It’s the one that says “Bad Motherfucker” on it..

So by now Leonard and I had fought over the website content, The script, Final cut of the film, the budget and of course the camera. I even remember a simple irrelevant conversation about a movies box office success versus critical reviews, that turned into a screaming match on Biscayne Boulevard. It seemed like there was nothing else to fight about. But the next three arguments to come were a doozy.

Since we were now considering to purchase our own camera, I was ecstatic about shooting Sifting. To see my first baby realized onscreen and rewrite history. Plus the fact that Sifting had now become a prologue for The Last Temptation of Joe Brown, and both Fogerty and Eric appear in Last Call. Even though it meant recasting Eric since for the past few years he had been living in Tampa. It definitely seemed like a story that now needed to be told. Plus it would allow us to make a smaller film with minimal effort, no location and zero expenses. Utilizing two principal cast members only. meaning we would have the opportunity to dick around, make mistakes and learn our craft. It seemed like a no brainer. Plus added material for the DVD was a bonus. The whole idea left Leonard cold. He felt it would take our focus away from the big picture and he wanted to remain singular minded. In essence he wanted to GO big or Go home.

The next major argument wasn’t so much as devastating to me as it was a missed opportunity. Last Call was an homage to George Lucas’ American Grafitti. That film at it’s core is about young adults coming of age cruising their hometown set to a pop soundtrack and of course cars. Last Call also feature young adults coming of age, cruising around their hometown set to a pop soundtrack. What was missing was the cars. When I wrote the script the idea behind cruising in a car was alien to me. I didn’t even have one. I could see the allure of a tricked out automobile but I really had no interest. Eventually I did get a car and it wound up choosing it simply because it reminded me of being behind the wheel of John Milner’s Coupe from American Graffiti. Check out the old blog entry here. Now at The Answer Group we had a bunch of car loving nerds. Every kid at TAG had a car with some sort of custom work done. They belonged to car clubs so we’d have access to a lot of fine looking machines. My idea was to take advantage of the situation and the current tuner craze in America after the first Fast and The Furious Film had been released. The sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious had recently been shot in Miami. it was a golden idea. The plan was to retool some of the throwaway lines and give them to people cruising around South Beach and The grove. Our film already had several MAJOR car scenes in it. So why then not include the car nuts and give them a movie to love. Again I encountered a road block from the Director. He said he wanted to keep it simple. To overcomplicate the shoot would spell certain disaster. It seemed like we were now rehashing the same argument from Sifting. I tried to reason with him. George Lucas was able to shoot most of his movie from the backseat of a car, way back in 1973. We were only talking about a few scenes. He brought up the point of police interaction. Yeah if we caused a public disturbance we could be fined. But since the whole movie was going to be guerilla style and we had no permits to shoot. it would be quicker to move lines to a place where we had more control. Within the the confines of our own vehicles, there would be no butt-inski’s or lookie-loos. So if a scene had to be reshot, all it would cost us was gas.

The final argument, was the worst of all. It began one day as Leonard came to me and asked what our production name would be, He had some suggestions, but mine was the only one I wanted. I refused to concede this time. Bad Motherfucker Films.

Why do you want to call it that he asked. I wanted something that would grab attention. When people at Cannes and Sundance asked me which one was MY MOVIE, I wanted to be able to say, “It’s that one that says Bad Motherfucker on it.” Leonard argued that the name was ridiculous. That it would hurt us at marketing time. That we may have trouble registering profanity in a company name. I understood all his valid reasoning. It made sense to me. Maybe I didn’t care at this point. Maybe It was even stupid to hold my ground on this, for a film that we didn’t even have in the can, or hell even a camera to shoot with. But I just wanted to win one.

I know Leonard had his heart set on Twisted Phoenix. It had roots in our friendship, since its a name that he and Eric collaborated on during the pre-production of Sifting. Leonard also had a personal reason for it since he likened the symbolism of a Phoenix rising from the ashes with events in his own life. But fuck that. I wasn’t involved in that decision, and Eric was no longer here to provide a counter balance to our irrationality. Leonard finally gave in to this, in reason I never really knew why. perhaps it was just to sour the idea. He said he would give in to Bad Motherfucker but it had to be Bad Motherfucker Pictures and that there would be no discussion beyond that. This argument had taken days. I could stand it no longer. Bad Motherfucker Pictures it was. I could still have my joke at Cannes. But the name meant nothing to me anymore. And Thus Leonard retained his final say.

But soon none of that shit would matter anymore.