All stories are true

Even the made up ones.  I love telling stories based on stories that already exist.  My first feature film is based on a film and a book.  Other works take a real life and, well, turn it into a drama.

As a journalist I used to make up stories.  So this inclination really shouldn’t come as a surprise. I don’t have an issue taking a public figure (that anyone in the media knows is already largely a fabrication) and parlaying him or her into a bigger story.

What am I working on?  I’m glad you asked.  Here’s a list of the latest stories.

“BOSCUTTI’S GREAT GATSBY” takes the sublime story of the American dream and ensures it remains the story of Nick Carraway (the dreamer) and not Jay Gatsby (the dream).  I’ve been trying to do a film adaption of Fitzgerald’s novel for ages.  I’ve tried more than few treatments.  Some modern, some modernist, some post-modern.  This film treatment is along more classic lines. The hero is Nick Carraway, the narrator, the writer. It’s his story. Gatsby is the illusion that America will become.  And the green light at the end of the dock?  That’s what America will never be.  Let me know how it reads.

“BOSCUTTI’S PURE ELVIS” wonders what on earth drove Elvis Presley to drop everything just days before Christmas ‘70 and flee Graceland to fly commercial (yes, commercial) half-way round the country on a wild whim to obtain a drug enforcement agency badge from none other than the President of the United States of America.  There’s gun, girls and vitamin pills.  There’s dream of his stillborn twin. There’s lots of rock’n'roll.  Let’s face it, before Elvis there was nothing.  This began as a screenplay then morphed into an entirely different screenplay then went into turnaround then came back to me then exploded into a novel which should be available for sale as soon as I clear up some paperwork with the IRS.  Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon and the IRS.  Man, what more do you want.

“BOSCUTTI’S DON SIMPSON EXPERIENCE” takes us into the mind of legendary bad-boy movie producer Don Simpson as he overdoses and dies in the bathroom of his mansion.  With Jerry Bruckheimer, Simpson created the big-budget high-concept phenomenon that decimated cinema.  A man who only had two speeds in life – full throttle, and crash and burn. Movie stars, hookers, and coke.  Lot’s of coke.  I used the structure of a typical Simspon-Bruckheimer movie to tell the story as a screenplay with more than a few swerves and near misses.  Finalist in Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope screenplay contest. I’ll be writing it out as a serial novel.

“BOSCUTTI’S M” is a novel about murder.  It’s from my film.  (Yes, the film with one early version running more than three hours.  The story just kept growing.)  The film is based on the seminal 1931 film by Fritz Lang and the diary of a murder written by Guy de Maupassant in 1887.  The novel takes the film further, deeper.

“BOSCUTTI’S BILL HICKS” takes us on a drug-fueled road trip through California, Nevada and Mexico as outlaw comic Bill Hicks prepares for blast off.  Jokes, cracks, and ufos.  It’s meant to be funny.

“BOSCUTTI’S WAITING FOR MURDOCH” has the scion of a New York advertising family heading off to News Corp headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas to meet with the media magnate.  His name is JD. And he’s just been fired from the firm his father built.  But the meeting has been arranged for weeks.  And he isn’t going to cancel now.  He’s got the answer to News Corp’s woes.  He knows how to save it from itself.  (But he’s also a manic-depressive and he hasn’t taken his meds today).  This baby’s a little close to home.  Probably explains why I have a thousand notes but not so much as an outline.  There’s a lot of revelations about media and how it impacts everyone.  But there’s probably more revelations about me.

“BOSCUTTI’S TIANANMEN SQUARE” is Romeo and Juliet set in Peking in 1989 as more than a million people gather in Tiananmen Square to call for democratic reform. As night falls, hundreds of tanks rumble through the capital’s street and soldiers begin firing randomly on unarmed protesters.  Hundreds if not thousands are killed in the massacre.  One young man stands his ground.

“BOSCUTTI’S PABLO ESCOBAR” recounts the story of the the Robin Hood of the Colombian cocaine cartels.  Did you know Escobar wanted to be come the President of Colombia?  Did you know he studied international law at university?  He gave half his money to the poor.  He loved to talk.  He would ring his mother three times are day.  That’s all the government death squads needed to triangulate his position and eliminate him.  Next time you do a line, think of Saint Escobar.

“BOSCUTTI’S DINNER WITH ANDRÉ BAZIN” is shot in real-time in a restaurant while enjoying a meal with the renowned French film critic André Bazin.  Serving all things film. Pouring metaphysics.

“BOSCUTTI’S DISNEY” biopics Walt Disney. As a boy, his father used to give him a good whippin’ in the basement with a hammer.  How did an outsider become the King of Hollywood?

“BOSCUTTI’S JESUS PROPHECY” plays on the second coming. Jesus returns to Bethlehem and brings peace on earth.

“BOSCUTTI’S MARILYN PROJECT” is a murder mystery with noirish overtones.  (Honestly, how easy would it to murder a movie star addicted to Nembutal.  Just replace her standard pills with others primed with a toxic dose.  All you need is a glass of water.)

“BOSCUTTI’S KENNEDY PROJECT” contemplates what the President would do if he found he had only months to live?  Would he plan his own assassination?  Would he go through with it?