Wednesday, May 17, 2023

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY: ALEX P. McFLY


 


















me: so the kitty litter.
Lindy Lenz: yeah. 
me: i'm glad i don't have to drive to get it. it's right around the corner. but it leaves such a MESS. i have to vacuum every night after. those pellets are more like small rocks.
Lindy: sticks and rocks will break your cock. and names hurt. 
me: your voice cutely cracked again just then.
Lindy: i know, i'm trying to sound like a cat. a cute cat crack.
Greykid: madam i have a Mid-Atlantic accent i acquired at Harvard.........of the West, Stanford. i went to Stanford, both end in -rd.
Felix: i was the first crack cat...
Luke Russert: your life is on the rocks.........but at least your head ain't full of rocks, that's what my dad Tim Russert always used to say to me.

Luke Russert: so i have to do all the driving on this trip?.........fine.
Michael Jackson: it's not so bad, Sir Luke. especially when you have someone special in the passenger seat to keep you company.........no, not Ben, Ben can't talk, silly, Ben's a rat, i'm talking about Jerry from Tom & Jerry.
Luke: so our next stop is the monastery. nice place you've got here.
Aaron Rodgers: are you fucking kidding me? this place sucks.
Thomas Merton: hear hear Saint Aaron. 
Aaron: wait you're still alive?
Thomas: no i'm still dead. but someone out there is looking out for me cos it seems the prayers worked.
Buddha: God?
Thomas: no, Knickers's prayers obviously. all that matters is women.

Prince Harry in a monk robe: yellow taxis are better than black taxis. you know what, Meghan and i are just gonna walk...

Aaron Rodgers: i don't know what an oblate is but it's not my oblique pass.........speaking of which, what's this woman doing here?
Alejandra Silva: no i'm not Kaley Cuoco!!! i'm Spanish, bitch. how is Richard Gere in bed? he's "recovering..."
Thomas: it's cool guys it's cool, she's with me. she's allowed in here. you have me to thank for the relaxing of the rule, now every monk is assigned their own Knickers.
Aaron: yeah but mine's Shailene Woodley...

Luke Russert: we're looking for Oldo, anyone seen him?
Thomas: oh Oldo, i knew him well. he was such a beautiful man. he taught us sprouts everything we knew here. he prepared the dandelion salad for all us monks even when it was not in season.
Leslie Sbrocco in a nun habit with wings:: ...
Thomas: Oldo would scold us to eat dandelion salad three times a day or we'd lose our blood. i countered with i told Oldo i didn't need my blood anymore, i was in a monastery.

Lindy: hey guys come out here, check out the back of the monastery.
in the back lies Starscream from the Transformers shattered into 33 pieces strewn all across the yard. his faceplate can still speak but only in hushed tones as he struggles for breath and has haggard eyes.
Starscream: i can't do the Hustle no more. i'm sick of this war not with the Autobots but with Megatron, i want it to finally end. the ends to wars, aren't they just? just stupid. i just wanted a kid to play baseball with, i wanted Uncle Megatron to be my boy's metal bat. the three of us in shot. no shooting. the Robot World is echelonic, it's not fair for the poor and destitute. the elderly and the chronically sick. the abandoned and ailed. no more sidegrades, we need an improvement to the equipment.   
Lindy: it's okay, Starscream, you can still make your life about something good in the end. hey you (me) and Luke, you guys search for Oldo some more on the other side of the monastery, i got a bot to tend.
Lindy hugs Starscream.

Jessica Alba: you didn't think i had it in me, huh...

Jaclyn Dunn: you can tell the mornings i shower before the report and the mornings i don't. sometimes my arms are saggy, sometimes they're silky. all part of maintaining THE GREATEST BODY OF ALL TIME.

Jaclyn Dunn: i fucking despise morning traffic, why do i have to report on filth? everyone just get jetpacks. 

alleyway ayahuasca: if it's good enough for Bill Hicks on a desert bus...

mom: Nick Kyrgios got knee surgery BEFORE ME?!!! oh FUCK THIS SHIT!!!

Ashley Parker: Amazon Business. sustainability is good vibes. sustainability means green plant hedges inside. the cars we build will have enough room in the front for Jim Comey's long legs. my car is electric and eccentric, the size of a dime not stops on a dime, eggshell blue, i love people...

Ashley Parker: my eggshell-blue minicar is more like half of a car.........and yes we used the American Auto set for this...

Victor Wembanyama: don't call me Wemby, that's lazy. i'm 8-foot Michael Jordan. i'm a real titan. i dunk all my free throws...
me: do you have any advice for me?
Victor: keep wearing that back brace, kid.
me: i did. i wore it until i became a man. i wore it all through junior-high and high, never went to prom because of it. i was so embarrassed of my back. my dad lost his fingers losing the grip of that damn back brace trying to put it on me every night before storytime. he used his book as a wedge, there was no opening that thing, cracking that flap, entering its door, and when it finally attached itself to my back like glue, the screws screwed to hold it in place broke dad's fingernails. a lot of sleepless night where everything was ignored between dad and mom. and for what? all that wearing a pile of bricks on my spine, what did it do for me? what did it accomplish? it straightened me out. my back lengthened. i became taller than you, Wemby. but i never became a man.
Victor: maybe become a bricklayer?...

screwless: you have a screw loose if you're screwless.
Luke Russert: right?

Queen Elizabeth: AI? no that's really me doing the Running Man...

Kendrick Perkins: when is Charles Barkley retiring?...

crepe: everything's a tortilla in the end.

Sam Egan: HOLY SHIT i even predicted Jeff Bezos's privatized flight into space!!!

Sam Egan: hey imagine if Star Trek: The Next Generation had been on Showtime...

NHL: come on, Kraken vs. Golden Knights would have been AWESOME!!!

El Nino: because of me, there are hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean now, this is a new thing for 2023...

Eye Luggage: Bright Lights, Big City and go.
Michael J. Fox: this sucks. this could have been something special. this could have been an '80s Midnight Cowboy. exploring the dark underbelly of cocaine yuppie New York City. but instead the critics savaged it and it became a joke because they said i wasn't right for this role. i was too light for this dark material.
Jay McInerney: and yet, strangely, they did a Broadway play of my book...
Alexandra Silber: yes and no. it was a Broadway musical...
Laertus: that's the thing tho, this really isn't that bad, it's PRETTY GOOD. sure it would have been better if Tom Cruise had done it...

Tom Cruise: me? i was busy during this time playing my one billionth 1980s boy protagonist...
L. Ron Hubbard: superboy protagonist...

Dirg: i crashed Takahashi's car and he don't want to be friends with me no more. not unless i rebuild his car into a brand new DeLorean...

Laertus: that's the ironic thing tho, it's this HIS DARK MATERIALS that's the very thing we're talking about.
Michael J. Fox: right? the script was written and rewritten over again. the book has a lot of dark stuff that the studio didn't want me doing because i was still doing Family Ties and protecting my wholesome image. 
Meredith Baxter-Birney: didn't Alex do shrooms in one episode?
Michael: eventually they agreed to include back the dark stuff. but only if the film was Rated X.

Michael J. Fox: are you ready for your Fox Fix?
Meredith Baxter-Birney: don't know about anyone else but i sure am.

Michael J. Fox: THIS IS GONNA BE WEIRD. are you guys ready to see me in a movie that's not Back to the Future?...

Kiefer Sutherland: i would have been a gifted actor REGARDLESS of my dad Don. 

Phoebe Cates: SEE?!!! SEE?!!! i did the Demi Moore shaved-head badass haircut thing before Demi did!!!

Swoosie Kurtz: you will NEVER forget my name.........i'm named after Kurtz from Heart of Darkness...

Frances Sternhagen: perfect casting, i play STERN well.

Tracy Pollan: see? we met HERE, not on Family Ties...

Dianne Wiest: i'm in a bed but it's not a sex scene...

Gina Belafonte: will i carry on the legacy? sure. but no more tallymen. no tallywomen either for that matter...

David Hyde Pierce: do i do a cameo here or a bit part?...

Michael J. Fox: the film follows one week of my life. i know, everyone forgets about that...

Michael: hookers and blow, this is the 1980s. i've done my fair share. okay so i do a lot of blow and hookers. but it would be fun if i still had a drug partner, a partner in drugs with me, my wife Amanda. but alas she left me.
bartenderess, bartendess, barkeepess: you look sad? is it a woman?
Michael: of course it's a woman. sex and death, remember? you can't get sad when you die.

bartendess: you like my mohawk?
Michael: it just looks like regular hair.
Tom Cruise: isn't this the same silver set from Cocktail? the Citizen Kane amphitheater bar... 

Michael J. Fox: so what do i do? do i hook up, combining both words, with a random woman i met in a club bathroom? i'm this close to a rando rubber room. who knows, this rando woman could be my next Amanda. or at least my next wife...
random woman: i like your wordplay with the alphabet. 
Michael: i'm a writer.
woman: c is for coitus. f is for fuck.
Michael: l is for libidinous.
woman: or you're a liberal, forget it then.
Michael: what i'd say? there's a dictionary in my pocket, wanna borrow it? wanna borrow my pocket dictionary?...

Jennifer Pizarro: so the whole Amanda thing...
me: i know and i can't.........i know but i just can't talk to you right now.........i still can't talk to you right now, it hurts still to this day, badly.........the eerie similarities here are DEADING me...

Kiefer: come to the club.
Michael: why?
Kiefer: i want to tell you something. just the two of us, two yuppies shooting the breeze.
Michael: so?
Kiefer: i just want to say wait for American Psycho, that will cover this material in a better fashion. it'll be more dramatic, Christian Bale is a better actor than you.
Michael J. Fox: hey i'm just here because of Family Ties. it was a surprise hit.

Kiefer: Tad Allagash? could that name BE any more East Coast Ivy League frat boy? the name Allagash is too perfect, allagashed as a verb, the -gash in the word, when you say you allagashed a woman, you ravished her, you allagashravished her.

Kiefer: see that girl over there, Michael? across the bow of the club, across the bowl of dancers, over there on the other side leaning on the balcony. she REALLY likes to eat long celery stalks... 

Michael: fact-checker? i hate my job. newspapers suck, i want to do FICTION. i have an imagination.
old-woman boss: fine, cover the COMA BABY. that's interesting and kinda fantastical and sci-fi-ish, right?

Michael: hi does anyone speak French over there?
Victor Wembanyama: no, just me, i have a perfect English accent.
Michael: i'm just corroborating. so the eskimos wear porkpie hats made of salmon. true. and you were given a gold watch by the team that they melted down and had you drink as part of the ritual. true. thank you.
Victor: ...

Michael: can a pregnant woman be in a coma? i wish that had happened to Amanda. just kidding. sort of. why did she leave me? note to self: remove the art above my bed, it's too freaky, too Guillermo del Toro...

bathroom scene.
man: are you doing cocaine in a bathroom stall? that is so '80s. cocaine tastes better in the bathroom for some reason. read Hazlitt, he gave the best advice for aspiring writers. and the best advice in general like how to detect your boss's piss. i know what Clara's pee smells like now. how to make the main character interesting and exciting, that sort of thing.
Michael: Hazlitt?
man: he fell into obscurity because he died of tuberculosis at age 19. tuberculosis was like an overdose back then.

vendor: you want a little butter on your bread? on your pastrami on rye? like your mother used to make it.
Michael: and what would you know of it? my mother died of cancer, thanks pal.
vendor: hey i'm just saying, people forget to butter their bread in sandwiches, they forget that it's actually bread in there. all bread needs to be buttered at all times.

Webster's: the raciest thing you'll ever read. because you're racing to finish that damn book called a dictionary, you're starting from Page 1 and it's starting to get boring...

Tad at Jamie's apartment.
Tad: you look bad.
Michael: i don't look at myself in the mirror when i dress. i use the mirror to slide coke.
Kiefer: did you know all humans are just collections of skin? what are you working on?
Laertus's dad: ah, typewriting books, those were the days...

Michael: Dead Amanda i mean Dear Amanda. i slipped on the key from r to d.
Laertus's dad: that's a real thing on the keyboard. and that's a damn good line of writing if i do say so myself.

Michael: you always hated Amanda, didn't you.
Kiefer: she was pretty as all get out. but you didn't have to marry her...

Kiefer: you marry the girl who has a supply of Robitussin, you know?

Oscar de la Renta: the dress shirt all '80s boys at St. Cyril's wore...

Swoosie: are you in Dutch with the boss?
Michael: i wish i could buy her happiness myself. why does she hate me so much? it's not MY fault she never got married.
Swoosie: take her to one of your clubs if you want to keep your job. 
Michael: i could sleep with her but.........nah. i always wanted a grandma in my bed but.........nah.
Swoosie: am i a grandma to you? you have such a babyface.

Michael: my boss has the heart of a twelve-minute egg. i don't know, i only drink runny eyes.

Cecily Strong: did someone say smoked emperor penguin on a Triscuit?...

old man: why are the fish in our water cooler not fighting fish? all the stuff i read from college grads today is PHONY. treacly poetry. you gotta write from your heart, you gotta write about money it's the '80s. yeah i knew Bill Faulkner. we went to that Disney kid Musso's club all the time.
William Faulkner: nobody EVER called me Bill Faulkner...

old man: i wanted Bill Faulkner to write about money but he insisted on writing about things like the meaning of life and women.
Michael: there's a connection there somewhere...

Zalman King: OMG THIS SCENE with Phoebe Cates in the mud mask, this is SO ME, this is SO Zalman King soft porn.
Phoebe Cates: why is this mud mask hardening into rock and then concrete?
masseuse: don't worry, we'll stick two straws up her nose so she can breathe.
Phoebe: yeah that's attractive.
masseuse: i'll insert the cocaine up her nose for her, don't worry.
Michael: i thought you'd be naked in a vat of latex batter.
vendor: want me to batter your bread with latex like mom used to make?

masseuse: you go, king.
Zalman King: *blushes* 

at the car wash, Melissa Maker pulls up in her black BMW longcar all shiny with gobs of messy melty turtle wax to be slathered on.
Dahc the mechanic wearing dark-blue slacks and a light-blue shirt: omg. um, can i help you, ma'am?
Melissa: we need to have a conversation. a crucial conversation like my mom always used to say to me. you did such a wonderful job detailing my baby i'm video-ing you now to put on my Instagram, free publicity for your business!!! green garage!!! why do you look so worried?
Dahc: i don't want you seeing my boner in my pants. hopefully it was the right shade of blue...
Zalman King in the backseat: this is SO Zalman King soft porn scene...
  
Michael: Amanda? is that you? or is this an Amanda mannequin? i'll take the Amanda mannequin home with me, i never watched Twilight Zone, Doctor Who, and that '80s mannequin movie...

Michael: i need a drink.
David Hyde Pierce: one brown vodka coming up. 
Michael: so how's Frasier?
David: Kelsey Grammer is the nicest Republican you'll ever meet.

Michael: look, i know i'm acting like a crazy person, but i'm not a shooter. i just want to talk with my wife on stage. she's still my wife, not my EX, so it's legal. i signed no paper that's not paper cash. i want an explanation, just a simple explanation so we don't have to go through with the divorce and go on Judge Steve Harvey instead. don't throw me out, i paid for this vodka instead of paying for my mother's funeral.

Mardith: really? sigh, calling Vicky the Princeton grad student an overweight pig with glasses? sigh.
Julia Ioffe: i'm offended.
Michael: i said PRIG.
Michael Jackson: and you called her a dog...

Vicky: remember Waldenbooks? that bookshop had such a smell to it, it was the smell of ADVENTURE. where are meet-cutes gonna happen now? everybody meets their future spouse by looking over a bookshelf...

at the restaurant.
Vicky: how do you know Tad?
Michael: he was in that movie The Lost Boys. will i ever see you again?
Vicky: yeah i play field hockey and i'm getting my lockjaw looked at by your dentist. also, we're getting married soon, right after this movie premieres. quick, what is Wittgenstein's number-one tenet?
Michael: don't eat raw oysters out of a donkey's butt. because the oysters will cook in there. the ass being a metaphor for your best friend.

Jane Goodall: i have to admit, i never thought i'd see a FERRET in this movie...

Kiefer: don't worry about all thsis cloak-and-dagger stuff we're doing in your ex-office. not suspicious at all, you won't be thrown in jail. ferrets are fine as long as they don't bite your dick. we got pygmy penises, remember?

Clara: who ate the urinal cake in my office?!!!

old man: can i confess to you young whippersnappers? i UNDERSTAND Anais Nin. i understand where she's coming from. there are no right-wing woman authors so i had a date with Anais Nin at Berkeley. Henry Miller beat me up and left me on Telegraph Avenue.

Michael J. Fox: okay this is THE LONGEST MONOLOGUE OF ALL TIME. this monologue i recite is 3 hours long. i did this in ONE TAKE. it's impossible the monologue i just did there, it's impossible for the human mind to remember that many lines all in a row all in one sequence like that.

Michael J. Fox: my cantilever high-rise Manhattan rectangular apartment looks like the inside of the house from E.T..
Michael begins mussing up Swoosie's cashmere blouse and cashmere skirt.
Swoosie: you don't want this...
Mardith: it's true, never fuck your female friend, your best friend of the opposite sex, your platonic confidante, it never ends well.

Swoosie: that doesn't mean I don't want this...
Swoosie begins mussing up Michael J. Fox's suit and tie...

sexual abandonment: when your plane leaves on time...

Michael: little brother, you can stay in my apartment. but don't eat the flavored contraceptive jelly. 
little brother: but that's the jelly Amanda and i ate together and bonded over. i for one LIKED Amanda.
vendor: jelly on your pastrami-on-rye bread?

Michael J. Fox: i can't run around the city on my bum leg. there's a piece of property here that's the size of a pepperoni pizza slice. gotta love New York.

the very effective deathbed scene.
mom: i know all the girls you've slept with. even Clara.
Michael: *blushing* mom how do you KNOW this?
mom: a mother knows. it's not fun when you make love without the love. take your father. please. you promise to never pull the plug on me, right? no matter WHAT. you promise?
Michael: i promise...
mom: my son the writer, remember the most important word in the English language: condom.

mom: you're not coming to my funeral?
Michael: no.
mom: that's smart, that way i'll never be dead in your mind...
Prince Harry: ...

Coma Baby: hey blood, can you hear me speaking to you?
Michael: yes. is it the drugs?
Coma Baby: no, my man, i'm just taking a break from the Massive Attack "Teardrop" video. you ever wondered why that baby seemed so real? cos it WAS real, fool, it was me.

at the party.
Phoebe Cates: how's it going?
Michael: fine. you leaving me was the best thing that ever happened to me. it forced me to realize i don't like girls with pixie cuts, it's too tomboyish for me. so thank you. can i ask one favor? can you pay for my drug rehab?

Michael: OOOOHHHHHH, NOW I GET IT. was this in the script? it's not openly outright stated but i think it's meant to imply that Kiefer was the one who broke Jamie and Amanda up, Kiefer had a fling with Amanda behind Jamie's back. am i right about this? either way, as a WRITER this is the best ending, that would have been an AWESOME ENDING!!!

Laertus: we used to do this, too. remember? when we first started dating? 
Eye Luggage: i remember, sweetpants.
Laertus: i met you at a rave in Berkeley. i was going through some stuff. THAT NEXT NIGHT i called you on the telephone and began unloading ALL my personal problems and demons on you like we had been confidantes for eleven years.
Eye Luggage: that's how i knew our relationship would last. we were strong from the start. we had a solid foundation from the start. we were old friends from the start.

Michael hey buddy, i don't have any money, can i have a loaf of bread for free?
vendor: fuhgeddaboutit.
Michael: fine be that way. but remember, i'm Jean Valjean.
vendor: who's that?

Roger Ebert: i didn't like this. i didn't like you in this.
Michael J. Fox: bro come on, we gotta be on the same page here, we're both invalids, we both have chronic conditions, we gotta stick together. it will always be a struggle for me, my life is a knifefight in a closet. Vicky Allagash and i are having another baby...
Roger Ebert: Coma Baby?

Michael J. Fox: why would anyone work for the New York Post? say what you will, we stuck the landing, the ENDING IS GOOD. great words to end it. it's true, you have to start over, you are forced to start over from scratch. one day whether you like it or not you will have to START OVER COMPLETELY FROM THE BEGINNING ALONE IN THE BIG CITY. g'night folks.







   


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