HOLLYWOOD FOR LIBRARIANS, GRAMMARIANS, AND EDITORS
FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: At this site you can turn your full name into an anagram. Mine is Amaze Sillier Snail. Hee!
I have many thoughts. One of them entails trying to encourage the suits in Hollywood to re-imagine a handful of films in order to better reach the little-serviced audience of grammarians, librarians, and editors. Here’s a look at what I think should be on the table. And if you have any of your own, please share in the comments.
Pulp Diction
A series of stories, often interweaving, showcasing the seedy but oddly hilarious underbelly of Scrabble addiction and creative nonfiction. At one point, a renegade librarian turns around in the car to chat with a patron and unwittingly stabs the patron in the eye with a book-scanning wand.
Swordplay
Like the wildly successful (*coughs*) documentary Wordplay, the premise of Swordplay would be exactly the same, except that Daniel Okrent, Will Shortz, and Neal Conan would all appear naked.
The Dark Sprite
Gotham is overrun by pixies, vampires, lolcats, werewolves and werechickens. The mousy-but-beautiful librarian falls for her childhood friend and the film’s hero, Bruce Blain, who must fight with his brains, not his fists, because his last name is also symbolic of his physical condition. Chaste but passionate scenes ensue. Corsets make a comeback.
Bookfellas
Gangsters work their way up the chain of Google Books, showcasing both the horror and humanity of digital archiving. Yarn and needles are common ways to off a bitch, though the protagonist is cautioned, “You don’t take knit from nobody.”
The Brining
At a remote lodge in the woods, an evil presence influences a woman who just wants to do some canning. Her ensuing madness causes her to eat too much kraut and obsess about composting her garden. She eventually begins chanting, “greenthumb, greenthumb.…”
August 21st, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Here’s my contribution to your list:
Commablanca
A young amnesiac woman during the WWII era must unlock the secrets of her shadowed past and relearn how to use proper punctuation–with the assistance of her gruff, darkly attractive ex-lover at his infamous nightclub for grammarian nerds, Commablanca.
Dude, that was super lame. hahahaha. Sorry about that. It’s Friday.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Rhonda! That’s flipping genius! Commablanca. You are hilarious!!!
August 21st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
The Ellipsis: A suspense film, starring Ed Harris, in which texters, Tweeters, and Facebookers stop their thoughts in mid sentence, trailing off into… Naturally, everyone fears a terrorist plague has sapped America’s youth of their intellects. The US government is on the case, however, sending Ed Harris into the deep reaches of teenagers minds, where he discovers that there is no foul play. Just an empty abyss.
Semibad: A stupid movie about a fat kid who loves semi-colons and a character named McPreposition because apparently anything is funny if you preface it with “Mc.”
2001, an odyssey to 2000 words: Writers eager to submit their propose through an online system battle against the computer SAL, which continually rebuffs their attempts because they’re 1 word over the limit.
Apostrophe Now: A drunk, semi-retired teacher named Willard is sent by the Secretary of Education through hellish conditions and over rugged terrain to find Doctor Burpz, PhD, who is teaching unsuspecting rural youth the incorrect usages of its and it’s. Along the way, Willard encounters numerous fascinating characters, including Dulbore, who loves nothing more than the smell of chalk dust in the morning.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Lara–yours are awesome!
Evan, I am DYING laughing. I SOOOO would watch those movies. hahaha
August 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Apostrophe Now! The smell of chalk dust in the morning!!! I’m DYING! That’s awesome!!!
August 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Can I just come up with titles and not plots?
The Shawshank Conjunction
Raiders of the Lost Article
Lawrence of Allegoria
To Kill a Cognate-Word
Treasure of the Sierra Modifier
August 21st, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Katie, how did I know you would love this?! The Shawshank Conjunction? Brilliant.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Treasure of the Sierra Modifier is the greatest thing ever, though it may only be because I read it after Lawrence of Allegoria.
Yay for Lara and her extra super fun game!
August 21st, 2009 at 3:37 pm
This is WAY more fun than working!
Eternal Sunshine of the Subjunctive Mind
Bridge on the River Cliche
Monty Python and the Holy Gerund
The Maltese Fragment
Some Like it Plot
August 21st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
2001: A Space Onomatopoeia
Full Metal Gerund or Return of the Gerund (much better than my previous Gerund title)
No Country for Old Pens
Wizard of Clause
August 21st, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Witness for the Preposition
The Sixth Sentence
Dial M for Metaphor
OK, I’m done. I swear.
August 21st, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I know better than to compete with Katie on this — she’s obviously got the mindset for the perfect Entertainment Weekly-esque word play — but I’ll just offer my two cents:
From Here to Return-ity — a journalist with a passion for short, crisp paragraphs struggles mightily in the world of academia as his English professor colleagues try to indoctrinate him into long, thick prose.
Style Wars — long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, a writer who loved his AP Stylebook battled the forces of the Chicago Manual of Style and ALA, then found out his girlfriend was his sister and his mortal enemy was his father.
Word Games — A copy editor finds a back door into the spellcheck system of Microsoft Word, and confusing reality with game-playing, possibly starts World War III.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Meet the Parentheses
The Allusionist
Rebel Without a Clause
Back to the Future Tense
Full Modal Jacket
Syntax and the City
Glengarry Glen Glossary
Mona Lisa Simile
August 21st, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Ooh, I love From Here to Return-ity and Glengarry Glen Glossary!
August 21st, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I love the plot of Style Wars (”…then found out his girlfriend was his sister and his mortal enemy was his father.’) and Meet the Parentheses! You guys, these are all so freaking funny! I love it!
August 21st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I’m reaching now, but I can’t stop myself:
The Verbs
The Manchurian Consonant
Zack and Miri Make a Poem
The Devil’s Anaphora
Ace Ventura: Text Directive
I had a couple TV shows pop into my head:
Past Perfect Strangers
Curb Your Plagiarism