring Jesus his finished screenplay for Home Alone, the conversation might go something like this.


MOSES: Jesus? May I come in?
JESUS: Hell yes, Moses! Just the cat I wanted to talk to. Sit your wrinkled ass down.
MOSES: Have you read 'Home Alone' yet?
JESUS: Actually I just finished. It's fucking brilliant. Honest. I think they should die, though.
MOSES: Hm? Who should die?
JESUS: The robbers...? The fucking bandits! What, the family? Come on, man. I'm just kidding, it's good how it is. I should buy a boat.
MOSES: What? What are you talking about?
JESUS: Beverly Hills Cop. It's amazing. But you and John Hughes really raped this story. You raped it.


John Hughes raped it; let's be honest. The story in Home Alone is probably the best story you've ever read or watched or heard around a campfire in your entire life. Ever.

With that in mind I here decree the month of December to be Home Alone month, and that Home Alone shall be watched in its full, unabashed state as many times as one can handle consciously, before the day that Christ was (supposedly, HA!) born. Amen.


And speaking of Christ, I'm making a short film about him this week. It's called "W.W.J.D?" and is about Christ coming back to earth in modern day and what he might do with his time. It's going to be a five minute short made specifically for Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett's reality TV show The Lot. I have 16 days to make and submit this film. Wish me luck (or nothing, since I wrote half of this post two months ago). Love you long time.