CALL ME SNAKE

Here’s a screenplay for you: A devoted father and all-around funnyman (picture Roberto Benigni for the part), in an attempt to keep his son (a fanatical Celtics fan, perhaps with some sort of terminal illness) happy, pretends his beloved team is going to beat the Pacers in Indianapolis. To add to the drama, he describes in vivid fashion how Paul Pierce (his son’s favorite player, who visits often in the hospital, never forgetting to bring a little something for the nurses) gets ejected from the game with just seconds left in regulation for stiff-arming Jamaal Tinsley–a boneheaded move that puts a virtual rookie named Kendrick Perkins, who hasn’t been on the court all night, at the free throw line to make the two most important shots of his life. And he misses both! Yet the Celtics make a brave defensive stand, sending the game into overtime, during which they triumph despite the absence of their star Pierce. What’s more, Antoine Walker, who missed countless layups in regulation, and might have had some tough questions to answer, instead comes up with several clutch plays in overtime to seal the Celtics’ victory and send the series back to Boston for game 7. The boy goes to sleep happy–dying blissfully in his slumber as he dreams of the Celtics winning their first NBA championship since 1986–while the father is carted off by the Nazis to meet his doom.

This movie can’t miss: It will be a big hit, a veritable chartbuster at the box office, and, despite some controversy (which is good for the bottom line!), a critical success as well. Benigni, moreover will capture two Academy Awards–for best director and best actor–and surely would have captured a third, for Best Foreign Film, had the movie not been filmed at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will not win an Oscar for best original screenplay, but the nomination will be enough to secure my place in the Academy and ensure an endless supply of free, crappy movies for the rest of my life—that is, until I, too, am carted off by the Nazis to meet my doom…