Sunday Sunrise - Jan 13

[Head Mutant]

This week's Sunday Sunrise:

You've been given enough basic film equipment and a capable crew to shoot a film, along with $1 million, for the purpose of making an indie film. Keeping within those limitations, what kind of movie would you make and what would it be about?

[Hucklebubba]

I'm thinking. . .comedy. It would be a somewhat darker take on "glimpse" films like It's a Wonderful Life and The Family Man. Here comes a plot synopsis!

Joe--somewhat homely disgruntled smart guy and all-around unengaged quasi-failure--having bemoaned the fact that good looks are of infinitely greater practical value than intelligence the requisite number of times, is payed a visit by the Alternate Universe Fairy. The AUF, with no warning aside from a brief explanation--during which Joe can't get a word in edgewise--transports Joe to another world; a world exactly like his own, except that he's a studly, slightly vapid version of himself (Not stone dumb, mind you, just average or a tick below).

Joe spends a week in this shadow realm, awash in the trappings of the magically-successful hot person; enjoying a much higher life station than that of his previous self--which he is unsure of how he achieved, but fortunately not introspective enough to really care--and, having been freed of any compulsion to ponder the big questions, greater overall happiness.

At the end of the week, the AUF shows up again. According to the way things are supposed to happen, Joe should be properly humbled and ready to return to his real life. He isn't, as the only thing his experience has taught him is that the self-pitying sentiment incumbent to his former state was absolutely correct. One headbutted AUF later, and the final segment of the film focuses on Joe's desperate attempts at clinging to his vastly superior false life. The irony being that he lacks most of the cunning of his former smart self, which would come in handy for eluding his pursuers.

The sucky part is that I don't know how it would end, and I don't like any of the possible endings:

Ending #1: The Not Especially Believable One

Joe manages to somehow remain in the alternate universe, and destabilizes the entirety of existence in the process.

Ending #2a and #2b: Darky McDarks

a. For the sake of preserving the space-time continuum, Joe is killed.

b. [Ditto], Joe is flung back into a life he can then hate even more, thanks to having a clearer point of comparison.

Ending #3: The Ending That Runs Contrary to the Whole Movie

Also known as the "Well, I guess things weren't so bad after all" ending.

(Extra Special Note: No, Joe is not meant to be a projection of myself. It's merely coincidence that we resemble each other in a lot of ways, such as shameless self-proclamations of high intelligence, and juvenile feelings of resentment toward a world that isn't paying out what it owes. I'm pompous! Whee!)

[Rett Mikhal]

Duh. Hire a crew to kidnap Katie Holmes, and then spend the rest of the money beating the tar out of her and filming it. Filming it, and loving it.

And if any of you say that Katie Holmes is attractive... you'll be her co-star.

[blinkfan]

rettmikhal said:

Duh. Hire a crew to kidnap Katie Holmes, and then spend the rest of the money beating the tar out of her and filming it. Filming it, and loving it.

And if any of you say that Katie Holmes is attractive... you'll be her co-star.

Hey, I didn't know Rettmikhal was Eli Roth!

I would make a dark drama focusing on 4 friends from elementary school whose lives all go in different directions and ends with 1 redeeming himself, The good one being stabbed for the greater good and the other two dying because of their chosen lifestyle.

[merlinmerry]

I would make a children's movie that would leave adults in the audience only semi-comatose.

The star of the movie is a beautiful collie named...Cassie. Cassie lives on an old farm with Mom, Pop, Gramps and little...Tommie.

Cassie spends each and every day rescuing little Tommie from various dilemmas such as falling down a well, getting lost in the woods, falling down another well, being kidnapped by evildoers and falling down yet another of the 70 or so wells on the property.

Her abilities and senses honed by years of babysitting the accident prone Tommie, Cassie finally takes matters into her own paws and, using the extra large phone pad ordered for the vision-impaired Gramps. Cassie calls Child Services. Tommie is removed from his outrageously negligent family and placed with a family in upper Manhattan where the closest thing to a well is former Yankee pitcher David Wells' off season home.

Relieved of her responsibilities, Cassie heads for Hollywood where, after an extreme makeover that mostly consists of a radical hair cut, it is revealed that Cassie is actually a male. Her former (and highly negligent) family had never bothered to check under all that hair and determine her actual sex! Freed of his/her hairy encumberance, Cassie - renamed WinDinDin - goes on to become a major motion picture star, part owner of Hollywood's Hard Rock Cafe and Brittany Spears' new (and most stable) boyfriend.

Not one to forget his/her roots, every New Years Eve, WinDinDIn can be seen lifting a leg to the old home and family.

The end.

[StarOpal]

Only a million, huh? Well that leaves out The Great Peshtigo Fire or Chicago’s Molasses Flood, because of the effects. The Villisca Axe Murders maybe? Hmm…

I know! A dark comedy about this thing that happened in a small town I lived in:

This old lady didn’t have any relatives so she had in her will that all her money and land would go to this old lady club she belonged to. So some of the senior (pun intended) members got together and hired a hitman to bump her off. And he missed!

And you could probably get real talent for the leads because aged actresses can usually be had for cheap. And I could even advertise it as "based off true events." It could be titled something like, The Tea Cosy Murder Plot.

[aargmematey]

I'd make a twist movie. Except instead of just one twist at the end the entire movie would be made up of different twists. The movie would be a true roller-coaster of emotions. One second you have a main character you know and love, the next they're dead, and their imaginary friend...who is actually real is the main character! And so on and so forth.

[DarthShady]

I'd make a mockumentary partly inspired by MTV's "Engaged and Underage" and the number of young couples marrying/divorcing in my county. In the vein of "Drop Dead Gorgeous," a film crew comes to a small town to document the marriage plans of recent high school grads Dustin and Riley, two 18-year-olds (both from lower-middle class families) struggling to make their dream wedding a reality. I'd want it to end with them calling off the wedding and breaking up, but in more of a "they can follow their individual dreams and thus are better off apart" way than a depressing/cynical way. I just don't want a fairy-tale ending where they end up overcoming their differences, winning the lottery, having the perfect marriage, starting a stable family, and living happily-ever-after, despite the fact that everyone thought they were too young. Or I'd leave it open-ended so the audience can decide on their own ending.

[2laky]

I'd like trying a Movie about a Charakter the watcher will absolutly dislike in a very subtile way.
everybody knows these guys that don't even make it to everybodys beatbags, because, while not knowing why, you do everything to keep you from taking any interest what so ever, not even interest in a bad way.
and because it has to be a comedy i will confront this anticharakter with two or three people that are suddenly take an interest in him, start to depend on him, becoming his enemy, while he only struggles to get back to his old live.
at the end there will be no happy "everybody will be loved if he engages other people" or crap like that, i just want the watcher to think "why are they clinging to this darkling, they're all nice guys, i don't see what they could possibly find in him"

i don't know yet how to induce this reaktion with cinematic methods but i don't have the money either

[sarahbot]

What, and give away my chance at fame, fortune and STAHDOM? Nice try, Justin.

[deusdragonexx]

I'd totally put that money in different banks for a while to acrue some interest on it. Then, when I've got a few more million bucks, I'd buy the rights to the book "Kindred" by Octavia Butler, and make that into a film and dedicate it to my mother. That's what I'd do.