The Last Big Thing (1996) - full transcript

This is a great movie.

Oh, this is a bad movie.

This is a great movie.

Oh, this is a bad movie.

This is a great movie.

This is a bad movie.

This is a great movie.

Oh... this is a bad,
bad movie.

They're all bad movies.

Every movie in this
store is a bad movie.

No, that's not
entirely correct.



There are some movies
in this section over here

which are, in your lexicon,
"great" movies.

Four of them were
directed by Orson Welles.

There are some movies
in that section over there...

which are great movies.

But here, in this section,

they're all...

bad...

movies.

This is a great movie.

Pilot script's great.
You know, my character is great.

I think it's gonna
be a great show.

Great...

Yeah, the writer-producer
Michael Tommelson,



he's a total genius.

Genius?

Yeah...

By the way, that is a great
name for a new magazine...

"The Next Big Thing."

It's a cool name.

Back to this
TV show of yours.

You use the terms
"great" and "genius"

in connection
with the show.

Since the beginning
of this millennium,

those terms have
variously been applied,

in chronological order,
to Dante's "Inferno,"

Albrecht Durer's "Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse,"

Hieronymus Bosch's
"The Last Judgment,"

Christopher Marlowe's
"Dr. Faustus,"

Shakespeare's
"Richard III,"

Cervantes' "Don Quixote,"
Moliere's "The Misanthrope,"

Milton's "Paradise Lost,"
Boswell's "Life of Johnson,"

Girodet's "Portrait of Napoleon,"
Byron's "Vision of Judgment,"

Goya's "Saturn Devouring
One of His Children,"

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself,"
Baudelaire's "Flowers of Evil,"

Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell,"
and Edvard Munch's...

"The Scream."

So?

So anyway, after two hours
of freeway traffic,

I pull up alongside her
and I see that this woman

is Ellie May Clampett
from The Beverly Hillbillies.

I have been trailing
Ellie May Clampett.

And she's fucking gorgeous.

Hey, the guy in the back.

That's, uh...
that's great, that's funny.

Another magazine
recently referred to you as

"Nighttime's Newest Hunk."

What do you think of that?

Well, I don't like
to be pigeonholed.

In a way, I guess
it's flattering, but...

Uh, I mean
the term... "hunk."

Have you
thought about this?

What do you
think that refers to?

Hunk of what?

Roast beef?
Granite? Jello?

Feces?

Are you calling me
a hunk of shit?

That's your...
extrapolation. I...

You're extrapolating that.

Fuck you, man.

All mediums have become
pointless, redundant.

The utter sameness
of everything.

The culture, finally,
is going down on itself.

Who, where...

is the last figure
of this millennium?

So how did the
interviews go today?

Not very well.

Did you find
a stand-up comic?

Yes.

Did you interview him?

No.

What happened?

I snapped.

After the fourth reference to
a '70s TV series, could not...

abide it any longer.

Beverly Hillbillies,
referencing Ellie May Clampett.

Oh, um, I talked to
that alternative rock band...

the publicist
of Refried Sitcom.

They have time for an interview
tomorrow between two and four.

I don't know what your
schedule is, so I couldn't...

What are you looking for?

What?

What are you looking for?

Nothing.

Are you a model?

Yes.

I write for a new
magazine that's coming out.

It's called
"The Next Big Thing."

We do profiles on up-and-coming
personalities in every medium.

Actors, rock bands, comics...

models.

"The Next Big Thing?"

Um, why don't you write your
name and phone number down

and I'll see if I can
arrange an interview for you.

Fascinating...

the selection of reproductions
on this wall, juxtapositioned.

Here we have
Edvard Munch's "The Scream,"

painted in 1893,
the fin de si?cle by a man

who would soon suffer
a major mental breakdown.

A man who looked into
the dark heart of the century

and presciently
sensed existentialism,

the fall of religion, the
calamities of two World Wars,

Music Television.

This, next to
a photograph of

fourteen young men
wearing white underwear.

And on this wall, they've
both been rendered the same.

Meaning has been neutered.

This has become fashion, this
is art. This is art, fashion.

It's all the fucking same.

The whole wall's
a fascinating blur.

Fascinating.

We should go
see a band tonight.

I tell you what,
let's call Dana and Ashley.

Two cafe mochas, to go.

With cream.

Hello, Ashley?

Well, we originate from Dover,
which is the capital of Delaware.

Failed to become
the next big scene, so

we proceeded to
Los Angeles and, uh...

I dunno, we're
obsessed with, uh...

early '80s Belgian
techno music and

apocalyptic
Mexican food and

American sitcoms
from the mid-'70s and, uh,

I dunno, what
would you say, kind of a

un-P.C. penchant
for flawless uber-models.

Yes.

A penchant
for uber-models.

Where's your shitter?

Your bathroom.

Oh, up the steps,
through the kitchen,

make a right, all the
way at the end of the hall.

Try not to knock over
Gordie's Stratocaster.

It's leaning
against the door.

I'm gonna leave you
guys with one last question.

Just keep talking into the tape
recorder after I'm gone, okay?

As we reach the
end of this millennium,

why should anyone give
a running, leaping, twisting,

gyrating fuck about you, your
music, your so-called statement,

or the dead medium in which
you traffic, rock and roll?

I think the only dead medium
here is cliches, I mean,

and that's the biggest dead
cliche of all, "Rock Is Dead."

I mean, how much
of a cliche is that?

Cliche.

It is the end of the millennium,
it is the end times.

I mean, we're living in a
global Village of the Damned.

I mean, we're the embodiments
of an age that's so chaotic

and so strange.

I mean, we have to
smuggle Alan Hale, Jr.

and Froot Loops
through customs.

Spreading our gospel
to the former factions

of the Soviet Union
and South America.

I mean, Suzanne Somers
fucked Kissinger, right?

That's a fact, right?

Jason.

What?

There's no tape
in the recorder.

Hey, man.

Hey, man, there's no
tape in the recorder.

Hey, man,
what happened to my guitar?

Hey, man, there's no
tape in the recorder!

Aw, man, I'm gonna
have to tune it... shit!

Hey, man, there's no tape!

I met Simon Geist after
a period of deep depression...

that lasted from the ages
of four to twenty-three.

This included
two suicide attempts:

one bogus, one serious.

We met in a video store.

There was something
about him I felt immediately...

connected with.

Obsessed with.

Excuse me.

A mystery.

The mystery of someone
who appears to have...

an agenda.

Simon was in the
process of questioning

every aspect
of this culture.

He was having profound
visual epiphanies

almost on a daily basis.

Look, they've been making
the same car since 1986.

It's called "The Car."

Every magazine
is the same magazine.

It's called "The Magazine."

Shortly after we met,
we moved into a house...

with some help
from my father.

Simon insisted on a tract house
thirty miles from Los Angeles.

Its total lack of identity was
somehow part of the agenda.

Everything Simon did
was part of a larger agenda,

which I was only
beginning to understand.

What are you doing?

Aesthetic...

notion.

For entertainment...

we would go to big
Hollywood comedies...

and not laugh.

I mostly stayed at home.

I was going through
a period of uncertainty

about what I wanted to do.

I thought I might
want to be a writer,

but not in any
conventional sense.

I was deeply
bored by everything.

I would go for long
walks around the complex

and think about how
fucked everything was.

In the morning, Simon
would drive into Los Angeles

to conduct his interviews.

Simon had started up a magazine
called "The Next Big Thing,"

which didn't exist.

He would seek out people
in various mediums and try to

set up interviews with them.

Sometimes I would call
their agents or publicists.

Or get hold of them directly.

It was all an excuse for Simon
to confront and question them,

or just insult them.

For Simon,
"The Next Big Thing"

was a weird experiment,
a litmus test.

An embodiment of
the inflated and pointless

fame-obsession of the age.

A manifestation of
the dark, twisted energy

of the most fucked-up city
of the last thousand years.

Los Angeles.

I'm a hundred percent bisexual
and I'm not neurotic about it.

That's great.

I'll fuck anything that moves,
male or female, whenever I choose.

I've fucked people
on stage before.

Genius.

Have you ever had
an arm up your ass?

- No, I haven't.
- You should try it sometime.

Has it ever occurred to you that
you're appropriating the language

of redneck
male truck drivers,

"I'll fuck anything
that moves," etc.,

and it had a certain subversive
resonance for about four seconds,

but now it's become
as tedious and predictable

as a liquored-up semi driver
bragging on the barstool?

Suck my clit ring.

What do you want, what is the
full scope of your ambition?

I want to be the greediest
cross-media figure

in the next 10 years.

I will invoke the
"M" word, Madonna.

Oh, I'll rip her head off and
shove my arm down her neck!

With the arm again.

- Listen do you have a car?
- No, why?

Come on, we'll take mine.
I want to show you something.

There's a man who has an office
on the 13th floor of that building.

His name is Bennett Hames.

He's deeply connected
in the film, television

and music industries.

He can pick up a phone
and get an unknown's face

on the cover
of any magazine.

He specializes in preternaturally
beautiful young women.

He's currently
the most influential

incognito star-maker
in Los Angeles.

He buys prostitutes.

That's correct, not for sex.
He has them do things.

What sort of things?

He likes people to be
original and audacious.

What are you saying?

Go in with a vision,
be unique and unprecedented,

take an L.A. chance.

Bennett Hames.

Thirteenth floor.

L.A. fame-need.

An impulse so powerful
as to send a woman

up into an arbitrarily
selected building.

Hames...
Bennett Hames!

It has reached a ground zero
point of ludicrousness.

Sudden realization.

As we cusp millennium,

it increasingly
narrows down to me.

I bought a computer.

Computers are evil.

I know.

I had to have one, though...

for my magazine.

Your magazine?

Remember I was telling you
a while ago that my writing,

it wasn't fitting
into conventional forms,

prose, plays,
screenplays, so, um...

I just want to
do a little magazine,

just a little
staple-together thing,

have photos, photocopy...

- A magazine about what?
- You...

Me.

That's why
I need a computer.

I need different fonts and file
sharing, access to the internet.

Different fonts, file sharing,
access to the internet.

Who's Tedra?

A model.

She will be the last interview
of "The Next Big Thing."

What do you mean?

Yesterday it reached a ground
zero point of ludicrousness.

It's gone as far as it can go.
The experiment is over.

The agenda must
change and mutate...

into something else.

Why don't you just stop now?

Before you...

talk to her.

I'm the object.

What do you mean?

I've done four music videos.

You know how in every video
there's always the one girl

that the lead singer's...
or the whole band's singing to?

- That they're obsessing over?
- No.

Well, there's always the girl
that they're constantly cutting to.

Posing, strutting,
twirling around.

The object.

I've played the
object in four videos.

Four bands have chosen
you to be their object?

Why don't they each
choose their own object?

Maybe they're
aesthetic lemmings.

There's one now.

She's my purple-haired,
purple-haired,

purple-haired girl,
purple-haired girl

So, what's your,
uh... next project?

I'm doing another video.
The director just dropped out.

Creative differences.

They're looking
for somebody else, fast.

Tell them I'll do it.

Have you ever directed
a music video before?

Oh, that's right, you've barely
even seen one before.

Exactly.

I'll tell them
you're a filmic genius,

the new Orson Welles.

Do that.

This magazine,
"The Next Big Thing,"

doesn't exist does it?

No.

There's another reason
I consented to this interview.

What's that?

I know you from somewhere.

- Ha!
- Not ha, ka!

Ka!

- Fuck, the transmission's dead.
- What?

Tranny's shot.
This car's history.

Simon, watch out!

Oh, my God!

The cops will be coming!

- What, they're here?
- No, no, they will be here!

We better just go up to
that house and tell them!

Come on, get out!

- Anyone coming?
- No.

- Anyone coming?
- No!

I don't know, I think
someone might be coming.

Ah, fuck!

Fucker!

Please move
away from the car.

Someone is coming...
someone is coming.

Someone is coming!

Come on!

Thank you.

- They're gonna find out.
- How are they gonna find out?

Every connection between us
and that car has been severed.

What are we gonna do?
We don't have a car.

- Go to your father.
- I can't.

He bought the house,
he'll buy a car.

He wants to stop paying
the mortgage on the house.

He says it's
a bad investment.

Besides, he just bought
my computer... I can't!

Potential new
aspect to the agenda.

Just successfully tagged
a blue 1995 something.

Not sure of the make.
The model is usually a word

ending in "a", Altima,
Maxima, possibly Ultra.

You hit that
car on purpose.

Something Ultra? Mega?

No, Meta, I believe, Meta.
1995 something Meta. Meta.

I mean, what is this,

The Mary Tyler Moore Show
or The Love Boat?

What was that bald moron,
Gavin MacLeod, right?

He was in
both of those shows,

so maybe there
is a connection, am I right?

Am I right?

What the fuck
are you doing, huh?

- What the fuck are you doing?
- You're a bad comic.

I had a lower-level agent
there from C.A.A., okay?

A lower-level guy that was
gonna work with me.

Well, you stunk out. You were
referencing bad '70s shit.

Listen motherfucker,
I'll have your fucking throat slit,

you understand that?

- Leave him alone!
- Shut up.

- Do something original!
- You motherfucker...

- Oh, my fucking eyes!
- Oh, that's so funny.

"My fucking eyes."
Let's get that on tape

for your next
bad monologue, huh?

My fucking eyes! Somebody
call the cops, will you?

One Adam-12!
One Adam-12!

My fucking eyes!

Hey, it's just a bad
'70s cop show reference.

Now reference that!
You bad fucking comic!

Little Hawaii Five-O
reference, huh?

Let's get that on tape, huh?
Little Five-O reference, huh?

Five-O!

Oh, my fucking eyes!

She's my purple-haired girl
I like to watch her twirl

It's the only car
my father would buy.

It had to be a new car for...
investment purposes.

This is...
overwhelming.

I have to sit down
and process this.

We need a car,
we have to have a car,

we live thirty miles
outside of Los Angeles.

Besides, this car,
it's like this house.

Living in the ultimate,
personality-less,

non-individualistic house.

This... this house, this car,
it's the same thing.

It's the anti-statement.

It's perfect, you're right.
We can incorporate this.

The agenda is fluid
and subject to mutation.

And we can always destroy it
when the time comes.

What is that?

This is just what I need
to know for my magazine.

Doing a Munch scream
into a reflective...

metal garbage can in
a chain coffee establishment

in Los Angeles in 1995,
it has resonance beyond just...

I'm aware of that.

And it must
not be co-opted.

Co-opted.
In what way?

The moment something
new arises in this culture

that has any
edge or originality,

it is immediately
co-opted...

by magazines, the media,
the edge is taken off,

becomes simplified, explicated,
turned into fashion.

We are operating
below that level.

This is an alternate
history taking place here,

below the surface
of mainstream culture.

It's got to
stay that way,

between two people,
you and me.

I'm gonna get a beer.

- You want a beer?
- Yes.

It's for my magazine.

So, why is it that you
throw every section

of the newspaper away
except the "A" section?

Sports, Business,
Lifestyles and Entertainment

is of utterly
no importance to me.

What is important
is to grasp and process

the political complexities
of the world.

Fascinating...
the juxtaposition.

This photograph,
that news story.

Of course,
advertising is the culprit,

but models
are also complicit.

All models are evil,
male and female.

Particularly male.

One is attempting
to process a story

about the Byzantine nature
of modern European politics.

Instead one is confronted
with a photo of a woman

in a state of
near-pornographic...

undress.

A woman of such
singular and flawless beauty,

that for the rest
of the day, her image,

and not this news story,
will be burned

on the back of one's brain.

A woman whose stunning
visage could have caused

ancient Greek ships to
push off from the shore,

armies to run at each other,
poets to outdo themselves,

empires to fall,
music vide...os.

We want to shoot it
in black and white.

B and W.
Interesting choice.

And we want to
shoot it in the desert.

The desert.
That's very rarely been done.

I live near the desert.

We want to shoot it in black
and white and in the desert.

I think your aesthetic choices
are bold and unprecedented.

I'd like to be
part of the project.

Cool.

One caveat.

Once we get
out into the desert...

I'm in charge.

Hey, when's that
article on us coming out?

Keep checking
your local newsstand.

You're going to do what?

I'm gonna
direct a music video.

I thought music videos were evil,
maybe the greatest of all evils.

They are.

This is all part
of the new agenda.

An experiment in
casting a wider net,

going after a wider
range of targets.

Subversion from the inside.

She arranged this,
didn't she?

That model?

She's my purple-haired,
purple-haired,

purple-haired,
purple-haired girl

I like to watch her twirl

I'll be back later.

I've played the
object in four videos.

Four bands have chosen
you to be their object?

Why don't they each
choose their own object?

Maybe they're
aesthetic lemmings.

There's one now.

Nail her!

Rip her head off!

So, what's your,
uh... next project?

I'm doing another video.
The director just dropped out.

Creative differences.

They're looking
for somebody else, fast.

Tell them I'll do it.

Have you ever directed
a music video before?

Oh, that's right, you've barely
even seen one before.

Exactly.

You're gonna be lying
in the bottom of that hole.

The camera's
gonna be pointing up.

Fixed camera position.

Once the song starts,
you guys,

one at a time, walk to
the edge of the hole,

look over into the camera,
sing, get out of the shot,

get to the back of the line,
wait for the next guy.

Yeah, but what about
the desert topography?

What about the
rock formations?

You're gonna see
some desert sky,

there's gonna be
a bit of a Joshua tree

sticking out over the edge.
Never mind about that.

- What about Tedra?
- Never mind about Tedra.

So, one at a time,
go to the hole,

sing, get out of the way.

Get back to the end
of the line, exactly.

How we doing in the hole?

We're digging.

Uh, look, what kind of
coverage we got here?

None. The whole
video's a single position.

P.O.V. from in
the hole looking up.

No, see, um... look,
I can't guarantee

that their heads
are gonna be, you know,

jumping in and out of focus,
in and out of frame...

So their heads are in and out
of focus, in and out of frame.

I mean, this is a music video.
That's the whole point, you know.

Who cares about that?
Who gives a shit?

- I do.
- About any of it?

I do, okay? I give a shit. I care.
I'm the D.P., this is my...

D.P.?

Director of Photography.

Look, my reputation
back in Los Angeles...

Look, your reputation is
gonna suffer infinitely more

when I fire your
chapped D.P. ass

and you have to walk
back to Los Angeles.

Understood?

How we doing in the hole?

We're digging.

Now get in the hole.

The aesthetic lemmings comment
was disturbing and unexpected.

She has self-awareness
and a brain.

The aesthetic lemmings comment
was disturbing and unexpected.

She has self-awareness
and a brain.

She is also possessed of
a flawless, singular beauty

of the kind which once
caused ancient Greek ships

to push off from the shore,
armies to run at each other,

poets to outdo themselves,
empires to fall.

Are you all right? What the
hell were you trying to do?

Fuck off!

All right, let's go!
Time is money!

All right,
when I say action,

give it a couple beats and
then on my hand gesture,

turn on the music.

Give it a couple more beats,
then you guys,

the first guy, come to
the edge of the hole.

You got to hit
that first vocal cue.

You've got to hit
that first vocal cue.

If you miss it,
we got to cut immediately,

it's all fucked
at that point,

so you've got to
hit that first vocal cue.

All right,
let's do this in one take!

Camera ready?

Ready!

Roll camera.

Rolling!

And... action!

We want to speak
with Simon Geist.

It was an accident.

What?

We didn't mean to hit your car!
It was an accident!

My car's fine.

Simon Geist interviewed
us both a while back

for a magazine called
"The Next Big Thing."

We'd like to talk
to him about that.

He won't be
back for a while.

Listen, uh, we just drove all
the way out here from L.A.

Is it all right if we just
wait inside till he gets here?

Horshack, smokin' crack
where's your Mr. Kotter been?

Welcome back, welcome back
to Hollywood from Ho Chi Minh

Bonaduce, Susan Lucci
Charo's screaming "Cuchi-Cuchi!"

Rich Little's big
in a Fredrick's wig

So pop a Shotz
and take a swig

Mork and Mindy, Bobby, Cindy
everybody do the lindy

Dinah Shore's a dinosaur

She blows my mind
with dy-no-mite

I can't believe
you're doing this.

Someone had to.

Endless rerun

I want to meet
the new Marsha Brady

Can I talk to you outside?

Excuse us.

I got an audition
back in L.A. in 45 minutes

all the way out
in Century City.

- Go for it, I'm gonna stay here.
- You sure, man?

- Yeah.
- How you gonna get back?

- I'll catch a ride somehow.
- All right.

- Break a leg.
- Hey... thanks, bud.

Your forehead's bleeding.

I think I have some band-aids
in the glove compartment.

How'd it happen?

I banged my head
on a steering wheel.

Okay.

Let's see.

There.

Uh, by the way,
I'm Brent.

- Darla.
- Nice to meet you, Darla.

You're the girl that called to
arrange an interview with Simon.

I remember your voice.

Um, your
forehead's bleeding.

You got any band-aids
in the bathroom?

I don't know... um, yes.
Behind the mirror.

You seem upset
about something.

No! No...

Here, lean...

There.

I used to play an intern on
this show called Trauma Unit,

so I know
about these things.

Used to?
I thought...

Simon told me you were
nighttime's newest hunk.

They dropped me last week.

It's been a very frustrating
and confusing last few days.

That's what I want
to talk to Simon about.

Yeah, I know his
magazine is bullshit.

That it's just this
confrontational thing.

I'm at loose ends
artistically and other ways.

I've lost direction.

I'm frustrated
and confused.

I'm searching
for something...

So, who is that girl I saw you
with on your front porch?

- I live with her.
- Oh.

It's not...

I mean, it's very,
very complicated.

I live with her,
but I don't...

live with her.

Okay.

We both have
very long legs.

Yes, I know. I...

Oh, I think you hit
the parking brake!

So... young actor fuck.

What are you doing here?

Thought I was hunk of shit?

You were hunk of shit,
now you're young actor fuck.

Now, what are you
doing in my household?

Look...

I don't want to play the insult
game, the confrontational thing.

That's not why I'm here.

Why are you here?

I know your magazine,
"The Next Big Thing," is bullshit.

I'm friends with Chris,
the other actor you interviewed.

We sussed it out,
we compared notes,

we did some
checking up on you.

And we were
pissed for a while.

It was like I
was telling Darla,

last week I was
dropped from my TV show.

I don't even
give a shit about that.

Fuck them,
it was a bad show.

I've done a shitload of
bad straight-to-video movies.

I don't know. I'm in a
period of re-evaluation.

I'm at loose ends.

I want to be in on
what you're all about.

What do you
think I'm all about?

I think you're against everything
that's happening right now.

You're making a statement,
you got this secret agenda.

You're trying to
circumvent all the...

Look, you're not
equipped to go off

extemporaneously
on what I'm all about, ok?

You don't have the
equipment to do that.

- So you're bored.
- Yeah.

You've been involved
in some projects

that didn't
go the distance.

Envelopes were not pushed,
statements were not made.

We are coming to the end of a
decade, a century, a millennium,

and you are wondering
what the fuck out there

is commensurate with the
momentousness of that occasion.

Yeah.

- You want a beer?
- Yeah.

- Darla, do you want a beer?
- Yeah!

So, if you don't
mind me asking...

I do.

It's late. I'm tired.

I've had a
long day directing...

subverting a music video.

Sure.

Well, uh, I guess
I should get going back.

Basically the problem is,

Chris left with the car,
so I'm kind of stuck here.

Can I crash here tonight?

Let's save the Pinter/Joe Orton
interloper-figure thing

for another time, all right?

Save it for acting class.

Darla, why don't you take the
new Subaru Impreza and drive...

Brent.

Brent... home.

Okay.

Thanks.

I was thirteen!

The culture is
going down on itself.

The culture is
going down on itself!

It's like a hammerhead shark
feeding on its entrails,

chewing its way
through its own body,

going down on itself!

How many times have I said this?
I thought we understood this.

And all along,
you've been hoarding these...

I was thirteen!
It was my collection!

I've always taken it with me!
It doesn't mean anything!

It's just lunch boxes!

You are complicit
in pure evil, pure evil!

You are always saying
everything is evil.

Music videos are evil.
Models are evil.

Stand-up comics are evil.
Computers are evil.

Magazines are evil.

Every section of the newspaper
except the "A" section is evil!

Every car made
after 1986 is evil!

Everything is evil!

But you're evil,
you're the one that's evil,

because you hurt people!

And you don't let
anyone touch you.

Who are you?

I hope I'm not early.

No.

Tedra, this is Darla.
Darla, Tedra.

Nice to meet you.

Sorry I'm late.

It's all right.

- Hi, I'm Brent.
- Tedra.

You're on that medical show,
Trauma Unit?

- Was, they dropped me last week.
- Oh, sorry.

You've been like in a
ton of music videos.

Bohemus, Fist Party,
Let's Kill Andy Griffith.

Look, don't litanize
bad band names.

You're ramming a crochet
needle through my ear

into my brain
every time you do that.

The English language
has fallen enough

without having
to listen to that shit.

Sorry, I...

So you got a TV, VCR...

something?

We have a
combination TV/VCR

compact disc/video game
home entertainment center...

Right here.

Darla, are you all right?

Are you all right?

Yes.

My nose started bleeding.

Hey, that's great.

I'm thinking of
getting one of those.

What are you using it for?

It's for my magazine.

Really?

What kind of a magazine?

It's sort of an
underground magazine.

Mostly about Simon.

And me.

Lately I've also been writing
a lot about my father.

Do you have a bad
relationship with your father?

I hate my father.

I hate my father too.

So there's almost an
aspect to what you're doing

of the whole Warhol thesis.

In the future,
everyone will be famous

for however many minutes.

Darla has amended that to:

In the future, everyone will
have their own magazine.

Self-financed, self-published,
self-distributed, self-referential.

Concerned and
obsessed with oneself,

physically, emotionally,
one's relationships,

one's partner,
one's parents,

usually the parent of
one's opposite gender

who has fucked
up one's life.

Often times, in the case of
trust fund babies, this parent

is also the unknowing
financier of this magazine

dedicated to their
own excoriation.

Excuse me.

I'm not really sure if Simon
approves of what I'm doing.

Well, it's a classic
male versus female thing.

I mean, his magazine,
even though it was bullshit,

was about going
after external targets.

You know, destroying things,
tearing everything down.

Externalizing.

Yours is about your life, your
relationships, your feelings.

Internalizing.

Ah yes, the chasm
between the sexes.

Women are from Neptune,
men are from Pluto.

Women run with the goats,
men run with the emus.

People are people.

You either have a...

connection with
them or you don't,

irregardless of what
planet they hail from

or what animal
they run with.

This is my bedroom.

Please go now.

All right.

Go... now.

I'm going.

Go!

So why don't we go
out and do something?

There are two options.

We can either go to a big
Hollywood comedy and not laugh,

or we can go see a cutting-edge
stand-up comic and laugh really...

loud.

It is axiomatic
in this culture.

Anything you can think of
has either already happened,

or will happen within four to six
weeks of you having thought of it.

Simon Geist?

Yes?

We heard about you from
the actor, Brent Benedict.

He explained to us a bit
about what you're all about.

- Some of the shit you pulled.
- Which is fucking brilliant.

We write for a magazine
called "The Next Big Thing."

Our mandate is to tap into
things just below the culture.

People making unique
and original statements.

Personalities on the
verge of a breakthrough.

People on the verge.

We'd like to interview you.

First off...

Okay.

First off, let's preface
this interview by

explaining how
all this came about.

We know the actor,
Brent Benedict...

and he told us about this
guy who interviewed him

for a magazine called
"The Next Big Thing,"

and instead of
asking him questions,

the guy basically
starts insulting him,

hacking him up,
calling him a hunk of shit...

and the capper is,
this magazine doesn't exist.

Incidentally, we did rip you off
for the title of our own magazine.

Yeah. So, Brent
tells us this guy's

pulled this shit on
a number of people.

He's heckling
a stand-up comic.

He's fucking over
this music video.

- He's got a tweaked agenda.
- And we're fucking howling!

So, preamble over.
What are you all about?

What the fuck
are you all about?

Let's go inside.

I want to show
you something.

Hold...

Hold that position, please.

Tremendous.

And this is happening in a
coffee chain establishment?

So what exactly
prompted the Munch scream?

A confluence of elements.

I had seen a
print reproduction

a couple hours before
in a graphics store.

There was a
strange atmosphere

within the chain
coffee establishment.

A 15-year-old girl pulled a
cellular phone out of her purse.

I was undergoing a moment
of profound dislocation.

This garbage can
presented itself

as perhaps the last artifact
of the twentieth century.

I seized the moment for a

meta-art historical
performance/statement.

Having a Munchian breakdown

into a reflective
metal garbage can

in a chain coffee establishment
in Los Angeles in 1995.

- Great!
- Genius!

You guys want a beer?

- Sure.
- Sure.

I thought Munch's scream
was just between you and me.

Munch's scream can sustain
some degree of media exposure.

Hey, uh, let's go for a
drive around the complex.

We'll continue the
interview in the car.

So why this area?

The ultimate iconoclast,
the ultimate individualist,

living here.

It's the anti-statement.

Or at least it started out
being the anti-statement.

Now I realize there
is a certain logic to it.

Elaborate.

Where are
you originally from?

New York City.

San Francisco.

Where will the last
underground movement

of this millennium transpire,

the last scene?

Greenwich Village,
Haight Ashbury?

They're cooked, history.

Fucking Seattle?

Who is to say that the
last scene of this millennium

will not transpire here?

Who is to say
that key figures,

as we speak,
are not congregating here?

You sought me out, correct?

You guys sought me out.

Brent.

Hey, Darla.

So where's Simon?

He's being interviewed.
Two guys from

"The Next Big Thing"
just showed up.

Right, right.
So where are they?

Uh, driving
around the block.

- Who's that?
- That's Tedra, she's a model.

She's done like a
ton of music videos.

You'll recognize her,
she's really cool.

She looks cool.

What are you doing here?

What's your background?

Academic.

I have a
master's degree in

English literature
and art history from...

Princeton.

I've only recently
come out here to

observe and
experience Los Angeles

from a slight distance.

Why L.A.?

It is the last city
of the millennium.

So, if this is the last
city of the millennium,

and right here will be the
last scene of the millennium,

and you will be the leader,
orchestrator of this scene,

then you are, de facto,
the last figure of the millennium.

Exactly.

The Last Big Thing.

And that is an interview-ending
quote if I ever heard one.

It was a revelation
talking with you, Simon Geist.

It was... interesting.

Oh, I forgot...

There's just one more thing
you might want to respond to...

off the record.

We did a little research
on you with Brent's help and...

we found some rather
interesting photographs

connected with your past,

if you care to comment.

I knew I knew you
from somewhere.

Failed actor,
failed rock star,

failed comic,
failed model.

Busted. Bus-ted!

And they didn't even write
for "The Next Big Thing."

Still doesn't exit.

I saw it on the
magazine stand.

Whatever.

They certainly
don't write for it.

We're friends of Brent.

We're actors.

Simon Zeitgeist.
Even your name's bullshit.

You're the zeitgeist of nothing.
Nobody cares who you are.

You're living out here in the
fucking outer rungs of hell.

Your neighbor has
got some kind of fucking

brew-ledge
strapped to his gut.

What kind of crew is this?

What the fuck are you
gonna create here?

What fucking agenda?

This is all a
colossal joke!

You are the most deluded
motherfucker on planet earth.

Your regime is over.

L.A. fame-need.

Yeah, all right, so you've
succeeded in promulgating

this Hollywood "A" movie
back story here, with the photos.

Yeah, promul...
ka, fucking ka... gating.

Fucking ka!

Women run with the goats,
men run with the emus.

Sudden realization.

As we cusp millennium,

it increasingly
narrows down to me.

- Man, we nailed the fucker!
- Fuck, yeah!

He bought your shit,
you are a great actor, man.

So are you.

Hey man, I'll catch
you back in L.A.

I'm gonna try
and scam a ride.

Tedra!

Simon Geist has fallen.

Simon Geist has fallen.

The afternoon that he fell,
I was confronted with an image

of the two dominant men
in my life facing each other.

I'm not paying the
mortgage anymore, Simon.

I'm signing it
over to you...

and Darla.

The two men whose dark,
twisted energies

have swamped and
stifled me since birth.

The image of my father...
and Simon Geist.

This image:

I am now embarked on
my own path and journey.

I have my own agenda.

And, unlike Simon Geist,
I will not be co-opted.

As we cusp millennium...

it increasingly
narrows down...

to me.

Genius.

And I don't use that word
lightly or frivolously.

What you've done with the form,
the music video form,

you've fucking
pushed the envelope,

you've upped the ante.

You've made a
bold and unprecedented

meta-music video
indictment/commentary

that still
legitimately rocks.

Endless rerun

I want to meet
the new Marsha Brady

Hey, hey, hey!
What's Happening Now!

99 and Laurie Partridge
reading Chairman Mao

Then there's Maude,
she's so mod

God's gonna get
you for that, Walter

Rhoda, Rhoda, Abe Vigoda
Dyan Cannon, Carol...

Hot Lips, Apocalypse
Hold the Whitman Mayo

Sit on it and and kiss my grits
Have a happy day, Flo

You're a meathead, dingbat
So why don't you spin off my back

Karen Black will Fade to Black
I'll have a Hart to Hart attack

Endless rerun

I want to meet
the new Marsha Brady