Repertory Draft: The Beer Battered Bedmates Thread

Beer Battered Bedmates

Written and Directed by: Chris Olson
Starring: Kurt Russell as Floyd Doppler
Catherine Keener as Joanna Wilkins
Gael Garcia Bernal as Mario Murdoch
Franka Potente as Layla Nelson
Robert Duvall as Leonard Grambles
Robert Downey, Jr. as Dick Mervin
Aishwarya Ray as Manisha Andrews

In Beer Battered Bedmates, Kurt Russell stars as the laid back, philosophical Floyd Doppler, owner of the eponymously named Floyd’s Tavern, a small, local bar that serves as a hang-out spot for the residents of a run-down, working class neighborhood. Floyd’s staff consists of two young bartenders, both of whom are intensely loyal to Floyd and the bar. The first is Mario Murdoch, the hard-partying, dimwitted son of an Irish father and Spanish mother, and a bass player in a local punk rock band called Shit Out of Luck. Mario is a bit of a himbo, relying more on his beauty than his brains to get him through life. The other employee is Layla Nelson, an unconventionally pretty, shy, determined graduate student studying psychology at the local university. Layla has been pining for Mario pretty much since the day she met him, but she feels that he is far out of her league, and has never made her feelings known. The tavern’s only other regular fixture is Leonard Grambles, an irascible old retiree who spends his days at the end of the bar, nursing a drink. He seemingly has more booze than blood in his body, and is always ready with a sarcastic quip for any occasion.

Floyd’s Tavern has been on the verge of bankruptcy for years, but somehow Floyd has managed to keep the place afloat, despite his laissez-faire attitude. Unfortunately, Dick Mervin, CEO of Cocktail Dreams, a TGI Fridays style chain restaurant/pub, has for years had his eyes set on the plot of land on which Floyd’s Tavern is located, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his hands on it. He contacts the bank that holds the lien on the property, and offers them a huge sum to purchase it. The bank dispatches to Floyd's Tavern the lovely but stern Joanna Wilkins, a woman who is considered by her peers to be something of a frigid bitch. In reality, she merely puts her career above all else, and doesn’t have time for a love life.

Joanna arrives at the tavern to tell Floyd about the potential buyout that is currently on the table, and he immediately falls for her. Unfortunately, she also informs him that unless he can raise enough money to cover the $75,000 back payment he still owes on the mortgage, the bank will have no choice but to accept Mervin’s rather generous offer. Floyd has no idea how he will come up with the money, and he and his employees grow despondent over the thought of losing the business. Thankfully, Leonard informs them of a competitive bartending competition that is being held in town that month, and the grand prize is $75,000. Overjoyed by this news, Floyd and his staff immediately sign up for the contest, with Leonard offering to put up their $1000 entrance fee. Joanna decides to go along for the ride, claiming that it’s to keep an eye on them, but in reality it’s because she is attracted to Floyd as well.

Mervin learns of their plan, and immediately signs up a team of his own to participate in the competition. At the same time, he orders his devastatingly beautiful young Hindu secretary, Manisha Andrews, to seduce Mario, and take Floyd and his team down from the inside. Mario, being not so bright, falls for Manisha’s ruse, despite Joanna’s protests, and the duplicitous woman eventually worms her way onto the team and into Mario’s arms, much to the long-suffering Layla’s horror. Unable to cope with this turn of events, Layla quits the team, leaving them one short. Now it’s going to take everything Floyd and his friends have got to overcome the odds, and save their beloved tavern, not to mention woo their potential beer battered bedmates.

Beer-Battered Bedmates

Written by Joel and Ethan Coen

Starring:
Gwyneth Paltrow -- Julie Cavanaugh
Eric Bana -- Tony Romero
Edward Norton -- Mark Cuccio
Tilda Swinton -- Nancy-Sue "Nursie" Hollister
Brian Cox -- Lloyd Cavanaugh
Michael Hogan -- Monty Romero
Philip Seymour Hoffman -- Horace Escalus Pettigrew

We open on an aging Horace Escalus Pettigrew, owner and proprietor of Pettigrew's Travelling Amusements, a touring collection of rides, games and food vendors that provides entertainment for county fairs throughout the South. He's giving a tour to a prospective buyer, as he's decided the time has come to retire from the business. The buyer notices an old, run-down trailer with a faded sign reading "Cavanaugh's Corn Dog Cornucopia", and asks why Pettigrew keeps such a beat-up piece of junk around. Pettigrew pauses, his eyes growing misty. "Sir," he says, "let me spin you a tale of two families, one not really much better than the other. Now this tale happened at the Verona County Fair, where you might say we lay our scene...." As he speaks, Pettigrew visibly becomes younger, and the buildings around become newer and shinier, the crowd larger and more boisterous, until we're back in the time his story takes place. Pettigrew finishes his introduction with, "Now just sit back, relax, and don't worry if none of this makes any sense yet -- it will."

We then see Nancy-Sue "Nursie" Hollister and Julie Cavanaugh making her way through the fair. Nancy-Sue got the nickname "Nursie" from her younger cousin Julie, who had trouble pronouncing her name when she was little. They approach a much cleaner and sturdier version of the trailer we saw in the prologue, the "Cavanaugh's Corn Dog Cornucopia" vibrant and clear. As they approach, they're harassed by Mark Cuccio, who runs the ball toss game on the other side of the midway. With him is Tony Romero, who runs the shooting gallery. Pettigrew explains in a voice-over that "food folk and game folk have what you'd call a fair bit of rivalry, what with one dishing out all manner of unhealthy commestibles and the other running games that may or not be entirely on the up-and-up. Somewhere, long ago, they took to butting heads and haven't come up for air since." Cuccio and Nursie trade barbs, but Tony can't help staring at Julie, who obviously enjoys the attention. Finally, the young Pettigrew arrives on the scene to break up the ruckus, telling them, "Now this is the third time I've had to shoo you young hotheads away. You want to fuss at each other, do it where the paying customers can't see you, or I'll toss the whole sorry bunch of you right out of my fair!"

Tony pulls Cuccio away, and both sides go back to the respective venues. Tony talks to his father Monty about why the two sides don't get along, just as Julie has the same conversation with her father, Lloyd. We cut back and forth between the two conflicting versions of the story, Lloyd and Monty working themselves up into a rage while Julie and Tony look on, not quite understanding, and distracted by the memory of their meeting.

Soon, Tony works up the courage to visit Julie at the Corn Dog Cornucopia. He watches her from a distance first, telling himself that "she's as pretty as the sunrise." Julie sees him and shouts, "Oh Tony Romero, are you too scared of your daddy to come talk to me?" Thus chastised, he walks over, and the two flirt until Nursie asks him if he's going to buy a corn dog or not. Much to her surprise, he does.

And so a secret romance between Tony and Julie begins. Nursie and Cuccio each suspect something is going on, but their efforts to catch the couple in the act go humorously awry. Tony and Julie try to goad their fathers into some sort of truce, but they won't hear of it. Finally, things come to a head when Cuccio nearly chokes to death on a corn dog Nursie dares him to eat. The two rival clans declare war, with the Romeros doing their best to ruin the Cavanaugh's corn dog business while the Cavanaugh's threaten to bankrupt the Romeros by tipping customers off to the rigged midway games. Pettigrew grows more and more frustrated as his efforts to keep the peace fall on deaf ears.

Finally, Tony and Julia turn to Sister Loretta, the fortune teller who has seemingly been with the fair forever. She remembers a time when the Romeros and the Cavanaughs got along, until one night, decades ago, where a Cavanaugh swore that a Romero cheated him out of a stuffed bear at the ring toss. Armed with the knowledge that their families once got along, Tony and Julie hatch a plan to fake their deaths, in hopes that the grief will snap both sides out of their enmity.

And so, Tony is found "dead" with a half-eaten corn dog beside him and a BB gun in his hands, while Julie is found "dead" next to him. Lloyd and Monty behold this tragic tableau ... and immediately start trying to blame the other, shouting and threatening each other until Julie stands up in frustration. "Don't it mean nothing that we're dead?" she shouts, stopping everyone dead in their tracks. Their cover blown, Tony rises as well. Together, they declare their love for each other, and make an impassioned plea for the hostilities to end, but to no avail. Finally, Tony gets an idea and runs off, returning with the biggest stuffed bear he can find. He presents it to Lloyd, saying, "I think we owe you one of these." Lloyd stares, dumb-founded, and accepts it. Pettigrew arrives to find out what all the fuss is about, and learns that the two sides have finally reconciled. "Well then let's break it up," he says, "and let's not have no more fussing and fighting!" And his beaming, smiling face ages back to the way we saw him in the prologue, and he turns to the buyer and says, "Now, there may be other love stories out there, but not one like Julia and her Tony." The buyer asks why the old trailer is still there, and Pettigrew tells him it's a reminder that all things fade, and what has always been doesn't always have to be. "Now come on, let me show you the pride and joy of Pettigrew's Travelling Amusements!" He and the buyer begin walking, and the camera pans up to show them walking towards the bright neon lights of the Romero and Cavanaugh Shooting Gallery and Corn Dog Cornucopia, customers happily eating and shooting.

Cast:

Jean-Claude Van Damme
The Rock
Monica Bellucci
Mos Def
'Beat' Takeshi Kitano
Danny Trejo
Carl Weathers

For best-friends Tommy (Weathers), Cliff (Johnson) and Bernard (Van Damme), making beer is their life - literally. They live together and run a small-time brewery in their basement, trying to concoct the ultimate beer recipe with help from Tommy's son, Will (Def). With the cash flow dwindling and supplies drying up, the group decide to fill their last big order with a mix of random ingredients from around the house, but when the batch comes out looking like bottled septic waste, they're left with no choice but to dump the cases out back for the garbageman. When their wild-partying, booze-hound neighbor "Don" Juan (Trejo) sees this happening, he sneaks out in the middle of the night to rectify what he considers "alcohol-abuse".

The next morning the boys find Juan still out in the alley, wearing nothing but a garbage lid on his head, stone-drunk and hallucinating. Checking the cases, they find only a single beer opened. Word travels fast and the beer becomes an overnight sensation, despite the appearance, giving new meaning to the term "getting shit-faced". An extremely wealthy, but utterly excentric Japanese investor (Kitano) arrives, hoping to buy out the company, and the boys realize they don't remember exactly HOW they made the special batch. The original bottles running low, they hire gorgeous 'scientician' Sophie (Bellucci) to help discover the potent ingredient mixture.. but they all fall hard for her, and the battle to save the beer becomes the battle for the babe.

"New country. New rules. Free beer."

Second Glance Rep presents
Beer Battered Bedmates
Written by Aaron Sorkin, from a story by Matt Nix

During the late 1920s, shenanigans ensue when a struggling town exploits a loophole in their constitution to secede from the United States...becoming the only place for miles where it's "legal" to drink.

Starring:
Rachel McAdams as Celia Temple, the young, smart-mouthed suffragette and narrator who discovers the legal loophole allowing her hometown of Rialto, Ohio to secede, only to find herself operating a whorehouse when anarchy breaks out.
Mary-Louise Parker as Bruce Dixon,("my father was determined to raise a boy") mayor of Rialto, determined to keep her town from falling into economic depression and mass foreclosure
Russell Crowe as Agent Capone, "no relation," one of two FBI agents assigned to investigate Rialto's exploitation of the Volsted Act who gets caught up in the town's free-wheeling hedonism
Ed Harris as Agent Evans, a by the book Quaker, attorney, and Capone's partner who is not amused by Rialto's flaunting of the law
Kyle Chandler as Sheriff James McCormick, a good-hearted guy whose love for Rialto finds him running interference for his sweetheart, Mayor Dixon
with Patrick Wilson as Irving ("just Irving"), a charming confidence man who arrives on the train, plants the seed of secession in young Celia's mind, then sticks around to "see what happens."
and Peter Dinklage as Caleb Ryder, a crusading attorney hired by the the citizens of Rialto to defend the constitutionality of their secession

Directed by George Wishart
Written by Judd Apatow & Jason Segal
Story by George Wishart

Ellen Page as Beth Livingston
Jonah Hill as Jimmy Russell
Linda Cardellini as Erin Sanford
Casey Affleck as Paul Sanford
Frances McDormand as Karma Starr
J.K. Simmons as Trent Starr
Brad Pitt as Floyd Baker


Beth Livingston is a young girl in her 20s, living and working in Muncie, Indiana. She got a Sociology degree from Ohio State, but realizes that you really can't do shit with it. She moved back to her hometown and has been working at a candle/incense/holistic shop run by Trent & Karma Starr, her aunt & uncle who used to be hippies back in the day and still show signs of their exciting past. Beth routinely talks on the phone with her best friend & older sister Erin, who lives in town with her husband Paul.

Their store is located in a small corner strip mall with one other business--a large Blockbuster Video. Both shops have combined to form a softball team in a local rec league. After every game, the team goes out for drinks at Rehab and Beth has made it a habit of having drunken hook-ups with a Blockbuster employee, Jimmy Russell. Jimmy and his two best friends & co-workers (played by Martin Starr & John Francis Daley) play on the team, along with Jimmy's roommate, Floyd Baker--a perpetual pot smoker who also works at Trent & Karma's store. Erin & Paul are also on the squad.

Jimmy & Beth get along great and have become good friends with benefits whenever they go out drinking. But Jimmy has gotten a bit tired of the whole "we only get together when we drink" set-up they have going on. He wants to try and actually DATE Beth. She has reservations about it, but decides to go on a date with him. He wants to spend time with her w/o the influence of lots of alcohol or other substances. He invites her over to his place and decides to cook dinner for her, but unfortunately things don't go as he planned. Floyd's busy smoking weed in his bedroom and they get a massive contact high (but the smell gets drowned out due to the flood of scented candles & incense that Floyd brings home from work) and that leads to them devouring pretty much every single food item in the house...and another romp in bed partially due to a mood-altering substance.

Beth finds out from her sister that her former HS boyfriend Rich (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has moved back to town after finishing grad school at Notre Dame. They broke up when they went their separate ways for college and she's always thought "what if". They go out to dinner and things go pretty well. Beth invites him to their next softball game as they need another player (Floyd got ejected from the previous game for arguing with the umpire). Jimmy of course sees all this and doesn't respond very well. Their subdued but noticeable PDA at the bar afterwards leads him to ditch the group, not wanting to witness it anymore.

In the morning after crashing with Rich at his place, Beth finds out that he has a girlfriend in Indianapolis and confronts him on it. He admits that he's been seeing that girl for about 2 years and wasn't looking for anything too serious while back home. Beth is crushed by this and storms out.

At work, Beth talks to Karma & Trent about it as they can see she is upset. They give her some advice since they are her main parental figures (her mother and father died a couple years ago). She gets a call from Erin and they meet for lunch to talk about it and Erin asks her what is going on with Jimmy & her. Beth says she isn't sure about him, that there are some things about him that she just doesn't see as dating material. Erin lets her know that that's understandable and you just need to find someone that makes you happy.

The team has a softball game that night. Afterward the game, Jimmy is congregating more with the guys and Paul tells him that Richard & Beth are no more. He gets up the nerve to go talk to Beth and they talk about actually going out, but she says no thanks, that they tried giving it a shot and it didn't work.

The next day at work, Floyd lets it slip to Beth that Jimmy really cares about her, that he's a good guy, etc. She starts talking to him about the concerns she has with him as a potential boyfriend and Floyd keeps countering it. Trent joins in, since he is a fan of Jimmy as a person. Realizing that they do get along pretty damn well as friends and you should look to date someone you can be friends with, she leaves and goes over to Blockbuster to see Jimmy. She finds him and says that she's thought about it and decides that yes, she's love to go out with him. His eyes light up and they embrace, kissing. He says that he will give her a call when he gets off work and they can get dinner. Beth says sure and leaves.

The film ends with Jimmy getting back to work and helping a customer out as he has a pretty happy smile on his face.

Gone baby gone

Doctor Winslow Mills is either a genius or a monster depending on who's spinning the story. Everyone has an opinion about the reclusive psychologist and his controversial twist on aversion therapy. The problem is, no one really knows much about the doctor, his methods or his exclusive clinic. Winslow Mills hasn't been seen in public since he was a child and the inner workings of the clinic are shrouded in secrecy that would, and does, make the Church of Scientology jealous. All that's known is that the Winslow Mills Rehabilitation Clinic has a one-hundred percent success rate and it's rich and famous clients can always guarantee a nice little career boost upon completion of the program. In Hollywood, that's reason enough to go on the wagon. It's trendy, it's exclusive, it'll get you invited to The People's Choice Awards. That's why you'll always find Doctor Mills listed in Entertainment Weekly as In. It also guarantees a long wait list as Doctor Mills never treats more than one patient at a time.

Until now.

You see, Doctor Mills has just died and for the staff of the Mills Center, including Winslow's brother, the gravy train is over. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and Darby Mills is a desperate man. Darby decides to masquerade as his brother and open the clinic to several celebrities at one time. His reasoning is that the rich and famous are also dumb and helpless. They'll believe anything he and his conniving staff sell them and gobble it up wholesale.

His contingency plan is that he will secretly be filming everything that goes on for the next seventy-two days so that if his ruse fails, he'll still have the mother of all reality shows to sell to the highest bidder. Too bad no one ever reads their release forms.

So, for the next seventy-two days, Darby Mills will place his unwitting celebrity "patients" on the new Doctor Mills version of aversion therapy, which constitutes giving the patients all the drugs and alcohol they can consume. He'll make sure their therapy sessions always head in unhealthy directions that will result in good television. He'll make sure that every bit of sex and violence gets caught on tape. He's ready for whatever chaos this experiment spirals into. The only thing he didn't expect was to fall for the one person who's genuinely there to be helped. That's when things start to get dangerous.


Mark Ruffalo - Javier Morrison - Not so long ago, one the biggest names in Hollywood. Struggling since his Academy Award speech where the effects of booze and OxyContin caused him to insulted Jews, African-Americans, Jesus, The Green Movement, Pixar and Carrie Underwood, thus offending just about every single member of the ticket buying public in one fell swoop. Javier is here strictly to rehabilitate his image. His addictions are just fine with him.

Naomi Watts - Margaret J Wallingsworth - Author of the best selling series of children's novels of all time. Her stories of Henry the Boy Werewolf have captivated a generation of children and made her rich. Unfortunately, they've also made her increasingly paranoid, neurotic and alone. Margaret is here solely to get free of her many addictions and live a normal, happy life.

Paul Giamatti - Brendan Towers - One of the richest men in the world and a self made media giant. His long running feud with Donald Trump has produced an awful reality show (The Trainee) and the tallest apartment building in New York City (The Towers Tower) to go along with a nasty cocaine and scotch habit. His advisors thought that coming here might help humanize this self-absorbed, raging manchild. They're wrong.

Jason Bateman - Richie Fergeson - Lead singer for the hugely successful metal band, H.R. Puffenchrist. Richie is all Id and always on. You name it and he's addicted to it. Richie is the type of guy that Steve O thinks is out of control. Richie is here because his manager fears he's going to die, thus robbing him of his fifteen percent. Richie has no plans of sobering up and fully intends on breaking out until he sees Doctor Mill's idea of rehab. He's even more determined to stay when he meets Margaret.

Jennifer Jason-Leigh - Nadeen Vernonia - Thought of as one of cinema's most serious actresses and one of it's craziest. It's assumed that drugs are the reason for the crazy. In reality, crazy is the reason for the crazy. Nadeen is completely clean and sober. She's here for one reason. She's a method actor researching a role as a drug addict in her next Oscar bait film. She's going to find this is one time when method was a bad idea.

Adrien Brody - Sal Vincenzo - Center fielder for the Houston Astros and the latest to be caught in MLB's drug screenings. Although Sal is an alcoholic, he's not a drug addict. He's self loathing, he smokes pot occasionally, but he's never done harder drugs. Of course, MLB is spinning it that he's a meth addict rather than admit he tested positive for steroids. Or that he unknowingly ingested steroids given to him by MLB's biggest star, Fred Gladstone.

and

Michael Emerson - Darby Mills - Failure in too many ways to count. Flunked out of med school and hired by his successful brother in an act of charity to serve as the Clinic's head administrator, although it was a job with a paycheck and no actual responsibilities. He's a conniver who now has unlimited power and the trust of a staff to fuel him. He's going to charge full speed ahead with his half-assed plan, regardless of the consequences. It isn't until he falls for Margaret that he begins to grow a conscience.

Small Roles-
Staff played by Kristen Wiig, Jessica Biel, Lauren Graham, Terry Crews, David Cross and Steve Coogan.
Emma Watson plays a tabloid fodder pop star who accidentally dies on the first day of rehab and causes the Doctor Mills and the staff numerous problems as her death has to be hidden from the rest of the patients.