Quint takes a look at GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE's creators first feature script!!! BACK TO THE TEEN MOVIE!!!

Hey folks, Harry here with that freshly dried crusty seaman Quint with his latest bit of salty ounces for you good folks to swish with your saliva and digest with the cornflakes... That's right, that cheeky fella has written in again... this time with all the latest on what that whacky bastage behind GEORGE LUCAS IN LOVE is up to. Here ya go... sounds interesting...

Ahoy there, squirts! The hilariously crusty seaman here once more with treasure chest in hand. And boy oh boy what a golden nugget I have to share with you guys today.

Many of you out there saw the terrific short film George Lucas In Love. For those of you who didn't, it was a short spoof of Shakespeare In Love, but following George Lucas, not Billy Shakespeare. Like Shakespeare In Love, Lucas in Love showed us Georgie Boy's inspirations during the writing of Star Wars (then called Space Oats). The short ran about 10 minutes and is hilarious.

Most of those who saw the short loved it. I know I did. It was fresh, funny and smart. It didn't make fun of Georgie Boy in an age where he's an easy target, opting instead to warmly give a fictional (and funny) telling of how the most beloved film series of our time came to be. It was a spoof filled not with meanness, making fun of the material, which happens too often with spoofs these days, but with heart and imagination.

So, what's next from the writer and director? Well, writer Timothy Dowling and director Joe Nussbaum are trying to get a feature length spoof/comedy off the ground called Back To the Teen Movie. When I heard this, I summoned all my seaman powers, articulated the spell of making and crossed my crusty fingers 'til POOF! The script appeared.

Not only the script, but a short film called Evil Hill. The card on the front said it was written by Timothy Dowling, the screenwriter of George Lucas In Love. Cool. I left the steering wheel on the Orca and let the tide drive the boat for once so I could go below deck and watch this Evil Hill.

It turned out pretty cool. It's another spoof in the vain of George Lucas In Love, but crossing Notting Hill and Austin Powers. It was very funny and had the main character, Mr. Evil (before Evil Medical School, I guess) in the Hugh Grant spot and Marilyn Monroe as the movie starlet he meets. The dialogue and beautiful photography was what elevated it beyond being just a spoof. The comedy dialogue was great! Some of Mr. Evil's long speeches were so right on to the character, you'd think Mike Myers himself wrote it. If there's a place to download this puppy, I strongly suggest it. It's worth the time and the trouble.

But on to the script. Back to the Teen Movie. I think this is the most recent draft, dated Sept. 6, 2000. As a connoisseur of 80s cinema, this script played beautifully for me. It takes the main plot thread from the first Back to the Future film and uses it to spoof 80s and 90s teen related films.

It's up to Matty McFox and Doc to travel into the future to save the teen movie using Doc's ingenious time traveling Jacuzzi. When that sucker hits 88 degrees you better watch out. Doc figures that the awful teen movies of the 90s will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the teenage film genre forever.

Upon entering the present Matty and Doc find themselves surrounded by fornicating, foul mouthed teens. Coming from the slightly more innocent '80s, they are both taken aback. One of the funnier running gags is the corruption of Doc. He begins to get "infected" by his surroundings and starts shouting obscenities like he has Tourettes. His usual innocent exclamations of "Great Caesar's Ghost!" have turned into "Great Bea Arthur's Snatch!" and "Great Dick Van Patten's testicles!" and my personal favorite "Holy Deadhookerstank!"

Despite Doc's loss of innocence, Matty must complete his mission to save the teen movie. To do so, he must get two awkward teens, Cindy Cooper and Billy Hanks, to fall in love. Cindy is called "Ugly Girl" by the head bullies at the school, but is described in the script as being an obviously beautiful girl wearing glasses with her hair in a bun. Of course, when the glasses come off and the hair comes down, everybody realizes she's beautiful.

Billy is an outcast. Called "That Kid" and pissed on (literally) by the majority of the school's male population. To make things harder on Matty, Doc informs him that Cindy is Matty's daughter from the time that he and Doc donated their sperm to help raise funds for the completion of the time machine.

Another roadblock for Matty is Cindy's family. She basically lives in the Chris Cooper family from American Beauty with her dad being a repressed homosexual gun nut, her mom being crazier than Anne Heche and her brother obsessed with videotaping trash.

One of the funniest scenes in the script is Matty taking Billy to serenade to Cindy, feeding him lines from the bushes as she looks out her bedroom window. Distracted from watching his gay porn, Col. Cooper sees Matty in the bushes and shoots him. Throughout the scene, Col. Cooper drops him down the stairs, kicks him repeatedly, zaps him with a defibrillator, shoots him up with the What Lies Beneath drug to make him stop moving, digs in his side with his bare hand trying to find the bullet, losing all his rings, watch, etc in the process.

This scene seems to end with Matty waking up naked in Cindy's bed. She tries to kiss him and he stumbles away and ends up tripping through the window, falling to the bushes below. He stands up and checks his wounds only to again get shot by Col. Cooper and have the whole thing happen again.

The script comes to a fun climax following two main plot threads. Thread one is Matty trying one more time to get Billy and Cindy together at the prom. Thread two is Doc and a character called "Grandma Hump" a horny 90 year old black woman. On a fluke, they are both in the Jacuzzi and it gets going sending them on a trip through time where they meet some pretty historical figures. Here's a little snippet from the script:

In the finale, we end up seeing references to Gladiator, X-Men and The Matrix. We also have the pleasure of observing the violent deaths of the 5 members of an N*SYNC like boyband called Handsome playing at the prom. There's even a little twist ending for ya'.

There is an ungodly number of different film nods incorporated within the 106 pages. Here is a list of flicks included just in the first 10 pages: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (twice!), Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Can't Buy Me Love, Karate Kid, Gremlins, Sixteen Candles, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, ET (twice!), The Last Starfighter, Real Genius, Back to the Future and Goonies. This is just the first 10 pages!

What I liked about the way Dowling handled the spoofs is that he knows the effectiveness of subtlety. A great majority of the spoofs happen in the background during a scene, not the focus of that scene. Another thing I like about Dowling's spoofs is they are treated with love, not contempt. You can tell he really loves the films spoofed... at least the good majority of them. He takes some pot shots at flicks like She's All That, Mighty Ducks, Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Even these didn't feel overly mean or there only for spite.

Take Scary Movie for example. I enjoyed it, but my god was it overrated. It was funny, but extremely hollow. It pretty much just jumped from spoof to spoof, with nothing underneath. Back to the Teen Movie is more in the line of Airplane!, where the good number of spoofs are all cemented to a real story. Airplane! was mainly a spoof of the big '70s disaster films, but stands as its own movie. Back to the Teen Movie has a lot more spoofy material in it than Airplane!, but it also has a heart, which all of the recent spoofs have been sorely lacking.

Now, one of the problems with reading a script like this with a lot of spoofs or medium to low brow humor is that what may work on the page might not work on the screen and vice versa. The script is a fun read, but what makes me think it'll be handled well when (and if) it ever gets put to celluloid? I have one reason to think that way and his name is Joe Nussbaum.

He directed George Lucas In Love, so we know off the bat that he knows how to shoot a spoof-based comedy. We also know that he will bring great production value to the movie. If George Lucas In Love was anything it was beautifully shot. Can he handle a feature length film? I don't know. But I do think he deserves the shot. The duo of Nussbaum and Dowling haven't failed us, the viewers, yet and if they stay true to the tone present in the script, then I think we'll have a very, very funny film on our hands.

I hear Dowling and Nussbaum are shopping this script around at this moment and have gotten pretty good word on it, but as of yet no one has picked it up. I've also gotten wind of who they want in the picture. Word is they are trying to get Christopher Lloyd to play the Doc character. You know, pitching it to him as a Brando/Freshman type thing. I think this is a very inspired choice that would add an extra dimension to the comedy. Will they get him? I don't know. My first instinct is to say doubtful, but what else has Christopher Lloyd done recently?

The other really cool name I heard is being sought after is Christopher Walken to play Col. Cooper. I'd love to him in that role. Again, will he take it? I have no clue. Will the film get picked up? I hope so.

I'll keep my ear to wind on this one. If done well it could reinvigorate the spoof genre. Of course, it kind of needs to get made before that can happen. Hehehe. Until then, my crusty fingers will remain crossed for this one.

So, my little squirts, that about wraps it up on this one. Keep yer eyes open for I got a look at Sly's newest project coming up shortly as well as an interview with one of the screenwriters of a big special effects film coming out next month.

One last comment before I go. Today is My Fair Spanish Lady's birthday. So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAIR SPANISH LADY... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LADY OF SPAIN!....

Ahem...

Till next time, my squirts, this is Quint signing off.

-Quint

Feed me your Chum Mate!