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Disappearing Nader
The thought just occurred to me, in a split-second of bad judgement, that a movie could be made about the Democratic Party arranging for the "accidental" death of Ralph Nader. It would be a great Machiavellian conspiracy, complete with "autonomous" special-interest organizations and corporations acting "independently" out of a network of double-doored dumpsters parked behind nondescript cheap Mexican restaurants.
The story would be bust wide open by a hottt college journalism junior (with a cute nose and large breasts) interning at the Seattle Post Intelligencer the fall of the election, someone who looks so innocent and naive that she manages to trap the crooks, Columbo-style, into giving up the goods in otherwise unsuspecting encounters. Her life is put in danger by a squad of vindictive Greenpeace-supporting squirrels (allied with the Democrats out of frustration with the Green Party's impotence) who attempt to pummel her to death with a particularly large winter stash of pointy acorns. In the climax, the poor girl is held hostage by Al Gore, who straps her to an uncomfortable wooden schoolchair for two hours at the University of Washington in order to lecture her on Global Warming, the Internet, and Mexican Peanut-Butter production subsidies.
There's the usual complement of running frantically away from exploding things, sinister cloak-and-dagger encounters in seedy parking basements, and well-orchestrated break-ins into wiretapped party headquarters to -- um -- hook up better microphones in the bathrooms. And raid their executive wetbar, which contains the last remaining bottle of '67 Vieux de Telegraph Chateauneuf du Pape (which they drink back in the newsroom only to find that it's turned to red vinegar during its cellaring).
Of course, the plot twists like a cheap pretzel, folding in on itself with no apparent order. First it all seems like a straightforward conspiracy (got that?). Then it looks like she's being conned into believing the conspiracy so as to distract her from a sinister Republican Plot to recycle radioactive Bubble-Yum from nuclear submarines into park benches. Then, another clue reaffirms her belief in the conspiracy. Then it looks like the Green Party is in on it as well (motive: Nader's crippling halitosis), before the protagonist's really, really, really chubby cat -- a half-blind tabby named Oscar -- brings the crime crashing down -- literally -- with a single leap from a fourth-story window and the casual swipe of his paw.
The whole thing has as its backdrop a love interest -- a shaggy-haired entertainment editor from the UW student paper whom the protagonist's been dating. The affair turns at right angles to the conspiracy plot, creating a kind of tight entertainment double helix! (Whatever that means.) This boyfriend of hers is a guy who, at first, seems innocent, then looks as if he might be a spy, then acts altruistic when he nearly saves her life (from the chipmunks or squirrels or whatever), then ends in a fight when he complains that she's too preoccupied with her investigation to love him right.
Until the VERY end, of course, when she lands the scheming Dems in handcuffs and he shows up at the precinct looking fashionably, sexily unshaven with greasy unwashed hair and tells her that he always believed in her and the two go off, holding hands, to get coffee at the Sulking Pidgeon, Oscar perched on the boyfriend's back, purring contentedly.
I'll take no less than 100 million for the production of this fine script idea. Send all offers to me. Julia Roberts need not apply.
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