Monday, May 01, 2006

SLANT-N-GO: S&G at the movies, baby

Big-budget movie season is drawing near, and it isnever too early to pitch ideas for potentialblockbusters. The latest trend in Holly-wood is the “retread,” ormore commonly known as the remake. Remakes are easyto do because a basic premise is already known andpeople already know what happened. Throw in a coupleof young, hip stars along with some cheezy referencesto the original, and you have yourself a retread. Things operate a little differently at Slant & GoStudios. The executives in charge at S&G believe intheir own twisted versions of remakes. These remakesinvolve big-budget athletes instead of some actor typebecause athletes have more emotion in theirperformance and, well, because athletes do their ownstunts for the most part (paging Dwayne “The Rock”Johnson). The S&G brass paintstakingly developed treatments ofmotion-picture projects with some of the biggestnewsmakers in the world of sports. Some may be dramas,others may be comedies, but all of these projects havewhat it takes to rake in some major coin at thebox-office — at least that is what the folks over atS&G are hoping. Some of those closely-guarded projectsare also rumored to be linked with such big-nameddirectors like Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee and the dude that brought us “Bad Boys” and “CSI: Crime SceneInvestigation.”
•Barry Bonds stars in “Greed, Allegedly”: Thisproject is being billed as one part comedy, one partdrama. Bonds can star as one of the greatest baseballplayers of his generation that takes Gordon Gekko’s“Greed is Good” speech to heart. Watch as Bonds transforms himself to an antisocial, automatic annual 30-30 year guy to an antisocial,home-run hitting machine. It would be great if S&G could get Jack Nicholson to play the guy who allegedlygives Bonds some magical flaxseed oil that’s good formore than breaking in gloves. Cast Ray Romano as Bud Selig because, well, Romano as Selig is about 1,000 times better than Selig as Selig.Cheech Marin as Victor Conte would be hilarious. Bythe way, how about a cameo appearance by Conte’s former Tower of Power bandmate Lenny Williams. Itcould be a scene where Bonds is loving it up with hisex-mistress while Williams’ classiclove song “Cause ILove You” is softly playing in the background. It’snot exactly “The Look of Love,” but it would do.
•Marion Jones stars in “My Baby’s Daddy”: This episode of CBS drama “Without a Trace” follows this separated couple. Montgomery was arrested Friday on charges he wasconnected to a multimillion-dollar bank fraud andmoney laundering scheme. This episode will delve intowhat possibly motivated him to allegedly go thatroute, and more importanly, to find Marion Jones — whofell out of sight quicker than a mogwai when brightlights come out.
•Delmon Young in “Reckless Youth”: Watch Dmitri Young’s younger, five-tooled, brother bump umpires andsling bats at them in the minors. Also getbehind-the-scenes interviews with Tampa Bay Devil Raysofficials as they wonder second-guess the decision totake Young over Milwaukee Brewers’ second basemanRickie Weeks with the first overall pick in MLB’samateur draft in 2003. It could have that John Grisham-ish feel, with just apinch of “Desperado,” but with Young walking aroundminor league parks with a duffel bag full of woodenbats instead of Antonio Banderas walking through adusty town with a guitar case loaded with guns.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! You created some interesting (and humorous) scenarios at S&G studios.
Personally, I think all of your work is great, but this one is a reflection of your style, and personality. You are extremely talented and I am proud of you! Keep it up!