On my last trip to Los Angeles I saw DONNIE DARKO finally. DONNIE DARKO is the first time film from the first time writer/director... Richard Kelly. DONNIE DARKO didn't rock the house at Sundance due to the hype surrounding it (partly my fault), but I feel in a very real sense that the audience and the folks ANTICIPATING it were expecting a different movie. DONNIE DARKO is a Stephen King short story brought to life on screen. Now sure, Mr King never typed a sentence of the script, but you can tell he has typed sentences into the very psyche of Richard Kelly... and judging from the final films... the good ones stuck.
DONNIE DARKO isn't a GIANT film... It would never pull in BLAIR WITCH PROJECT money as an independent horror/weirdness film... Instead it belongs in a different world... The world that intelligent creepy horrror film fans love... The ones that love the good episodes of X-FILES that are just plain creepy... How noone has figured out how to distribute and make money off of a very very very very good film is beyond me right now, because I've seen VALENTINE this year. I've seen retarded terrible teen flicks this year... And DONNIE DARKO is both a great creepy horror film and a wonderful teen out of sync with the normals film as well.
However, as I was leaving the screening of DONNIE DARKO, Richard Kelly... who I had just met and talked with for the first time after watching DONNIE DARKO hands me a red CAA covered script and says, "This is my light romantic comedy."
I read the cover page.... "BESSIE" Hmmm, I thought... Like the cow?
I loved the screenplay for DONNIE DARKO because of all the things it wasn't... It wasn't modern self-referential horror.... It wasn't a bogeyman flick... It wasn't a knife wielding maniac on the loose... It wasn't jump scares and elevated volume sidenotes... It wasn't about who didn't have sex living.... It wasn't about sex or even a metaphor for sex. And I also loved it for what it was... A loving tribute by a young screenwriter to do the memory of his childhood love for horror that began with Stephen King.... you could feel that in the script. I didn't need to meet Richard Kelly to pick that up... it was right there on the pages... Spelled out gloriously. Intelligent plot and story.... Told like a ghost story from around a fire. The type of thing you tell Boy Scouts before they go to sleep in their tents their first night under the stars with the wind whistling through the pine trees.... It was old fashioned and good....
By the time I was finished with the first 25 pages of BESSIE.... I was hooked. The story follows 3 past acquantances that are brought in to bring their expertise into play. What are they experts at?
We have one agent/manager type, who has handled top entertainment talent for years. One eastern European director artiste' and lastly one human rights and animal rights lawyer.
They go through red tape like you wouldn't believe before they are introduced to the scientific discovery that the Sajveriniak Company will exploit for millions and millions of dollars of revenue.
What is this miracle that you need a top agent/manager, a top media director artist and a human/animal rights advocate?
BESSIE
And what is BESSIE?
Bessie is a genetically designed, seven-eight foot tall, up-right-walking cow with the mental acuity of a 14 year old mentally handicapped female child.... Oh... and she talks, kinda like if Chewbacca were to attempt English.
It would be a crime against humanity to reveal anything further... But the following 95 pages reveals itself to be a brilliant satire of the Michael Crichton style of story-telling.
Go through your head... think intelligently about the significance of a genetically designed, seven-eight foot tall, up-right-walking cow with the mental acuity of a 14 year old mentally handicapped female child that kinda talks... What would happen if introduced into the world... What sort of societal ramifications... what the Church would do? What politicians would do? What farmers would do? What this would do to the Beef industry alone would shake the very fabric of American existence. McDonalds and Burger Kings would go bankrupt... All of a sudden there is a talking beloved cow in the world... and I'm not talking about Bette Midler.... Imagine our world with an upright talking cow....
Try to predict what would happen.... when she wanted to MATE? When she became self-aware?
Not since I read ADAPTATION and CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND have I read a script with such a wicked sense of humor and the sharpest teeth I've seen in quite some time.
And there is a geek cameo that... well... would reduce you to tears of laughter... just painful tears... the type that would cause you to hurt laughing. I just hope he agrees to do it. It would be.... beautiful.
I happen to know that at this moment... DIGITAL DOMAIN is looking for lower budget smart as hell effects films... I also know that they love COWS there.... as does ILM.... Cows are a computer animator's best friend.... They bring calm to the long hours at the keyboard... a zen like state...
With any luck at all, Richard will get "BESSIE" made... the script.... it is so wrong in all the right ways... I mean... oh man, What I would give to see Jean Reno as the European Director in the film.... or Clooney as the Agent.... and Julianne Moore as the PETA/ACLU attorney... When I read the script... that was the dream... I know... painfully unrealistic... but that's how I thought of it as I read it...
And while I know Richard Kelly probably wants to direct it, and he'd do a pretty damn good job.... There's a part of me that would KILL to have Spike Jonze direct this thing. God... And then he could play the Redneck Robotic Country Western Lip-Sync Artist at the Truck Stop Incident! Oh man.... If there is a single person with pure love of cool weirdness in Hollywood, this deserves to get made... Please... get made... I just want to watch that udder sack hanging between those metal-braced-encased cow legs.... I want to watch it shake as she walks... I want to hear Bessie sing to Celine Dion like so many cows do. I WANT THIS MOVIE MADE BAD!!!!
