On The Lot: Lights, Camera, Flush The Fish!
Episode 5 Recap by Jenny Lane
June 7, 2007
Last week on On the Lot, we viewed the 18 finalists' first one-minute films. The theme for the week was comedy, with a few standouts and several disappointments. Judges Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall and D.J. Caruso critiqued the films, and then viewers had a chance to vote. Here's how things looked after the voting:
Top three:
Zach - "Danger Zone," a one-scene piece about the domino effect of an experiment gone wrong
Jason E. - "Get a Room" about a nerdy guy (or maybe a special needs guy) who doesn't get the meaning of the phrase
Jessica B. - "How to Screw in a Light Bulb" about exactly that, screwing in a light bulb
Bottom three, and therefore eliminated:
Carolina Z. - "Deliver Me" about a woman giving birth
Claudia L. - "Blind Date" about a woman waiting for her blind date who unintentionally meets him in the bathroom, after relieving herself of a large amount of gas
Phil H. - "Please Hold" about a woman who is put on hold while calling 911 during a burglary
I was surprised by more of thee results than I had expected to be. I didn't think that Jason or Jessica deserved to be in the top three.
Apparently they both have dedicated friends and family who are dialing their fingers off. I was also a little surprised that we lost Phil. While his film wasn't the most original nor was it hilarious, it certainly wasn't the worst of the bunch.
Starting this week, On the Lot has been demoted from two time slots a week down to one, so we'll have to see how this impacts the show's format (results primarily) and also the ever-important ratings.
Host Adrianna Costa opens tonight's show by introducing the judges, Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, and this week's guest judge, Michael Bay. The fifteen remaining directors are seated in the first few rows of the audience and tonight, we will see films from only five of them. Tonight's films are three minutes or less, and were made in only five days.
As Adrianna introduces the first director to show their film tonight, she says "let's end the suspense for them" which to me implies that all fifteen had to create movies but only five are being shown tonight. The first director whose shirt film we will see is Sam, who does look genuinely surprised when he is called. Last week, Sam's comedy short was "Replication Theory" about a guy in a plane who tried to blame a fart noise on his shoe. I hope that his film is a little more original this week.
Sam tells us that since film school, he's been involved in several projects. One of them was directing a short film called "Lazy Monday" which was a takeoff on SNL's "Lazy Sunday." It was an internet success but now Sam wants to show that he can take his filmmaking to the next level. His film tonight is called "Broken Pipe Dreams" about a guy who loses an engagement ring down a toilet. He has to get it out, but to do so has to wrestle with a "scarring experience he had with toilets." Farts, toilets, it seems like Sam's a little fixated on a certain part of the anatomy!
"Broken Pipe Dreams" begins with a guy who picks up and stares lovingly at a picture of his girlfriend, which is sitting on the bathroom vanity. As he washes his hands, he looks lovingly at an engagement ring, sitting in an open box, and also on the bathroom vanity. The best part so far is the cute Boston Terrier staring up at the guy. He dries his hands, and as he sets the towel down on the counter, the ring box falls to the floor, the ring flies out of the box, bounces a few times, and bounces into the open toilet.
Let's count the problems with the first 30 seconds. The first mistake is displaying photos on the bathroom counter and fondling the picture frame before washing hands (gross). Then of course the open ring box on the bathroom counter is not so smart. Next we have the lack of a towel bar. Now for the mystery-slash-mistake combo, how does a ring bounce higher and higher each time it bounces? And last, but not least, when will guys learn to close the toilet seat!
Now, for the "scarring experience." The guy has a flashback to when he was a kid. The kid's actually older than the situation seems to call for and looks like he's at least 10 or 11. His dad is yelling at him and holding a goldfish bowl, saying "you screwed up." They're in the bathroom and the exact words are hard to pick out, but the kid is crying and yelling and the dad ultimately flushes the fish down the toilet. As the fish goes down, the kid kneels over the toilet, crying and pounding his hands on the toilet seat, yelling the fish's name. I'm rolling my eyes, are you?
Back to the present time, the guy is staring at the toilet like.....
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