#02 HOLLYWOOD EXTINCTION EVENT

THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF STORIES. THEY ARE A RECORD OF CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN AN UBER DRIVER AND A DIRECTOR, TALKING ABOUT HOW HOLLYWOOD ENDED. IF YOU MISSED THE PREVIOUS STORY, READ IT AT THIS LINK. SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES

Two weeks after I went to Denver for work, I scored another job. I was assisting on a commercial in Phoenix, preparing the drones and setting up camera data. Boring, but they needed a reliable person like me.

Corso had responded to my “favorite driver” request. I’m sure that he knew that I would ask what brought down Hollywood as soon as I got in the car.

“How about, ‘Hello?’” he’d said. His eyes had the sense of a smile in them, viewed in the rearview.

“Hello,” I said. “Tell me.”

He put the car in motion and said, waving his hand, “It wasn’t a single event.”

This annoyed me. “On our last trip, you said it was a single extinction event.”

“I lied to set the hook, to keep you interested.”

“I know what a hook is.”

“I know you do. Sorry. I’ve figured out that you’re a director or screenwriter. Probably screenwriter turned director.”

I said nothing.

Corso spoke, trying to win me back. “You know, sound guys hear all the dialogue first. We get the movies when they’re raw, all the takes. This is why we know how movies work.”

I was irritated, but responded anyway. “All movies have just one thing that needs to happen, and then the movie is over. You set the hook, you satisfy the condition, the movie ends.”

He studied me, his eyes steady in the rearview. “Not the good movies. Only the dumb ones.”

I grunted.

He asked if I was depressed.

I told him that I was flying to Phoenix to program drones and set up data and had no reason to be depressed. I tried one more time, asking, “What brought down Hollywood? Give me all the extinction events. Let’s have the list.”

He appeared to give it a moment’s thought. Then he said, “I drove a studio car for a few weeks. Studio heads in the back seat. The ladies were booking Botox appointments and the guys were booking testosterone injections.” He laughed, hoping for me to join in.

I didn’t. Instead, I said, “So, no eyes on the prize? They lost their focus?”

He shook his head. “It was always corrupt. Me-too was always there. White males got to tell most of the stories.”

I didn’t mean to, but I nearly shouted, “They never recognized talent! They never knew what made a movie work! They operated out of fear and hired their friends and nepo babies!” I slumped in the back seat. “They wouldn’t recognize Miloš Forman if he valet parked their car.”

He regarded me in the rearview as if I was an emotionally unstable animal. “Did I just hear your TED talk?”

That made me even more prickly. “Listen, Corso, what movies moved the needle? Really made a difference?”

“You go first,” he said.

“Godard. Breathless.”

“Are you kidding me?” he shot back. Legally Blonde. “

“What? Oppenheimer!*”

In the rearview, his eyes bored into mine. “I never trust anyone who comes to work in a suit.”

“You mean, like Nolan? Even Wes Anderson?”

“Especially corduroy.”

“Nolan shoots film,” I said. “His movies gross billions.”

“Anybody who makes movies in a suit will never change anything. Even Scorsese is making Bible stories now. No edge.”

“So we make mediocre movies? Mediocrity knows nothing better than itself?” It sounded like a taunt and my voice was too loud for the small space of the car.

The Tesla slowed down. He pulled over on Lincoln Boulevard. The door locks opened.

“Get out,” he said. “You’ve become an unruly passenger.”

“Legally Blonde?” I demanded, spit flying from my mouth. Then I realized what was happening. “You’re letting me out here?” The airport was still 20 minutes away, maybe 45 in this traffic.

“I have the right to eject people who become unmanageable.”

“But why?” I pleaded.

He turned around to look at me, which he had never done before. “When you brought up socially significant films, you didn’t mention The Blob or Terminator or Black Panther or Sinners.”

“So I’m too highbrow and I have to walk to the airport?”

He responded with a muffled curse. “No pity party for you. Just call another driver.”

I did. As I stood on the corner waiting for them to come, I thought about the things I should have said.

People want to sit in the dark and enter forbidden worlds. They want to be children, listening to a story. Hollywood died because of all the risk-adverse MBAs, the AI slop zombies, the merger freaks.

Corso probably would have laughed at that assessment. “I didn’t think you could be so completely unoriginal,” I imagined him saying, and adding, “Everyone who has been in a pitch knows that Hollywood’s an asshole-rich environment.”

The new driver pulled up. I got in. They asked me what I did for a living.

I said I sold health insurance and did he want to buy any? It shut down the conversation, which was my intent.

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT STORY. SUBSCRIBE.

AWARD TIME

On a personal note, this last weekend, I accepted an award for LIBERATION, the third book in my science fiction trilogy. I even got to thank all the people who helped me, like Tabby, who always inspires me. It was like the Oscars, but without an Oscar. Next time.

Thanks for reading,

Lee