Untold Stories from the Hollywood Slush Pile: Where's Aida?

(Here is the second edition of a series exploring the quarter million unsolicited screenplays that perish each year, passed over and forgotten along with their authors. This week we highlight a strange comedy that came close to seeing the big screen.)

Vaughn Flores worked for a temp agency in Alhambra, giving typing tests, making coffee, and getting everyone to sign office birthday cards. Each night he returned to a small home in La Crescenta where he lived with Grandma Flores. One winter evening in 1994, while smoking pot in his room and watching Matlock, Vaughn decided to write a screenplay. Then he'd have one just like everyone else who worked at the temp agency.

By summer 2002, after numerous distractions and many bags of chili Fritos, his project was ready. He called the script, Where’s Aida? Vaughn’s surrealistic comedy revolved around the Zavala clan, an extended Mexican family and their pet cow Beso de Leche. A headstrong bovine, Beso constantly tries entering the house to watch television, preferring soap operas to soccer and news.

Whenever a crisis arises, the Zavalas call upon bossy-but-lovable daughter Aida to fix things. Never seen throughout the film, Aida is the measuring stick by which other characters resolve their conflicts—what would Aida do? After a big fight and chase, the movie ends with the Zavalas realizing Aida is a real pain-in-the-ass. They move without leaving her a forwarding address

Getting tips from his temp agency pals, Vaughn managed to land the script at 20^th Century Fox and Touchstone Pictures. But his work never passed the junior coverage readers. Said one about the screenplay: “More TV than film and bad TV at that, though I liked the cow.” Another wrote that 'Aida' seemed “a cross between Waiting for Godot and The George Lopez Show but with a funny cow.”

And so 'Aida' teetered before the plunge into that Tartarus of discarded visions called the Hollywood Slush Pile.

But in an odd twist, a company called Baja Quality Entertainment learned of the property through the grapevine and optioned it from Vaughn. They shot a screen test of a young actress, Carmen Solano, and a cow chosen to play Beso. 

 Where's Aida? seemed poised to spring from screenplay to produced movie. But the cow wrangler wanted too much cash upfront. Negotiations collapsed. The screenplay achieved the sterile honor of also landing in the Baja slush pile.

Deal deader than cheap gas, Vaughn lapsed into a depression. He had quit his temp job and used the option money to buy a cravat in anticipation of being a screen writer. Grandma Flores had already invited their family and friends to the Oscar awards. But time dulls all wounds. Vaughn realized that the hard work of writing didn't exactly fog up his bong. There were other things in life. And while he never stopped smoking pot, he eventually found a job where it didn't matter. Today, Vaughn Flores is in charge of Amtrak.

And now a lost tale has finally been told.

 video: lichoo

Freakazoid Animation Art Awaits

This fellow.  I'll say no more.

Rafa Rivas posts a fine article on Freakazoid! containing Bruce Timm artwork from the series' original development. Paul Dini thought up the characters who graced the initial show bible but then never blossomed on screen. Unfortunately, Rafa attempted to close his piece with a comment about a certain spooky hooded character who spoke like the late Jack Palance. All the best to Rafa, wherever he may be. (Keep an eye open for pie. It's your best play.) "Ohhhhh my!"

Snap Review: All Together

(Image: pilkey.com)

Launched seven days ago, this week's Snap Review includes a genuine film trailer as well as comments on Jane Fonda in a French-language film.

What happens when five aging Frenchies decide to move into a house together? What happens when they hire a young caretaker interested in studying the elderly? What happens when Jane Fonda continually breaks the fourth wall, saying things like, "Check out my bad self speaking French. Tre cool, no?"

As Death creeps toward the elderly on wrinkled feet, the Frenchies turn to religion . . .  specifically the Aztec faith. They construct a pyramid in the back yard and begin sacrificing transients and unwary neighbors to the sun god, striving to win favor and pass quickly through the nine lives of the underworld to Mictlan, the realm of the dead.  Without giving too much away, the film really zooms at that point. (NOTE: all Aztec elements have been scrubbed from the trailer.) A cross between On Golden Pond and Apocalypto. 



trailer: kinolorber

Untold Stories from the Hollywood Slush Pile

In any given year roughly 250,000 speculative screenplays circulate around Hollywood, written for free by someone with a dream and a keyboard. Perhaps 50 will be purchased. That means 249,950 untold stories will silently wither, never to stimulate our imagination. But that Darwinian process changes today. Every Friday Write Enough! resurrects moribund scripts from the Hollywood Slush Pile, drawing on a veritable Marianas Trench of passed over pictures for a peek at might have been.

Today's offering is the 1983 sci fi/historical thriller: E.T. Panzer Ace.

Eager to piggyback on the success of Steven Spielberg's 1982 mega-hit, screenwriters typed out their top friendly alien offerings. But one canny scribe counter-punched. Aspiring wordsmith Moss Karling, a military history buff and bartender at Bob's Frolic Room in Hollywood, poured his dark passions onto the page. Eventually he convinced character actor (and regular customer) Gill Hong to show the script to his agent.

Karling's story followed the Spielberg path of a lost alien. But Moss elected to have the creature  marooned in 1943 Germany. The frightened being is discovered hiding under a Panther tank by lonely gunner Manfred Knobble. Knobble lures it into the barracks by leaving a trail of schnapps and cigarettes. Through an improbable series of events, E.T. eventually becomes a top panzer commander on the Eastern Front, personally decorated by Hitler who is told the odd-looking soldier hails from Tibet.

In a rare production still, E.T. (Gill Hong) is awarded an Iron Cross by Hitler (Loaf Masters).

But a suspicious Gestapo want the chain-smoking alien brought in for questioning. Knobble helps his friend construct a device to call for rescue, using an old concertina, barbed wire and a Volkswagen battery. The contraption works and a spacecraft arrives. Soldier and alien toast farewell with mugs of schnapps. As the groggy extraterrestrial staggers onto the ship, Manfred presents a parting gift—an antitank rocket. Thick with drink, the befuddled E.T. accidentally triggers the weapon inside the craft, setting off a thermonuclear explosion that vaporizes ship, alien, Knobble, and twenty-nine acres of the Black Forest.

"I'm just not seeing this," said Gill Hong's agent. A determined Karling set out to film the picture himself. He raised enough money to shoot fourteen minutes of footage, using borrowed equipment and actors like Cleveland Bevel who went out to become a featured extra in Air Wolf.

In time, Karling's interest in the project waned and he began a successful career writing historical fiction. His copy may be found on many official U.S. government websites.  Hong worked steadily, later becoming a fixture in Tucson dinner theater. His former agent was arrested for lewd conduct with office furniture.

But now a lost tale has finally been told.
Image: alienresearchalliance.com   

Hotel Transylvania Film Review Up at F.O.G.

Not surprisingly, Transylvania's favorite innkeeper turns out to be Dracula. But troubles dog the vampire hotel owner, voiced by Adam Sandler, when a slacker human drops in and courts Drac's daughter. Does trouble ensue or does the film simply end? Learn more as "Reviews of Films I Have Never Seen" examines 3-D animated feature Hotel Transylvania over at the always intriguing Forces of Geek. Discover the subtle interplay between corporate sponsors and the creative side. Read in awe as I thunderously denounce something. Go now and bask in words.

A suit of armor brown-noses the boss as Dracula (Adam Sandler) is all inn.

Prophecy of Freakazoid

The Escapist notes that long ago in the 1990s the future of the "Information Super Highway" was previewed by the Guy with Lightning in His Hair. See how Freakazoid correctly foresaw the future of the Web in a neat video salute to TV animation past. (Thanks to Keeper over on FB for pointing this out.)

Rapid Fake Movie Reviews

(Image: pilkey.com)

This week I'm introducing the Snap Review. These fast, hip-shot takes are designed to introduce readers to upcoming cinema; cinema I deem worthy of note but not worthy enough to watch or cover in "Reviews of Films I Have Never Seen."

Opening Oct 5, we have The Oranges, a tale of suburban dysfunction, home-wrecking, and narcissism run amok, all caused by the return of a randy daughter to her New Jersey home with an orange the size of a beach ball. She will neither share the immense fruit nor disclose its origins. Furthermore, the daughter flies into a fury if anyone snarks the orange. (NOTE: This element has been scrubbed from the trailer.) Take an hourglass containing 90 minutes worth of sand. Now place an orange next to it. Add a photo of Hugh Laurie. Hand a family member close to twenty dollars. Eat some popcorn and stare at these items for an hour and a half. Was it fulfilling? Only you can decide.