Reel Life #6

One of the news stories I proposed for a film adaptation in my last edition of Reel Life has seen some additional developments in the last month worth noting. The second story from Reel Life #5, about a group of young Somali men mysteriously leaving Minnesota for their homeland, received several thousand more words of coverage in a front page, above-the-fold article in a recent Sunday New York Times. In "A Call to Jihad, Answered in America", reporters Ramla Bile and Margot Williams present what has to be considered the most in-depth coverage of this story to date.

Some filmmaker, documentarian or producer had to have read this story with some interest. How could they not? Four young men (among a group of many that are naturalized American citizens) from Minneapolis have been killed in Somalia in the last 8 months, including one of the men profiled by the Times, Zakaria Muraf, who was reported killed just two days after the article ran. This material - about the cultural clashes in the U.S., the secret recruitment of these young boys, and their on-the-ground experience in Somalia - is ripe and ready to be taken to audiences on screen.

In the meantime, it's on to Reel Life #6. The set-up, as always: "This feature gets to the heart of my blogging and general film philosophy: bringing that which I see on screen into real world applications for my daily life. With these examples, the flow just happens to be in the opposite direction. Please feel free to share your comments on these stories and suggest or email me others that you find. All rights reserved if any Reel Life stories ever make their way to the big screen...just kidding...but not really..."

__________________________________________________

"A Slow Burn Becomes a Raging Fire"

I suppose if you've seen one C.I.A. spy story you've seen them all, but this bombshell about septuagenarians Walter and Gwendolyn Myers is tailor-made for a star-studded dramatic thriller in the same vein as the underrated Breach. Walter Myers was a career-long State Dept. political expert and intelligence official who, along with his wife, now faces charges of conspiracy and "being agents for a foreign government" (specifically, Cuba).

The American couple is thought to have turned against their home country as far back as 1978, though they kept their anti-American ideals quiet: "as the couple were allegedly passing information to the Cubans, they never indicated any interest in the island, according to friends and colleagues -- even at long dinner parties in which guests discussed world affairs." Fearful of raising suspicion, the couple rarely traveled to Cuba (although in 1995 they went to meet Fidel Castro) and are not even known to be fluent in Spanish. Instead, they met their "handlers" in "third countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, Jamaica and Italy" and "passed along information over a shortwave radio given to them by the Cuban government, and by exchanging shopping carts with handlers in grocery stores". This movie is writing itself, and A-list actors will swarm to the opportunity to reveal their love for Cuba under the guise of "character".

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

__________________________________________________

"Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Does Not Age"

It's as if The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was based on a true story. In the photo on the right, 13 year-old Carly Greenberg is cradling her sister, Brooke. Brooke is 16 years old. Weighing 16 lbs., she still has her baby teeth and cannot speak; her hair and nails are the only things that grow. Alarmingly, "she has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why." Surrounded by sisters and raised by loving parents, Brooke receives special education at a Baltimore Public School and generally lives as anyone her size would live.

It literally baffles the mind, so much so that her family finds it easier to tell people she is 16 months old instead of 16 years old. One of the many doctors and researchers studying Brooke compares her condition to having discovered the Fountain of Youth: "Without being sensational, I'd say this is an opportunity for us to answer the question, why we're mortal, or at least to test it...And if we're wrong, we can discard it. But if we're right, we've got the golden ring."

Brooke's story has actually just been made into a documentary, Frozen in Time, that will air on TLC on Sunday, August 9. In the meantime, someone could get to work on a feature film adaptation - not necessarily about Brooke, but using her mysterious condition as a jumping off point.

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

__________________________________________________

"Drug Sub-Culture"

Picture a combination of A Clear and Present Danger and the drug saga Traffic, and then set the movie in the Pacific Ocean. This unnamed crime thriller, possibly directed by someone like Fernando Meirelles (City of God), could focus on all aspects of the drug trade, from the seeds to the streets (American Gangster did this fairly well).

The key to this story is the detail about "Bigfoot", a new experiment thought to be responsible for transporting up to 30% of Colombia's cocaine exports: "This kind of vessel — a self-propelled, semisubmersible made by hand in the jungles of Colombia — is no longer quite so mythic: four were intercepted in January alone. But because of their ability to elude radar systems, these subs are almost impossible to detect; only an estimated 14 percent of them are stopped."

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film franchise, feature length documentary

__________________________________________________

"Amid Hard Times, an Influx in Real Superheroes"

In The Dark Knight we saw a group of "well-meaning" citizens donning capes and masks to fight crime in Gotham until Batman actually stepped in to do the job. I'm pretty sure the same thing happened in one of the Spider-Man movies, too, and of course Watchmen is based on just such a storyline. In any event, it turns out these wannabes are based on a lot of real people - nearly 300 worldwide and growing. Using names like Mr. Ravenblade, Mr. Xtreme, Dark Guardian, and Geist (pictured on the right), these self-identifying superheroes volunteer their time "helping the homeless, handing out fliers in high-crime areas and patrolling areas known for drug-dealing".

Having your neighbor watch your back (especially if they're wielding a sword) sure sounds like a good idea, but there are some real-world implications to consider that aren't really addressed in the movies. A legal director for the ACLU warns that "people who do this are running a serious risk of getting arrested for kidnapping, and being liable for false imprisonment," while a police spokesperson clarifies that "vigilantism is never a good thing."

I never saw that Ben Stiller-starring dud, Mystery Men, but has this type of superhero movie already been made? If so, I'd still be entertained by a documentary about these people. How do they get started? How do you choose a costume and name? Are they on call, or do they work from a regular schedule?

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film franchise; feature length documentary

__________________________________________________

"Michigan Man Claims He Was N.Y. Boy Who Vanished in 1955"

I've always been intrigued by the idea that your memories of your childhood, and even the reality of your childhood, are essentially based on the photos that exist of you as a child. For example, that's how you looked at 4 years old - but without stories and other photos accompanying a given picture and verifying details, how do you know it's actually you? Such is the dilemma, or one of many dilemmas, faced by the unidentified man in Michigan who claims to be Steven Damman, a toddler who went missing outside of a Long Island bakery in 1955. " Thousands of searchers looked for the toddler, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Hitting one dead end after the next, the Dammans packed up and moved from New York back to Iowa...until now, they thought there was little chance of ever seeing their son again."

Lots of possibilities with a mystery like this (the man has not yet proven he is Steven Damman), from a fish-out-of-water comedy about the man reuniting with his family to a suspense thriller about a person discovering that the "family" they've known since childhood is not actually their real family.

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

__________________________________________________

"Times Reporter Escapes Taliban After 7 Months"

This story pretty much speaks for itself as a brighter, alternative ending to the Daniel Pearl tragedy, recently brought to the screen in A Mighty Heart (and in that overshadowed by an Oscar-baiting Angelina Jolie). New York Times reporter David Rohde, who was researching a book and accompanied by a local reporter and a driver, was kidnapped by the Taliban in November and held in captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan until just a few weeks ago.

Stunningly, Rohde and the reporter escaped from their remote compound by simply climbing a wall and making their way to a friendly military base. That nobody knew of this kidnapping for the last seven months was the point; the Times and other media organizations kept the story under wraps so as not to give the kidnappers any free publicity, and thus any possibly negotiating leverage. The book that Rohde was researching will obviously be written in a different way considering his ordeal, but you can bet to see it on bestseller lists in the next year or so, followed by, perhaps with this seed, a film adaptation that shares nothing in common with Body of Lies.

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film

__________________________________________________

"Stolen Wallet Found in Cherry Tree After More Than a Quarter Century"

I don't know exactly where to go with this one, but it's an odd enough story that somebody could get creative with it. In 1982, a woman watching the New York Marathon in Central Park had her wallet snatched out of her purse. After 27 years, a park supervisor chopping down a tree just a few weeks ago found the wallet inside the trunk, full of all of the woman's information and cards, but missing $20 cash. This could go in a number of different directions - comedy, horror, romance, sci-fi (time traveling), or some kind of fateful, coincidental, time-spanning intergenerational drama. Maybe a stretch, but all it takes is a seed...

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film

__________________________________________________

"Informant Leads FBI Sting Operation"

What do more than 40 New Jersey mayors, lawyers, and rabbis have in common? Ties to a vast money-laundering network that was just broken up, and a story with all the potential for an entertaining legal thriller - hopefully better than Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton, with the flair of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming The Informant! and the dry wit of the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading. The F.B.I. used an allegedly fraudulent real estate developer to, over the course of a few years, act as an informant and collect piles of evidence about the group as it laundered millions of dollars and dealt black-market kidneys and fake Gucci handbags. As you can imagine, "negotiations often took place in parking lots, diners and boiler rooms, with thousands in cash being stuffed into cereal boxes before being passed on." Some version of this movie has to be made.

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Feature length film

__________________________________________________

"Main Line Murder Case Echoes 30 Years Later"

When David Fincher showed that notorious cold cases could make for highly intriguing thrillers (Zodiac), I expected we'd see a lot more similar period thrillers. But it hasn't happened, and with the limited interest I have in such stories I can find few more fitting for a film adaptation than the Main Line Murders out of Ardmore, PA, the 30-year anniversary of which recently passed.

A school teacher and her two children went missing, a fellow teacher and the school principal were separately accused, and the teacher was ultimately convicted on questionable evidence. Three books have been written on the case and a two-part TV miniseries apparently came and went sometime ago; not surprisingly, "with its themes of manipulation, betrayal and stolen innocence, the Reinert mystery continues to hold Philadelphia in its thrall -- and haunts the few people connected to the case who are still living." I wouldn't want the families of the victims to go through anymore than they already have, so this would have to be handled delicately.

Story Potential: Moderate to High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary (but not too Dateline-y)

__________________________________________________

"Japanese Fisherman Brace for Giant Jellyfish"; "Identifying the Great Blob of Alaska"; & "Jumbo Squid Invade San Diego Shores; Spook Divers"

I don't know if I've stated my great fear of the deep sea before, but if not let me provide these three articles as evidence why I prefer swimming pools: giant jellyfish (6 ft, 450 lbs.); a mysterious blob of ocean algae stretching for miles ("...but people are still uneasy. It's something the mostly Inupiat Eskimo residents along Alaska's northern coast say they cannot remember seeing before."); and 100-lb., carnivorous jumbo squid ("...divers report tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.").

It's been more than 30 years since Jaws arrived (not that its effect of keeping people out of the water has in any way diminished), and few if any sci-fi/ocean thrillers have been worth watching (Deep Blue Sea, anyone?). These three stories provide perfect material for a fresh take on the horrors of the deep. The CNN/jellyfish article even poses the idea: "Sounds like a great sci-fi flick. But it's not." Well, at least not yet it's not...

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Multiple feature length film franchises, IMAX documentary

__________________________________________________