Cameras are FINALLY rolling in today’s strip, which is take 3 (why?) of the contents of this Sunday strip from January 31, 1999.
Yep, even when it was actually happening, Lisa’s story was pretty much all about Les.
Les didn’t write the script for this movie, and yet, this scene is almost verbatim what was actually said back in 1999. I guess he had nothing to fear after all as the script writer must have been clairvoyant… or perhaps just too lazy to even try to punch up a bland passage lifted wholesale from the Lisa’s Story book.
If Les cannot live through seeing actors recite his own words, he knows where the door is. Even if he somehow didn’t walk through it to get in the soundstage, maybe he parachuted in or was brought in bound and gagged inside of a trunk (my favorite theory), he saw Marianne do so.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Then why are you there, you smug bearded pud? The way he simultaneously wallows in and whines over his stupid cancer book is the most sickening thing about FW. Or maybe the second most sickening thing, right behind the way BatHam never stops pimping his own cancer book even as he pretends he isn’t. This new cancer movie arc is even worse than I always assumed it’d be.
But he HAS to be there! To protect Lisa!
With his internal monologue, the most deadly weapon in his arsenal.
Les doesn’t know if he can live through stuff again?! That’s ALL he ever does! And WE have to live through it over and over and over again… just to enjoy the Grade A commentary here! Oh, the sacrifices we make!
The scene he’s watching being filmed is grounded in events that happened at least two decades ago. If it’s this traumatic to him now how did he manage to write “Lisa’s Story” to begin with? And what does this say about his relationship with Cayla?
TomBa’s attempt at pathos looks more like pathology.
Cayla the doormat?
Oh yeah…her.
You mean Cayla the Doormat?
I’d like to think Les can’t live through it again because when he hears somebody else speak his words, he realizes he sounds like a pompous, maudlin bore. Unfortunately he’ll blame it on Mason’s delivery and Marianne’s glazed eyes.
Is this really how they’re starting the movie? Yesterday’s strip said this was Scene 3, and those are usually numbered sequentially from the start of the movie. How is the movie audience supposed to care about these characters when they’ve barely been introduced before the cancer shows up?
Then again, Les and Lisa are so awful that the less you know about them, the better.
Eh, I can believe in a movie that starts with The Big News, rather than spend a reel trying to show us what life was like before everything gets wrecked. The story can fill in who these people are and what their lives used to be as we see it change. “Start your story as late as possible” is usually a reliable bit of structure.
Well, Nebus, here’s hoping Masonne and Co. follow your structural advice and that Scene #1 (which may or not have been filmed yet) is Lisa’s funera. That way moviegoers who don’t feel like wading through two hours of the “Les Presents Lisa’s Story” saga can pick up their popcorn and soda and move to whichever theater in the multiplex is showing “Fast and Furious Number 11: This One Goes to 11,” or whatever might be playing on post-Covid screens in 2021.
Les’s funeral is late enough for this story.
Of course, the only one with any lines is “Les.” Typical.
“bound and gagged inside of a trunk” – bring out the gimp!
Is panel 1 the camera’s point of view? Probably not, but that tiny background painting seems like it would be hard to keep in the frame for anything but a straight-on close-up.
Kudos for not dragging Dr. Parks’ name through the mud, though I suspect that is because casting director Masone simply didn’t cast him.
“Don’t worry honey, it’s probably nothing. And if it’s not, no biggie. I mean, what’s a little cancer, right? Besides, they have nucleotides that cure that nowadays!”
(Ominous music)
“I have bad news.”
“What is it, doctor?”
“Cancer. It’s so bad we had to add two new stages, so she has stage six. Oh well, gotta go.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! USA! USA!”
It’s funny because Les is thinking what we’re all saying!
The problem is that Les is stupid enough to think that he is actually compelled to watch it. After all, he wouldn’t be Les if he weren’t maudlin, vain and clueless.
Is there any chance this film will re-hash the post office bombing? I want Mason-as-Les running down the street shouting, “USA! USA!”
Maybe, but this scene takes place 2 and a half years after the post office bombing, which was some of the “stuff” Les/MasoLes is talking about I presume.
Nope, because that would be potentially almost exciting. And the explosion distracted from Les.
Less is no Buford Pusser!
Fake Les: “Blah blah blah mammogram whiny blah blahdee blah doctors blah whiny blah.”
Fake Lisa: “Umm LINE!”
Director: “CUT!! Are you kidding me, Maryanne Summers Winters? Do you know ANY of your lines??”
Fake Lisa: “No, not really. I just got hired for the part, and we’ve had no rehearsals.”
Director: “Dammit! This is the last time I try to direct a movie in one of Bathack’s cartoons. Lunch, everybody. Hit the vendos or the foodo trucko.”
And even if it’s not…..I’ll slap a plaque with your name on this bench.
“Les didn’t write the script for this movie, and yet, this scene is almost verbatim what was actually said back in 1999.“
They’re using the book verbatim? This will be the longest, most unwatchable film on record.
If Les cannot live through seeing actors recite his own words, he knows where the door is.
Good lord, can you imagine the scene that would ensue if Les left the studio?
Everyone would drop what they were doing and rush to his side to comfort him. It would be far more sickening than Les moping to himself.
I can’t stay silent any longer!
Look at today’s strip, and look at the “vintage” strip from 1999. Which one of these scenes, in YOUR opinion, is the better depiction of a husband comforting his beloved wife because she’s worried about a potentially serious medical problem? The dialogue in both strips is… okay… but the 1999 strip shows them sitting closely on the bench, and Lisa’s head is resting on Les’ shoulder. It’s a tender moment between two characters who actually seem to care about one another.
In 2020, Mason and Marianne are seated on opposite ends of the bench, with their bodies turned slightly toward one another, like two acquaintances who happen to be waiting for the same city bus, and making small talk about recent events in their lives.
Now, in your opinion, which strip’s version of this scene fits better with the 1999 dialogue?
(Long-time lurker, first time poster. Hello, hello!)
Welcome! Please stay. This arc needs all the brutal curbstomping it can get.
Excellent point! Marianne’s body language in particular is so closed-in that she looks as if she’s being hit on by a creeper (Mason’s manspreading only plays into that).
Hello! The biggest difference is that in 1999 this was still a new ongoing story, unlike now where it’s the thirty-fifth rehash of that story. Most of FW Act III has consisted of rehashing the events of 1999 through 2007. The original story took EIGHT YEARS to play out yet, incredibly, the rehashing is taking even longer, which shouldn’t even be possible.