The World-Saving Idea

My film teacher in college once famously told me never to begin a movie-in-the-making with the protagonist hitting a buzzing alarm clock -- he said that most film connoisseurs will immediately frown upon this opening and shun it like rancid gravy.

Funny he should say this, I thought at the time.

While we were still in high school, my friends and I took a class called "Media Empowerment" and one of the requirements was to create a short film that was entertaining but ultimately conveyed some sort of message to its audience. When you get right down to it, brainstorming was a bitch. None of the people in my group had something they wanted to say (well, important to say anyways) and neither did I -- nothing in the world affected me in such a manner as to inspire me to get up on a soapbox and shout at the top of my lungs. I could talk about the "illegal immigrant" issue, but that was a horse that had been beaten to something beyond death; the Iraq War, well, that was even more unoriginal than talking about Mexicans who cross borders.

Smartass that I was, I presented the idea that I was too apathetic to care about any world issue, and maybe I should create a film based on the theme of apathy and how it was effecting the U.S. population. The problem with this was that I, in fact, was apathetic and didn't really want to make a movie in the first place.

Ah. Well. That doesn't exactly cut it, now does it?

Why should you care, dear nonexistent reader of this blog that nobody reads? Well, my friends came up with a brilliant movie idea that might possibly save the world today. Hunger would be quenched, poverty would vanish, and I would cease to be apathetic if the idea was spread.

Yes, it was that good.

However, the film began with a guy hitting his goddamn alarm clock.

To be continued!