Dear Mr. Guest,
I’m a huge admirer of your work. Best in Show is one of my favorite movies, and I watch it every Thanksgiving, or at least the years that I can wrestle the remote away from my mother (there’s only so many movies about a Christmas prince a person can watch).
I’m writing to you because my friend Carrie recently came across a video of a man explaining why he tried to pull a fishing hook from a shark’s mouth (not to spare the shark, he just wanted his hook back). We think this would make a great “hook,” if you will, for a Best in Show sequel.
Now, I’m sure you have much better things to do with your time than entertain a silly proposal for a movie from someone who knows nothing about making movies. But, we live in crazy times where humor is the only thing keeping many of us going. A new movie from you could be just the salve our gaping wound of a world needs.
Picture this…Best in Show: Florida
We open on a fishing dock.
A man with his arm wrapped in a tourniquet fashioned out of fabric printed with the American flag stands next to his wife.
“Hi, you probably know me as the guy who stuck his hand in a shark’s mouth to get my fishing hook. I’m not a famous person, I’m just an average Joe who likes to take my family hunting for predators and then dump them off the side of the boat after I get a good picture. Me and my wife Ashley have seen a lot of comments from our video and we wanted to let you know our side of the story.”
Ashley nods and pats his arm. (The other one, not the one wrapped in the flag, through which we can see blood starting to seep).
“We’d been out catching sharks, catching ‘cudas, and the kids were getting bored. We land this last shark, and he wasn’t big enough to take a picture for the ‘gram, so I was gonna let him go. But I wanted my hook back. So I reached into his mouth and tried to yank it out and then I heard this popping noise and that’s when I yelled, Goddamn, he just took my finger! So my cousin Bobby here whipped off his undershorts and made me a tourniquet.”
The camera closes in on the tourniquet, where the elastic waistband of what is in fact, flag-printed boxers, is now visible.
The camera then pans to Bobby, who is shirtless, wearing sunglasses and a Mickey Mouse towel wrapped around the lower half of his body.
“I’m not a paramedic, but I did take a workplace violence course at the office last year. They teach you to run, hide or fight, and how to make tourniquets outta your underwear. Guess corporate America’s good for somethin’, am I right?”
The camera moves back to Shark Hook Man, who nods.
“After Bobby wrapped up my arm, we hauled ass outta there and headed for the dock. Ashley had a heckuva time calming the kids down, what with all the blood and all, but she’s my rock.”
Ashley chuckles. “Well, Mister-driving-yourself-to-the-hospital-when-you’re-bleeding-out!”
She then looks into the camera, confidingly. “I thought he was gonna faint any minute. The kids were screaming, the truck was weaving back and forth, his hand’s spurting blood into traffic. Why, he could have passed out and killed us all!”
Ashley stops and puts her hand on her heart. “But … that’s my man!”
###
Clearly I’m no screenwriter. But you get the idea. The state of Florida is ripe for character development. Adults who vacation at Disney could make an entire movie all on their own. To say nothing of people who visit Florida from other places. (Or used to visit Florida until it became just as terrible as their own state. Texas, J’accuse).
I’m sure this is one of many other ideas people send you all the time. There’s certainly no lack of potential material. I’ve seen school board meetings that I wished were one of your mockumentaries. I can only imagine what you could do with a movie based on some recent political campaigns – I’d like to be able to laugh about those.
All that’s to say that the world desperately needs your movies right now. So if it’s not too much trouble and you have the time, I hope you might consider making another one.
