May 6, 2021

Missed two days of posting because I was driving with my friends and their baby out to Colorado. We took three days, stopping in Las Vegas and in Green River, UT. We stayed at the MGM Grand the first night. I hadn't spent time in Vegas since I was in high school. Being there with a baby was incongruous. My friend and I were trying to put the baby to sleep by singing nursery rhymes to him while we could hear partying in the room next door. Our row-row-row your boat was banging, though, so I think the party room appreciated it. 

My friend's husband watched the baby after he was asleep and my friend and I hit the strip. Everything is so expensive! And kind of trashy. I'd like to go back with my husband, though, and actually use the hotel's pools and lazy river all day. Lounging and drinking and playing 25 cent blackjack on those machines that are slightly boring would be fun. 

It's interesting spending that much time with a couple with a baby. (The baby is 9 months old.) The parents are like a two-person SWAT team and the enemy is... crying. It's pretty non-stop. 

Slog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

HEADHUNTER

2020 Black List

Written by: Sophie Dawson

Management: Bellevue Productions

Managers: John Zaozirny, Zack Zucker

Agency: WME Entertainment

Agents: Matthew Balick, CK Fight, Brett Rosen, Sarah Self 

Logline: A high-functioning cannibal selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity, but finds his habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten. 

Read: 5/5/21

Alan Pierce is a fussy New Yorker with a boring high-paid job as a headhunter. He takes immaculate care of his body and he expects his food to do the same. He eats people who have more than 100k followers on social media. He does this because their social capital and the likes inject lots of serotonin into their flesh. He prefers to fuck and kill them right at the point of orgasm. He also loooooves Bergdorf Goodman. He spends a lot of money there buying suits. 

There’s a guy, Damien, who wants to be eaten, which Alan finds off putting. Damien stalks him everywhere, making Alan lose his nerve. He’s also downgraded at his company, and Alan is worried about his social standing in general. There’s a “perfect head” at his work that he desperately wants to eat. Also, in his spin class, a woman’s leg falls off. Alan’s girlfriend, Emily, takes this in stride. A stranger starts coming after Alan, telling him that he’s paid for all the people that Alan has killed and eaten. Alan is starting to get bad stomach cramps. As Alan unravels completely, we (the audience) learn that he’s been stealing mannequins from Bergdorf’s. That the people he’s been eating and keeping the heads of are all mannequins. That his girlfriend has made him see a doctor because of all the plastic he’s been consuming. He doesn’t really have a job at all. He’s just a crazy rich guy with a thing for fucking and eating mannequins. 

I think I like this twist on a twist. I was thinking it might be a World’s End sort of thing where the premise is a hidden sci-fi premise. Most people are androids, something like that. Him being crazy works, but it comes with a little disappointment in the style of “it was all a dream.” There’s a ton of Voice Over throughout the script, which I was skeptical about at first, but which makes a lot of sense seeing that Alan is just crazy. Of course he’s talking to himself a lot. This script got the most mentions (29) on the 2020 Black List. I think that’s pretty decently deserved. A lot of time is spent on the character of Alan. A lot of effort has gone into the specificity of the rich world he inhabits – brands, parties, social influencer crap. The script is also generally funny and only occasionally clammy. 

It’s like a really dark take of a Sex and the City episode, one that follows one of the guys the women dates. (Emily explains her involvement with mannequin-man Alan by saying how hard it is to date in New York.)  

Rating: ★★★1/2