22.2.07

Donnie. Donnie Darko.

EXT. NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET - MORNING (11 A.M.)

The same disaster scene as before... only more media, more
neighbours, and a Coroner. People stand around in shock...
disbelief.

From the other end of the street, a girl comes riding along
on a bike... slowly taking in the entire scene. She pulls up
to the kerb where a kid named David (eleven) is standing
around.

It is Gretchen Ross.

GRETCHEN
Hi... what's going on here?

DAVID
Horrible accident. My neighbour...
he got killed.

GRETCHEN
What happened?

DAVID
He got smooshed. By a jet engine.

She stares at the house, where paramedics wheel a body out
of the front door.

GRETCHEN
What was his name?

DAVID
Donnie. Donnie Darko.

They stare at the front yard for a while. We see Elizabeth.
We see Eddie, carrying Samantha... who is crying.

DAVID
I feel bad for his family.

GRETCHEN
Yeah.

DAVID
Did you know him?

She stares at the family for several moments... and then
shakes her head slowly as if trying to locate a memory that
is slipping away.

GRETCHEN
No.

Rose, leaning against a tree while smoking a cigarette,
notices them. She seems to recognise Gretchen... from
somewhere in the vast reservoir of her memory.

She waves at her.

She waves back.

Fade out.


Devil's Advocate

God's your prankster, my boy.
Think of it.
He gives man instincts.
He gives you this extraordinary gift
and then, I swear to you,
for his own amusement,
his own private cosmic gag reel,
he sets the rules in opposition.
It's the goof of all time.
Look but don't touch.
Touch but don't taste.
Taste but don't swallow.
And while you're jumping
from one foot to the other
he's laughing his
sick fucking ass off!
He's a tight-ass.
He's a sadist.

13.2.07

El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha

¿Quién duda sino que en los venideros tiempos, cuando salga a luz la verdadera historia de mis famosos hechos, que el sabio que los escribiere no ponga, cuando llegue a contar esta mi primera salida tan de mañana, desta manera?:

“Apenas había el rubicundo Apolo tendido por la faz de la ancha y espaciosa tierra las doradas hebras de sus hermosos cabellos, y apenas los pequeños y pintados
pajarillos con sus harpadas lenguas habían saludado con dulce y meliflua armonía la venida de la rosada aurora, que, dejando la blanda cama del celoso marido, por las puertas y balcones del manchego horizonte a los mortales se mostraba, cuando el famoso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, dejando las ociosas plumas, subió sobre su famoso caballo Rocinante y comenzó a caminar por el antiguo y conocido campo de Montiel.”

Dichosa edad y siglo dichoso aquel adonde saldrán a luz las famosas hazañas mías, dignas de entallarse en bronces esculpirse en mármoles y pintarse en tablas, para memoria en lo futuro.

¡Oh tú, sabio encantador, quienquiera que seas, a quien ha de tocar el ser coronista desta peregrina historia! Ruégote que no te olvides de mi buen Rocinante, compañero eterno mío en todos mis caminos y carreras.

¡Oh princesa Dulcinea, señora deste cautivo corazón!
Mucho agravio me habedes fecho en despedirme y reprocharme con el riguroso afincamiento de mandarme no parecer ante la vuestra fermosura. Plégaos, señora, de membraros deste vuestro sujeto corazón, que tantas cuitas por vuestro amor padece.


Primera Parte, Capítulo II. Que trata de la primera salida que de su tierra hizo el ingenioso Don Quijote.


12.2.07

Chasing Amy

I love you. And not, not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. I love you. Very, very simple, very truly. You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. And I know that you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you would ever consider. But I had to say it. I just, I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't, I can't look into your eyes without feeling that, that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. And I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, because I've never felt this way before, and I don't care. I like who I am because of it. And if bringing this to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But God, I just, I couldn't allow another day to go by without just getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And, you know, I'll accept that. But I know... I know that some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, then that means you feel something too. All I ask, please, is that you just, you just not dismiss that - and try to dwell in it for just ten seconds. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who has ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it is there between you and me. You can't deny that. Even if, you know, even if we never talk again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of.

11.2.07

I tried to warn you.

I'm sorry to say that this is not the movie you will be watching. The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant. If you wish to see a film about a happy little elf I'm sure there is still plenty of seating in theatre number two.



However, if you like stories about clever and reasonably attractive orphans, suspicious fires, carnivorous leeches, Italian food and secret organizations, then stay, as I retrace each and every one of the Baudelaire children's woeful steps.

My name is Lemony Snicket,and it is my sad duty to document this tale. Violet Baudelaire, the eldest, was one of the finest fourteenth inventors of the world. Anyone who knew Violet well, could tell she was inventing something, when her long hair was tied up in a ribbon. In a world of abandoned items and discarded materials, Violet knew it was always something.




Something she could fashion into nearly any device for nearly every occasion. And no one was better to test her inventions than her brother. Klaus Baudelaire, the middle child, loved books. Or rather, the things he learned from books. The Baudelaire parents had an enormous library in their mansion, a room filled with thousands of books on nearly every subject. And nothing pleased Klaus more than spending an afternoon filling up his head with their contents. And everything he read, he remembered.



Sunny, the youngest, had a different interest.
She liked to bite things and had four sharp things.
There was very litlle Sunny did not enjoy biting.
Sunny was at an age, when one mostly speaks
in a series of unintelligible shrieks.
For instance “Gack!” which probably meant,
“Look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog!”
Or perhaps, "What is a banker like Mr. Poe doing,
trudging trough the sand to find us at Briny Beach?"



If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already
know how it feels; and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it.
No one knows the precise cause of the Baudelaire fire.



And just like that the Baudelaire children became the Baudalaire Orphans.
I tried to warn you.


This is an excellent opportunity to leave of the movies,
living room or airplane where this film is being showed.
It is not very late to see a film on a happy elf.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), Brad Silberling. 

9.2.07

The Opposite

Why did it all turn out like this for me?
I had so much promise.
I was personable, I was bright.
Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but...
I was perceptive.
I always know when someone's uncomfortable at a party.
It became very clear to me sitting out there today,
that every decision I've ever made, in my entire life,
has been wrong.
My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be.
Every instinct I have, in every of life,
be if something to wear, something to eat...

It's all been wrong.



6.2.07

Big Fish

There are some fish that cannot be caught.
It's not that they're faster
or stronger than other fish.
They're
just touched by something extra.
Call it luck. Call it grace.One
such fish was The Beast.
By the time I was born,he was already
a legend.
He'd taken more hundred-
dollar lures
than any fish in Alabama.

Some said that fish was the ghost of
Henry Walls,
a thief who'd drowned
in that river 60 years before.
Others
claimed he was a lesser dinosaur,
left over from the Cretaceous period.

I didn't put any stock into such
speculation or superstition.
All I knew was I'd been trying to catch that fish
since I was a boy no bigger
than you.
And on the day you were born,
that
was the day I finally caught him.
Now, I'd tried everything on it:

worms, lures, peanut butter, peanut
butter-and-cheese.
But on that day I
had a revelation:
if that fish was
the ghost of a thief,
the usual bait
wasn't going to work.
I would have
to use something he truly desired.
Gold.
I tied my ring to the strongest line they made,
strong enough to hold
up a bridge, they said,
if just for
a few minutes, and I cast upriver.
The Beast jumped up and grabbed it

before the ring even hit the water.

And just as fast, he snapped clean
through that line.
You can see my predicament.
My wedding
ring, the symbol of fidelity to my wife,
soon to be the mother of my
child,
was now lost in the gut of an
uncatchable fish.
I followed that fish up-river and
down-river
for three days and three
nights,
until I finally had him boxed in.

With these two hands, I reached in

and snatched that fish out of the
river.
I looked him straight in the
eye.
And I made a remarkable discovery.

This fish, the Beast.
The whole time
we were calling it a him,
when in
fact it was a her.
It was fat with
eggs,
and was going to lay them any day.

Now, I was in a situation.
I could
gut that fish and get my ring back,
but doing so
I would be killing the smartest catfish in the Ashton River,
soon to be mother of a hundred others.

Did I want to deprive my soon-to-be-
born son
the chance to catch a fish
like this of his own?
This lady fish
and I, well, we had the same destiny.
Now, you may well ask, since this
lady fish
wasn't the ghost of a thief,

why did it strike so quick on gold

when nothing else would attract it?

That was the lesson I learned that
day,
the day my son was born.

Sometimes, the only way to catch
an
uncatchable woman
is to offer her a
wedding ring.