Oscar Night

April 1st, 1998 Posted in Scripts and Dialogues

[return
from commercial]

Announcer
#1: “Welcome back, folks. Here to present the Oscar for Best
Actor in a Motion Picture— she plays a street-smart magazine
editor in the big city — and he’s the star of such films as
Jerry Maguire and Pearl Harbor — ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome Brooke Shields and Cuba Gooding Jr.!”

[music
swell. Brooke Shields descends from elaborate staircase.]

Announcer
#1: “I’ve just been informed that Mr Gooding, Jr. is unable
to attend tonight, due to post-production filming on his new movie.”

Announcer
#2: “Wow. That’s dedication, isn’t it? Hollywood stars give
so much, and ask for so little.”

Announcer
#1: “That’s the most reasonable and true thing I’ve ever heard
anyone say. Apparently a test screening of Pearl Harbor was conducted
yesterday, and one woman in the back complained she couldn’t make
out what was happening on the screen. So they’re reshooting the
entire movie with
nothing but tight close-up shots.”

Announcer
#2: “Now that’s dedication.”

Announcer
#1: “It certainly is. Let me just take a moment of our viewers’
time to commend the brave filmmakers of Tinseltown, who work so
very hard at test screenings, excising and adding to their product
— all to ensure a bland, easily palatable film that will offend
no one and avoid debate and
controversy.”

Announcer
#2: “I don’t like controversy.”

Announcer
#1: “That makes two of us. Controversy makes it difficult to
be nice to everybody and agree with everyone you meet. I say we
do away with it.”

Announcer
#2: “That makes two of us. I’ve just been informed that Cuba
Gooding Jr.’s place at the ceremony will be filled in by a black
caterer who, I’m told, does a passable Cuba Gooding Jr. impression.”

Announcer
#1 :”Now that’s dedication.”

Announcer
#2: “That makes two of us.”

[cut
to elaborate staircase as caterer walks down]

Brooke
Shields: “Wow, Cuba. It certainly is exciting to be here, isn’t
it?”

Caterer:
“Um. Yes it is, Brooke. And can I just say that I’d show YOU
the money any day.”

[audience
laughter]

Brooke:
“Cuba — that’s an odd name! What’s it like to be named
after a continent?”

Caterer:
“Oh, it’s great. I don’t have to pay taxes…”

[audience
laughter]

“—and
I keep getting BILL CLINTON phoning me, asking if he can bring MONICA
LEWINSKY there for a vacation with him!”

[audience
consumed in the throes of laughter. Cut to Tim Robbins, with tears
streaming down his cheeks. Cut to Heather Graham laughing, mouthing
the words "I KNOW who Bill Clinton is! That's so funny!"
Cut to Meryl street laughing so hard that she's bitten through her
own hand.]

Brooke:
“Ha ha ha! That’s a funny coincidence! Often on the set of
my television show, ‘Suddenly Susan,’ we tell jokes also.”

Caterer:
“Wait a minute. When I read that ‘I’d show you MY money any
day’ off the prompter just now — was that an offer to show
you my penis?”

Brooke:
“I — don’t know.”

Caterer:
“Wow. That’s odd.”

Brooke:
[suddenly speeding things up, as if someone off stage was telling
them to hurry] “Okay, well, as everyone knows, the Best
Actor award is the most important award of the night. It’s very
similar to the Best Female Actor award, except with men, so people
care.”

Caterer:
“That’s right, Suddenly Susan Shields.” [opens envelope]
“And the winner is Tom Hanks!”

[long
awkward silence. Tom Hanks heard in background: "Fuck! Yes!
Fuck!"]

Brooke:
“It think we were — weren’t we supposed to—”

Caterer:
“The first nominee for the Best Actor award is Kirk Douglas
for his role in ‘The Legs That Could.’”

Brooke:
“Wait. You just gave it away that Tom Hanks—”

[cut
to first clip. Kirk Douglas stands in the middle of a study. Jason
Patric sits in a wheelchair with an IV drip wedged into his ear.
Kirk Douglas is wearing a toque.]

Kirk:
“Goddamnit, Kevin. I’m not going to give up. Is that what you
want me to do? Just give up? Just pretend I don’t care?”

Jason:
“I don’t care.”

Kirk:
“Well, that’s not going to happen, you son of a bitch. You
keep pushing me away because you want to feel sorry for yourself.
You want to think that you’re the only person in a wheelchair —
that your life’s so goddamn tragic.”

[Kirk
spins around to face Jason]

“Well,
that’s not the Kevin Kevinson I know. The Kevin Kevinson I know
wouldn’t let becoming a quadriplegic crush him! The Kevin Kevinson
I know is a survivor! And that Kevin Kevinson reminds me a lot of
you! Do you know why?”

Jason:
“Why?”

Kirk:
“Because you’re him! You’re Kevin Kevinson and you’re a quadrlplegic
too.”

Jason:
“Oh, that’s right.”

Kirk:
“So you can sit there in that wheeled prison and give up. And
be a quitter. Or you can fight, goddamnit, and go out and WIN
that speedwalking championship like you always told me you would
those starry nights when we were growing up as kids.”

Jason:
“Alrighty.” [gets out of chair]

Kirk:
“Now you get out there and WIN.”

[Cut
back to stage. Brooke Shields is near tears and looks confused.
Tom Hanks is cheerfully making his way to the main stage.]

Caterer:
“Our next nominee is Dustin Hoffman for his performance in
‘She’s Having a Baby II: She’s Having a Baby.’”

Brooke:
“Oh God. We’re in so much trouble.”

Hanks:
[heard off camera] “Hey, Douglas! Good luck! Har har!”

[cut
to second clip. Dustin Hoffman sits annoyed in heavy traffic. He
taps nervously at the steering wheel of his car, and adjusts his
tie with hurried impatience.]

Hoffman:
[shouting out window] “Come one, move it! My wife’s
having a baby and I’m gonna miss it!” [shuts window]
“Damn it.”

Radio:
“The I-90 is backed up for miles here, folks.”

Hoffman:
[farting] FBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBT

[Hoffman
looks startled, then amused]

PHHbbbt!
PHHBBT! F-BAP! F-BAP! Fuh-BAPBAPBAPBAPBAP!

[Hoffman
sits motionless.]

[pause]

gurgle
gurgle gurgle fffffBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT

[pause.
Hoffman gets pained look on his face and leans to one side.]

PHHRAAAAAARRRP!
Bhbhbt! Bhbhbhbhbhbtt!

[Hoffman
looks visibly relieved]

FBBT!

[Hoffman
rolls window down again] “Christ! I’m gonna have to buy
a new car!” [laughs to self]

[cut
to stage. Brooke Shields is pale white. Tom Hanks is standing behind
her and caterer, making funny face noises and comically checking
his watch.]

Caterer:
“Our next nominee is—”

Brooke:
“For God’s sake, Cuba! It’s over! You’ve ruined the Oscars!
This is pointless! Just give Hanks the damn Oscar and let’s go home!”

Hanks:
“Yeah, cough it up, Cuba. I’m gonna make a fort out of em at
home.”

Caterer:
“I’m sorry, no. Imitating Cuba Gooding Jr. is a sacred trust.
If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it all the way.”

Brooke:
“[bleeped out] amateur.”

[from
back of auditorium, Cuba Gooding Jr. comes racing in, flushed and
panicky. He tries to flag down a camera. His lips mouth the words:
"That's not me! I didn't ruin the Oscars! I didn't—"
He is carted off by security]

Caterer:
“Our last nominee is Tom Hanks, for his performance in ‘Tom
Hanks Walks Around an Island For 156 Minutes.’”

[cut
to final clip. Tom Hanks, bedraggled and with a long beard, walks
around an island]

Hanks:
[singing] “Co-co-nut… I like to eat cohhhh-co-nuts…”
[in low baritone] “He eats em all up…“

[He
stumbles over a Fed/Ex package.]

Hanks:
“Hmmm. A Fed/Ex package. Conceivably, this package could contain
any manner of life-saving items - a knife, a compass, a blanket,
or dried food, or maybe a lighter, or even a pup tent. Clearly the
sensible thing to do would be to hold onto it for five years and
deliver it to a total stranger
if I ever get out of here.”

[Hanks
holds onto the package for five years and talks to a volleyball,
then gets rescued. He delivers the package to the stranger.]

Hanks:
“Here you go!”

Stranger:
[irritably] “Yeah, well. You’re late.”

Hanks:
[in falsetto Chinese accent] “Don’t rook at me! I just
giva yo package!”

Stranger:
[opening package] “Oh, look — it’s a care package
from Mom. A pup tent, a box of waterproof lighters, a goose-down
sleeping bag, a five-year supply of dried foods — she thought
of everything! A compass, fifty feet of rope, a book called “Surviving
on an Island”, a fishing rod and a hunting rifle with fifty
cases of ammunition.”

Hanks:
“Wow. THAT’S why it was so heavy.” [looks at camera]
“Don’t rook at ME!”

Stranger:
[sniffing] “What’s that smell?”

Hanks:
“I have lupus.”

[cut
to stage. Brooke Shields has left. Tom Hanks is wrestling with caterer
for the Oscar]

Hanks:
“Give - me - that!”

Caterer:
“No! No!”

[Hanks
clubs caterer unconscious and takes Oscar. He steps up to the podium]

Hanks:
“I’m so proud to have another one of these things that I don’t
know what to say. I’d like to thank my parents, who were very supportive
of me getting into acting. They were always trying to get me waiter
jobs, or bringing beefy studs down to the rec room in an attempt
to get me to explore
homosexuality. They were behind me all the way, and I’m the man
I am today because of them.”

[he
points out to Antonio Banderas. Antonio mouths the words: "I
want you," and licks his teeth suggestively.]

“I’d
also like to thank the divine saviour Jesus Christ, for seeing fit
to reward me with this in his master plan. I know everyone thanks
God in their Oscar speeches, but I really mean it. I’m convinced
that my meteoric rise to fame was guided my an omnipotent otherwordly
power. I’m not certain why it’s necessarily part of Jesus’ plan
to kill all those starving African children, though. My guess is
that they deserve it in some way.”

[holds
up Oscar]

“Like
I deserve this. You’ll note also that in having my Oscar win guided
by the Lord Almighty, the implicit suggestion here is that Jesus
Christ is actively seeking to destroy the lives of Michael Douglas
and Dustin Hoffman. I believe this to be true. Anyway, Jesus is
behind me, and
with his continued support of me, I suspect I’ll be up here a lot
more often. Between you and me, I sleep under the stage to save
on commuting time. Anyway. Thanks again, everybody.” [points
to wife] “Hey, honey!” [holds up Oscar] “Look
what YOU’RE getting up the cunt tonight!”

[Wife
laughs and applauds. Jack Nicholson leans over and makes comical
reaming gestures with fingers, which cracks up a nearby Hugh Grant
to no end. Backstage, a weepy Cuba Gooding Jr. is restrained]