“Television is the retina of the mind’s eye” – Videodrome.
The time and place: a not-so long time ago in a galaxy not-so far, far away…
Harvey Weinstein sits in his office at Miramax counting gold bullion at his desk when there is a knock on his door.
Harvey: Come in!
In bounds Quentin Tarantino dressed in an ill-fitting karate suit.
Quentin: Hi there big boss man, heard ya wanted to see me?
Harvey: Yes Quentin, that’s right. Sit down, please.
Harvey indicates a seat on the other side of his desk and Quentin, all hyperactive and irrepressible and awgeeshucks as usual, sits his a*s down.
Quentin: Hey Harvey like Harvey Keitel from my first movie like Harvey the big invisible rabbit from that old James Stewart movie, ya like the motherfuckin’ funky threads, huh? (He pulls at the lapels of his karate suit) I’m dressed like a shitty kung fu guy from this cheesy old Swiss/German biker exploitation flickershow from 1981, “Mad Foxes,” aka “Los Violadores” with Robert O’Neal, who was also in the Bruno Mattei zombie flick “Night of The Zombies” aka “Zombie Creeping Flesh”-
Harvey: Quentin.
Quentin: -made just after “Dawn of The Dead,” which they’re now remaking. Ironic, huh? But I look as cool as s**t, every shut-in film geek in the world will be-
Harvey: QUENTIN! SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY! JEEZIZ!
Quentin (petulantly): Okay okay okay, s**t f**k asswipe cereal 70s TV and board games, take it easy!
Harvey: I called you in here today, Quentin, because I wanted to talk to you about something very serious.
Quentin: Yeah yeah yeah, I heard that they’re remaking the old rap blaxploitation kung fu movie “The Last Dragon” too, that’s pretty cocksucking m***********g serious cos it ain’t gonna have Vanity in it and-
Harvey: I MEAN IT NOW, QUENTIN, STOP IT!
Quentin (sulkily, like a spoiled child): Okay melonfarmer, which is dialogue specially crafted by Alex Cox for the UK TV version of “Repo Man,” whadya motherfuckin’ want?
Harvey: It’s about some comments you made to the press about 9/11.
Quentin: Who, the boy band? I hate those guys! I would never use ‘em on one a my supercool fresh fly nifty neato dialogue-strewn soundtracks, never! I have my integrity as an artiste to maintain! Unless they’re paying well, that is…
Harvey: No, Quentin, I’m not talking about a boy band.
Quentin: Oh, ummm, m**********r I’m tryna watch “The Lost Boys,” I’m kinda confused here. You mean like 911 the emergency services phone number?
Harvey: No, Quentin, not that either. I’m talking about the interview you gave to Rolling Stone magazine where you compared a tragic terrorist attack to a Japanese disaster movie.
Quentin: Oh yeah, right, right, I remember now, 9/11, the disaster TV show from a coupla years back, s**t damn hula hoops Elvis, why didn’t ya just say so instead of being so brotherfuckin’ cryptic?
Harvey: I didn’t believe I was being cryptic. I thought it would have been perfectly obvious what I was talking about.
Quentin: Well yeah, in retrospect, but to be honest I don’t wanna tarnish my extremely important worldwide rep as Head Film Geek (even more than Harry Knowles! I am the greatest!) by letting on I watched or wanted to talk about something as mainstream as that 9/11 show. I mean s**t f**k f**k motherfuck booty get ready to f**k you f****r’s f****r you f****r don’t you fuckin’ look at me my pimp-a*s n****r, it was on every major TV channel every night for weeks! Sheer overkill! And hardly any plot, too! What there was was ripped off wholesale from “The Purple Storm,” with some “Die Hard” thrown in! What a m***********g cocksucking c**t of a gyp! Boy! And they call me a plagiarist! I’m a rank amateur compared to those guys! No wait, I’m no rank amateur, I am the absolute greatest filmmaker – and indeed person – ever to walk the face of this planet! And I won’t let the world forget it!
Harvey (shaking head sadly): Quentin, my dear idiot savant – with the emphasis on the idiot – foolish child, I despair of you sometimes, I really do.
Quentin: Yeah, I know, referring to myself as a cocksucking f**k me up the a*s rank amateur, I’m sorry, musta hurtcha, I’m sorry, stoopit of me. It’s my low self-esteem, y’see. I wasn’t always this supercool and loveable and well informed and worldly-wise, believe it or not. I had to work hard at it. Still have a ways to go, but I’ll get there, don’t you fatherfucking worry, Harvey!
Harvey: Do you even have any clue what I’m talking about here, Quentin?
Quentin: My low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence?
Harvey: No, I’m referring to a wider global picture here. The world does not revolve around you, much as you may think it does and we here at Miramax may have unfortunately led you to believe in the past.
Quentin: Oh yeah, right, wider global picture, world revolving, you’re talking about the Universal Studios logo, right, right? Haha, you crafty old dawg! It all becomes clear now my n****r, s**t m**********r, you my main film producer OG! Damn straight!
Harvey: No Quentin. I’m actually referring to the fact that your insensitive, strange, somewhat sociopathic comments, comparing one of the greatest tragedies in American history to a Japanese movie, have offended many people. I can’t believe you actually had the nerve to say those fuckin’ things to a reporter!
Quentin: I geddit f**k s**t gay a*s c**t m**********r! They couldn’t handle my scathing supercool pop-culture-king well-informed critique of their boring show, huh? Well, f**k those guys and the unoriginal plotline they rode in on! Exploding buildings, s**t, that is soooo m***********g Towering m***********g Inferno, sheeit my n****r! And the FX were fake, too! Ain’t those low-budget motherfuckers never heard of CGI? I mean, much as I may diss those “Matrix”-making motherfuckers, and I truly am glad they ain’t the only ratbastard m***********g filmmaking section of Hollywood left – at least those motherfuckers know how to craft a good-looking image! But that…9…uh…what was it called again?
Harvey (Disgusted): 9/11. 2001.
Quentin: 2001? That the sequel? Kubrick direct it? Nah, m**********r’s dead as disco. Never saw that one, damn! Must be slipping up!
Harvey (through gritted teeth): It wasn’t a f*****g sequel, boy blunder. It was the year the tragedy happened in.
Quentin: Oh, okay. But just look at that 9/11 s**t through your moneymaking studio eyes. Big clouds of smoke, a coupla planes you could hardly see hitting the Twin Towers – yawn, tedious, boring with a capital B! And those crummy stuntmen supposed to be diving out the windows – amateur central! Those guys know s**t about wire work. Tell ‘em to watch my exploitation masterclass masterpiece “Kill Bill” and learn a thing or two! Motherfuck Happy Days Beatles Sea Monkeys!
Harvey: Those weren’t stuntpeople jumping from the building, homunculus mongoloid. Those were real people jumping to their deaths in fear and confusion and pain, because they didn’t know what was going on, because they didn’t want to burn to death. I nearly fainted when I first saw it. Real people, Quentin. Families sitting at home were watching their loved ones die, were getting phone calls from poor terrified people trapped in the buildings who would never get another chance to speak to their beloved again. Man, I’m tearing up just thinking about it.
Harvey swipes a tear away from his eye.
Quentin: Soft constitution, huh? Just keep repeating it’s only a movie…only a movie…only a movie…you’ll be fine.
Harvey: It was tragic, utterly tragic. And your insane and deranged comments are an insult to all their memories.
Quentin: Real people?
Harvey: Yes child, real people.
Quentin: Oh I geddit, it was a kinda reality TV show thing m**********r keep on truckin’ my n****r, just like “Survivor,” huh?
Harvey: It was nothing like f*****g “Survivor,” Quentin! Those buildings really came down, with real people in them. Real people died in their thousands that day.
Quentin: What about the planes that flew into them, were those motherfuckin’ Evel Kniievel Abba Gary Coleman Diff’rent Strokes really real too? For real?
Harvey: Yes. For. Real.
Quentin: Who was flying ‘em then?
Harvey: Saudi Arabian fundamentalist Muslims, mostly.
Quentin: Saudi Arabians, like those c********r f**k my a*s hard n****r bad guys from “Die Hard 2” with Patsy Kensit from “Absolute Beginners”?
Harvey: Those were South Africans, you f*****g fool!
Quentin: Where’s this Saudi Arabia at?
Harvey: It’s an oil-rich Middle Eastern country.
Quentin: Oh. You learn something new and useless every day. How can I talk to the fatherfuckin’ film geeks who blindly worship my nasty bad a*s about this ‘Saudi Arabia’ s**t? I mean, who’s ever heard of it?
Harvey: You’d be surprised, my schizoid friend.
Quentin: No s**t I would. What’s this ‘fundamentalist Muslims’ stuff about?
Harvey: It’s a huge, repressive worldwide religion who regard all non-believers in their faith as infidels who must die in a jihad. Or at least some of them do. The men who crashed those planes believed they would become martyrs for their cause if they died fighting the infidel enemy. Osama Bin Laden helped encourage that.
Quentin: Good job they caught him, huh? He won’t be doing nonea that s**t again in a hurry! Thank f**k for rappers!
Harvey (utterly confused): Huh?
Quentin: I saw D12, Eminem’s badass n****r homeboys, capture his sand-n****r a*s at the end of the video for “Without Me.” He was wavin’ a white flag and everything! Motherfuckin’ Peter S Bizarre my main motherfuckin’ man! (Starts to sing D12) “That’s right motherfuckers we back, sand-slingin’ orangutanin’-“
Harvey: I can’t f*****g believe what I am hearing! That wasn’t the real Bin Laden! That was Eminem dressed up as Bin Laden, playing Bin Shady, to try and lighten the country’s mood after 9/11 you f*****g dolt!
Quentin (puzzled): Whatchoo talkin’ about, Harvey? You sure? You ain’t playin’ with me?
Harvey: I’m positive.
Quentin: Oh. What’s a ‘jihad’ then?
Harvey: It’s a holy war.
Quentin: What’s m***********g ‘infidels’ then, huh? I’m getting confused here. What’s the meaning of all this obscure s**t? The plot and characters suck balls, man!
Harvey: Infidels are non-believers in the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Koran.
Quentin: What’s the Koran?
Harvey: QUENTIN, FOR CHRIST’S SAKES! DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR FUCKIN’ MOVIES?
Quentin: Ummm…motherfuck pound my a*s lemme lick yer feet Uma how about a rape joke my n****r…that’s a trick question, right?
Harvey: Only to you. The Koran is a holy book.
Quentin: Oh s**t yeah, jeez, Cap’n Crunch Shaw Brothers Sonny Chiba sodomy, I geddit, right! Like the Necronomicon from the “Evil Dead” pictures Sam Raimi and Bruce The God The God the B-movie God lemme f**k you and bear your children Campbell. But the Necronomicon’s like, an unholy book, huh? Hahahahaha, geddit, unholy book? Jeez that’s good Quentin boy, you should work that into your next goodam motherfuckin’ Pimp of The Year Antonio Fargas I’m Gonna Git You Sucka screenplay! You is da shiznit da bomb da s**t! The geeks would cream their jeans, O Film GeekTrivia Motherfuckin’ Maestro!
Harvey: Quentin, this conversation is utterly impossible. I cannot explain anything serious to you. Your only frames of reference are movies, TV and trivial 70s pop culture. You have absolutely no conception whatsoever of the real world-
Quentin: Bullshit, bullmotherfuckinshit! I watched that show all the time!
Harvey: -OR anything that happens beyond the two-dimensional confines of a screen. You are a f*****g liability, and your f****d-up comments about 9/11 caused this studio a great deal of embarrassment. If you were not such a lucrative cash cow we’d put you out to pasture. From now on you will have somebody sitting in with you in interviews to guide your responses at all times, and you will not be allowed to comment on anything beyond your myopic-
Quentin: Biopic? Alright! About motherfuckin’ time, my honkey homie!
Harvey: -intellectual-and-reality-challenged viewpoint. From now on you will not be allowed to talk about anything more important than movies in order to save us from embarrassment in the future. Do you understand?
Quentin (beaming): Loud and clear, big boss just like the Bruce Lee film man, loud and clear. Cos after all – what’s more important than movies anyhow?
Harvey (defeated): Exactly. Exactly.
Quentin: Can I go now?
Harvey: Please do. Dunno how much more of your company I could stand.
Quentin: Quite motherfuckin’ fatherfuckin’ brotherfuckin’ sisterfuckin’ right!
The Genius Knower of All Things Filmic gets up and walks across to the door to the exec’s office, opening it. He then pauses and turns back to his exhausted colleague.
Quentin: Hey, Harvey?
Harvey: Yes, my little cash cow?
Quentin: I’ve just been thinking about what you said. And I’ve got this idea for a tall drink of c********r Tourette’s Syndrome Hawaiian shirts Big Kahuna burgers heroin chic Elvis shades screenplay. Check this out, right? Religious conflict on a grand scale. Blood, death, martyrs, lots of close-ups of feet. Two sides of a religion – kinda like the light and dark sides of The Force in “Star Wars” – battling it out for world supremacy. Original, huh? Could have Erin Moran and Todd Bridges as the religious gurus, and maybe Hulk Hogan as-
Harvey: GET THE F**K OUTTA MY SIGHT YOU F*****G NUTCASE!!!
Quentin ducks out behind the door just as a gold ingot crashes into it just where his head was. We hear his high-pitched breathless chimplike chatter from behind the door.
Quentin: I take it you want me to ditch the pitch, bitch?
Harvey bangs his head off the table a few times before cradling his head in his arms and crying his eyes out.
Harvey: Where are those f*****g media spin doctors when you need them? PURPLE F*****G STORM! PURPLE…F*****G…STORM!!!
Harvey continues to cry and scream and swear as we fade to black on this very-far-removed-from-reality scenario.
