Fourth Rock From The Sun

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 2000)

This review was going to begin with a reference to all those ads where you send off a smallish amount of money in exchange for Secrets Of How To Be A Millionaire Without Working For A Living. Instead, let's skip the ad and go straight to Secrets Of How To Be An Oscar Winner Without Working For A Living. First thing is, don't write a script which involves real people. Why? Because that's real hard. Second thing is, don't write a script which involves real situations. Why? Er, well, because that's real hard, too.
Third thing is, remember the other two. Begin, then, by circumventing all the labours necessary to delineate shades of human behaviour and instead. . . write about aliens. Aliens are great because no-one's ever met one (I think) and therefore, aliens can behave in ways no-one can argue with. They can be flip, they can be funny, they can be miserable, they can be, when you think about it, even a little. . . perverse. So let's do a movie about a bunch of aliens, in the guise that this is, er, about Alienation (no, no, no: not Alien Nation). Because alienation is really an incredibly in thing in Western culture, we're on to a winner right away. Then let's chuck in a big storm (no, no, no: not Perfect Storm) and wait for the acclaim to ring forth and, possibly, awards to roll in. Hello, The Ice Storm. No, wait a minute, wrong fillum. This is "American Beauty". Well of course it is. A look through the microscope at American Life. At real people like, sort of, Kevin Spacey, too young, too personable, too attractive ever to emulate James Mason chasing Lolita but no matter, he's off another planet anyway (although don't say so, not in your script). Then there's his wife. She's from Mars as well. (But again, don't admit that: she's really, really normal). And his daughter. Young. Sassy. Articulate. Troubled. Alien-ated. Came from Pluto, but don't mention that either, she's normal, honestly, really really normal. Like the neighbours who film everyone (like they do on Pluto, which is why young sassy Alien Daughter never thinks to report them to the cops). One of them's a general or colonel or something, he used to lead the Neptune Third Division (Armored). But hey, keep that quiet, too: he's normal, too. And, oh, almost forgot, the Virgin from Venus who has a way with the transmogrification of flower petals. She's a friend of the Daughter from Pluto. Well, they would be. Now then. There's the cast of characters. Not a brushstroke of reality amongst the lot of 'em. BUT: this really doesn't matter. Because what you tell the world, what the publicists tell the world, what the director tells the world, what the cast tell the world, is. . . They're actually all of this world. So everyone believes it. Honestly. It's true. Just tell people, all these beings are Americans and, hey, Americans will believe it! Yeah! Right on! Tell the world, too, that this is serious, in-depth, Highly Significant cinema and, well, they'll believe that, too. So there you go. Loadsa money. Lots of awards. And everyone out there really believing that America is like this -- hell, even your neighbours are like this -- because when something as loaded with honours as this comes to town, it just has to be true life. If you've got a script like this in mind, please email me. I've an idea we could do something on a Martian with a fetish for washing up liquid (quite normal, dear, quite normal) who showers pine cones on unsuspecting sub-James Masons until the day comes when an Ice Storm causes his spaceship to explode whilst being filmed from a General and his son from Neptune. This will be entirely realistic and a slice of life from Oakland (for example) that no film-maker has yet had the bravery or intellectual rigour to even attempt. That it will also be pretentious (space) junk is, truth to tell, quite besides the point.