If only I could believe that Cayla’s question in today’s strip truly represented some self-awareness from TB, because YES! why didn’t Mason lead with this inevitable smoke-blowing? Sure, STILL nothing has actually happened, but we’ve wasted several days of strips even getting to Mason’s effusive and unwarranted praise, a scene we all knew was coming before this movie thing got to the point where Les could start trying to undermine specific elements of it.
As far as Mason’s opinion of Lisa’s Story goes, why would he think it would succeed in winning an Oscar where the beloved film Love Story (which, incidentally, turns 50 years old this year) largely failed. Does Love Story simply not exist in the Batiukverse? I guess I could buy that, given that this is a universe where Lisa’s Story was an Eisner Award finalist. But will Mason be satisfied with just a nomination or a Golden Globe? …or, more appropriately, a Razzie?
Son of Stuck Funky 
Les at the Academy Awards, accepting an Oscar for best original screenplay? It could happen! Les winning an award for the fictional “Lisa’s Story” would be the culmination of all of BatYam’s wish-fulfillment fantasies, as well as a hell of a plug for his cancer book, available wherever cancer books are sold.
Actually, any script for “Dead St. Lisa’s Story” would have to be nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, as it would be derived (derivative?) from Les’s novel/graphic novel/limerick/whatever the heck it is he wrote.
Well he did almost give himself a comic book award of some sort for the 3rd volume of the work “St Lisa is still dead.” or whatever the title is but at the last second the Author backed down (not sure why). So this is possible but I think that giving Les an Oscar would be too much even for the syndicate ‘Tom you can’t do that. Really. No people pay attention to the Oscars it’s not at all like comic books. No. This time we’re going to have to put our foot down. Les can’t win all the Oscars.”
Cayla should leave Less. No great loss for her, and likes his wives dead.
Then why doesn’t he like her now? Is Zombie Cayla too much for him?
“I didn’t lead with it because it has ‘Meyer” written right after the ‘Oscar.'”
“Oh, I’d love to be Oscar Meyer’s wiener………
That is what I’d truly like to be…………………
‘Cause if I was Oscar Meyer’s wiener………..
All I’d do is sit all day and pee………………….”
When Meson mentioned skiing, I thought of the old opening for ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” where a ski jumper’s disastrous tumble was called “the agony of defeat.” Go for the gold, Meson!
What’s the old saying about “lipstick on a pig” ? 🐖🐽
“Lovely smirk today, Les.”
I’m at a point where I would have chuckled had Mason pulled out a copy of Lisa’s Story that had the word “Oscar” literally scribbled all over it.
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
“Do you really think we could win an Academy Award?”
“What? Oh, hell no! My housekeeper’s kid Oscar found the script and wrote his name on it with crayon. It’s so cute! Look!”
I saw your comment before I posted. Great minds, blah blah blah…
Look at Les in panel two. “Awards?! How crass and vulgar!…especially since I didn’t win any. Despite repeated attempts. No, those ‘awards’ are simply golden danglers for the crass and commercial, and they mean nothing. Oh…did I say that out loud?”
Can we move to the part where Meson explains that this will be an indie production, staffed by colorful Hollywood outsiders like the writer Joxe Ohnyu, musical director Tommy Tuneless, sound recorder Dixie “Rebel” Yell and as Lisa, the famed French actress Mam’selle Armentiers! (“She hasn’t been cast in sixty years! The world is ready for her now!”)
You’re expecting too much. If this movie isn’t made entirely by Cindy, Jessica, Mindy, Pete, and Darin, I will be shocked.
Yeah, I’ll be stunned if they don’t decide that Pete would be just great as a screenwriter, and that Darin would be great as a storyboarder, with Batiuk still not understanding what the job entails. If they show those roles at all, it’ll be those two guys, because I simply cannot imagine Batiuk making a random Hollywood person who “understands” Lisa’s Story and would thus have respect for it.
You know Jessica will be called upon to do the camera work.
The most horrible thing I think is possible is that Batiuk won’t think that any Hollywood actress is acceptable. Marianne will be proposed, of course, and should be rejected, but not for the reasons Les will bring up. So what they decide instead is to use “new talent” for Lisa, someone who hasn’t been corrupted by the Hollywood machine, who has the proper respect for Lisa’s Story, and who even looks like Lisa….
Summer Fuckin’ Moore.
Throw in Zanzibar the Talking Murder Chimp as security and i’m good to go.
Wait, so the guy who’s banking on this role changing his career and no doubt hopes to make lots of money thinks it’ll win an Oscar? I’m sure he’s an unbiased judge, let’s trust him.
Film project that has troubled history with cry-baby writer and that is the first dramatic role for an actor who does action movies is gonna win an Oscar. Yeah, right.
But Starbuck Jones grossed one hundred jillion dollars worldwide and he’s already making the sequels… I’d say Masone’s career has already been changed??
So, just to recap the past four days (!!!) of the Terrible Trio’s beachfront get-together: Masonne has told them that Hollywood moves slowly except when it doesn’t, how he’s been typecast, how much he wants to make the Dead St. Lisa story into a film, and that it’s the biggest Oscar bait cancer flick since “The Fault in Our Stars” (which got no Oscar noms).
Why precisely couldn’t all this have been done via phone, e-mail, or Skype? Is Masonne springing another lead Friday about a studio attaching itself to this project, or will it just be more rehashing of their October talk at Montoni’s?
And lastly…”get out over my skis”!?!? Now he’s confusing “Love Story” for “The Other Side of the Mountain.”
The only thing this mess is good for is adding a new term to the Batiuktionary:
getting over my skis: What normal people call ‘getting ahead of myself’.
I bet Batiuk had to scratch out “Pulitzer” from the rough draft before sending this over to the syndicate.
This is a classic. It has all of Batty’s trademark and almost award winning style. First you have the awkward phrase shoehorned in. Then you have the incessant hyping of a mediocre story. And finally you have Batty patting himself on the back. Oscar worthy? Just check out the sales ranking of Lisa’s Story on Amazon.
Ha, it’s number 550 in breast cancer books….collectible editions starting at $5.
What a masterpiece! Another triumph from Batty.
Seriously, this is a project that was killed once already, and they haven’t even begun writing a new screenplay, and Masone is declaring it Oscar worthy. There is absolutely nothing compelling about the Lisa story that would elevate it beyond a filler on the Hallmark Channel.
Bypasses Hallmark and direct to Jon Plus.
Masone Jarre has tossed his bent nails.
The way pitches work in Hollywood, someone probably called Beverly Hills Chihuahua Oscar material as well.
Ah, man, LOVE STORY. Haven’t thought about *that* ham-handed tearjerker in quite a while. Though it has its charms, I suppose…the lovely Ali MacGraw, snowy Boston scenery, Ryan O’Neill struggling valiantly to emote. And, of course, the immortal tag line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
LISA’S STORY: THE MOTION PICTURE, meanwhile, could go with “Love means a painful death from cancer followed by decades of smug self-righteousness from your obsessed widower.” Or “Les means never having to say you’re over it.”
I increasingly think that Cayla is being held against her will. Whenever she’s in the background, she’s giving side-eye or disinterest. Whenever she has a line, it’s showy and insincere. Just look at panel 1 and panel 2 today. I want to go through old Cayla strips and see if her gestures say anything in Morse code.
I picture Westview as a kind of Pottersville, where Tom Batiuk controls everything in town. “Les needs a new wife, so get over there and accept his proposal and all its Lisa clauses, or you and your kid will be to poor to eat out of Montoni’s dumpster.”
Called it years ago, for the record…
Seriously? Oscar??
They haven’t even filmed a scene yet!
When did Mason start putting a lot of stock into Academy Awards? ART IS NOT A COMPETITION, remember?