Problem: Build a movie plot around this: What is strapped to a car when the film opens? JATO rocket

A: The film opens with a car with a JATO rocket strapped to it. The movie then shifts to Michael Burrows, a criminal profiler for the San Francisco Police Department. Shot in documentary style, the film is ostensibly a dissertation by a film school grad that follows Michael throughout the story. Fired from the police force after his hematophobia allows a serial killer to get away, Michael wallows in a deep depression for several weeks before coming up with a way to combine his Darwin Awards obsession with his talent for profiling. He will help insurance companies detect people more likely to accidentally end their own lives, so they are not sold insurance policies. After impressing an insurance company manager with his profiling talent, Michael is paired up with Siri, a specialist in strange insurance cases.Siri and Michael travel the country on behalf of the company, investigating several legendary examples of stupidity, such as the JATO rocket car. A pair of men attempting to ice fish become frustrated and use a stick of dynamite to blast a hole in the ice. The problem is their dog plays fetch with the lit dynamite and runs it back to their brand-new SUV. As they investigate the cases, Michael tries to pinpoint a common factor for these people. The only explanation is a confused monologue by Siri about insurance companies always denying claims and driving people insane.Michael narrowly avoids becoming a Darwin Award winner throughout the movie. He and Siri are stranded in the middle of nowhere on a cold night. Desperate for warmth, he attempts to start a fire with gasoline, causing his car to explode. Siri later confronts Michael, accusing him of being obsessed with the Darwin Awards.A twist of fate leads to Michael discovering where the murder suspect he originally allowed to escape now lives, as he videotapes the man in his home by rappelling down the side of the building. The film school student is seen for the first time as he, too, is hanging on the side of the building. The problem is his rope is the...

Problem: Build a movie plot around this: What happens to Joe when he turns on the television? Electrocuted

A: Part OneBobbi Anderson (Marg Helgenberger), a Western fiction writer, and her boyfriend, Jim "Gard" Gardner (Jimmy Smits), a poet, live with their dog, Petey, on the outskirts of the small town of Haven, Maine. Anderson suffers from writer's block and Gardner is a recovering alcoholic who currently isn't writing. One day, they stumble over a man-made stone object protruding from the ground. They begin excavating the object and discover a series of connected cubes that are made of an unknown alloy.There are several other town inhabitants. Postal worker Joe Paulson (Cliff De Young) is cheating on his wife, Deputy Becka Paulson (Alice Beasley), with his co-worker, Nancy Voss (Traci Lords). Most people in town dislike Voss for her adulterous ways, and only Paulson seems unaware of her husband's activities. Bryant Brown (Keith Carradine) and his wife, Marie (Corley), run a local diner. Marie's father, Ev Hillman (E.G. Marshall), lives with them and helps care for the couple's sons, 10-year-old Hillman "Hilly" (Woods) and seven-year-old Davey (McIver). Sheriff Ruth Merrill (Joanna Cassidy) watches over the town. She is also an avid doll collector. Trooper Butch Duggan (John Ashton) is Merrill's liaison with the state police, and shows little respect for the small-town sheriff.As Anderson and Gardner unearth more of the object, the local townspeople begin to undergo subtle changes. Insomnia becomes common along with rudimentary telepathy. Some individuals begin inventing wild gadgets using kitchen tools, batteries, small appliances and other odds and ends. Some of the inventions include an automatic letter sorter, a telepathic typewriter and a BLT sandwich maker that creates the sandwiches from the raw ingredients. These inventions have a green glow when active. Gardner is astonished when Anderson's "telepathic typewriter" is able to create a well-written novel about Buffalo Soldiers. Anderson also begins to compulsively dig around the artifact, revealing more and more of it. Gardner, however, experiences no...

Problem: Build a movie plot around this: What kind of accent does he use? Italian

A: Mike (Vin Diesel), a struggling actor with tattooed biceps, auditions for a role as an Italian man. He delivers a profanity-laced anecdote in an Italian accent, about getting into a fight with another man in a restaurant for looking at his girlfriend. The anecdote ends with Mike saying that he discovered the man was a homosexual, so he beat up his girlfriend instead, and is surprised that she doesn't call him anymore.The casting director expresses interest and has Mike speak Italian before telling him they'll get back to him. When the director asks Mike where the monologue came from, Mike says that it's a true story that happened to his friend. Outside, Mike calls his manager without an Italian accent. He complains about the monologue, which wasn't a true story, saying it was offensive and worries that it will keep him from getting the job. He wipes the fake tattoo off his arm and goes to his next audition.At an audition for a commercial, Mike meets a black actor in the waiting room and the two of them talk about their careers. Mike tells the actor about the audition he just left, and again complains that he thought his monologue was offensive. The actor tells Mike he has just landed a role in an international commercial, but Mike says he doesn't want to do commercials because no great actors have had to do commercials. Before he can audition, the director tells Mike that his skin is "a little too light" and not to bother auditioning. He suggests Mike audition for a Spanish role in a soap opera instead.Mike goes to another audition and reads a Cuban accent with a Hispanic actress. The two of them are portraying an argument, but when the actress launches into Spanish, Mike is unable to continue. As they're leaving the audition, the actress guesses correctly that Mike doesn't speak Spanish. She suggests Mike try out for a soap opera which is looking for Hispanic actors, but Mike says he doesn't want to do soaps because no great actors have ever done them.Mike attends another audition, where the woman...

Problem: Build a movie plot around this: What does teller point at himself? A gun.

A:
Penn & Teller appear on a television show where Penn jokingly comments that he wishes someone were trying to kill him. Soon after, the magicians are off to a scheduled show in Atlantic City. At the airport, a religious zealot confronts Penn about his comments from the television show the night before. Teller and Carlotta play a prank on Penn while going through security and Penn gets back at Teller by planting a toy gun on him while at the airport.After exposing fraudulent psychic surgery to Carlotta's wealthy Uncle Ernesto, Penn and Teller are kidnapped by angry Filipinos wishing revenge for damaging their reputation. Immediately before being brutally tortured, the situation is revealed to Penn as a birthday prank played by Teller, Carlotta and Uncle Ernesto.Soon after, while leaving the theatre from their nightly performance, someone opens fire on Penn, shooting him in the arm. Teller is accused of hiring an assassin as a joke, but as time goes on it becomes clear that Teller is not part of the joke. Teller purchases a gun for self-defense and femme fatale Officer MacNamara vows to keep Penn safe from snipers.Officer MacNamara announces that a nameless villain, a supposed vehement Penn & Teller fan (David Patrick Kelly) who dresses and acts like Penn, has been arrested. Penn and Teller get to tour his bizarre apartment turned Penn & Teller shrine. Teller innocuously disposes of his gun in a trashcan of the apartment. Shortly after MacNamara departs, Penn is stabbed in the stomach by an assailant on the street. Penn rushes off to hospital where, once Teller is out of sight, he appears perfectly fine. Teller proceeds to pursue the would-be assassin in a peculiar chase scene back to the apartment.The madman, dressed as Penn, forces Teller to enact a Penn & Teller routine with him, hanging in gravity boots in front of a camera. He then uses duct tape to secure the hapless Teller to the gravity boot rig. Officer MacNamara returns and the assassin leaves to finish off Penn. MacNamara confesses...