Do you know David Mirkin? I do. Simpsons writer. Famous, you know. He directed two feature films in the mid-1990s and early-2000s: Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and Heartbreakers. The latter, I had a lot of fun working on. This was a pork production, one that had been in development so long that Meg Ryan was considered, at different times, for both the main mother and daughter character. Eventually, the duo was played by Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt in an exceedingly strange widescreen studio comedy that fell between the cracks during a boom in spoofs and teen sex comedies. Heartbreakers wasn’t as good as Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, not even close, but it was so weird that it never became boring.
Some sets aren’t any fun to be on. Filmmaking is rarely fun, per se, but most people try and make the best of it. Toxicity is no longer tolerated (for the most part), but, paradoxically, with the power to be heard, very few want to speak. I’ve noticed less initiative and less work getting done on sets compared to those I occupied throughout the 20th century, and the difference is that there were usually one or two really loud assholes bullying everyone and pushing to finish, along with a handful of fussy “perfectionists” whom history has awarded “genius” status. I knew Stanley Kubrick. The man only owned one pair of pants when he was making A Clockwork Orange. It’s just something to think about.
I got to know Mira Sorvino and Lisa Kudrow when I was working on Romy and Michele as a caterer. This was 1996, so people could still read, and I loaned my copy of The Bell Jar to Mrs. Sorvino when she asked one day. I wouldn’t say Mira and Lisa were friends, but we were friendly. Lisa wouldn’t socialize and most of the crew members called her nasty names, but I understood: these people were idiots. Or, at the very least, mean as hell. And not in a fun way. You can be catty and even scorched-earth without making it your stock and trade. No one wants that, no one wants to live like that. I’ve been seeing more and more people talk about the lyric “Are we human? Or are we dancer?” by The Killers. I don’t even know what song it’s from, I don’t know when it came out, but it’s good. It makes no sense, but it’s good. Let’s acknowledge that, and feel once and for all that this is real.
Truthfully I didn’t really get to know Mira or Lisa on that shoot, I mostly watched from far away. I wasn’t allowed in the makeup trailer, and my “hygiene” was “questioned” and after a few days I was forbidden from touching the catering tray, but because of union rules, I was kept on the show, paid to sit in my custom “trailer,” a cat hammock with dander left over from, what, the Garfield movies? Those weren’t even in development yet. Why weren’t there ever any Bennington movies? Yeah, I know about the Spaghetti Western, but I can’t get a copy of that movie (The Crooked Barrel of the Rooster’s Rifle) in proper 2:35:1 aspect ratio. There should’ve been a Hollywood franchise of the whole Quibbits clan, not just my cousin and his bitch wife Monica. Remember Slippy? He could’ve gotten his own show on Quibi back in 2020. But life goes on, and Quibi, sadly, is no more…
I’m not allowed to talk about what’s happening on the set of The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth. We finish in January, and every day until then is incredibly important. This is when the movie really gets made. The promo, the long lead interviews, the electronic press kits, the behind the scenes documentary, that’s all been done. I really shouldn’t even be writing this, I should be concentrating, because I finally have a scene coming up with someone other than Brad Pitt (a friend) on Friday. I just might blow them away, and hey, maybe I’ll get a callback on the movie that their son is directing soon. That’s a whole ass mood and a moment right there.
If you’d like to produce a Quibbits Family Clan movie, please contact me, do not contact my cousin or his worse half, I’d like a percentage of the backend and the net, NOT THE GROSS. The money is in the net… remember that… or don’t, I have to… note to self… read this article in the future for advice.
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