The FOT's own Dutch?

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

The spinning wheel is good.  Maybe Quarter lives as much like an Amish person as he can except for his first-generation Game Boy, which he ironically plays at the arcade because it's "better" than the games they have there, and he takes Plunko seriously because she spins her own thread.

Also, maybe Quarter makes his own books out of garbage.

[kleoville]

Also, all the students are played by actual retarded kids and/or AST board members.

Booyah!!! First dig of 08.

Maybe instead of retards you could get the staff of the American Apparel in Williamsburg. Then you could have your headbands for free.
Oh, and if Bill Murray is busy, I'm pretty sure Ralph Macchio isn't.

[Jason]

Ralph Macchio is perfect to play the character of Bill Murray.

[A.M. Thomas]

You guys have hit it out of the park.  I have little to add, except that it needs some sort of faux-highbrow literary reference, like Steve Carell's "Proust scholar" in Little Miss Sunshine (raise your hands if you think that screenwriter knows anything Proust other than that the smell of his cookie made him remember a lot of stuff).  Maybe Quarter the arcade attendant wins Plunko over with a few quotes from, um... Ezra Pound?

Or Sylvia Plath.

Khalil Gibran

I think hippie grandpa should quote Gibran.  Matt, Plath was actually my initial thought, but (1) she's so stereotypically linked with "sensitive' young women, and (2) a lot of the audience might actually have read her.  I think that Plunko should be conspicuously coloring the margins of an old paperback of The Bell Jar with crayons in one scene. 

If not Proust, Quarter needs to be into something that a lot of the targeted art-house-but-not-really audience would associate with a sort of marginal coolness but not know so well that it needs to be conveyed with any kind of accuracy.  The ur-model of this is Steve Buscemi's collecting 78s in Ghost World (though it probably goes back even further, and yes, I know that Terry Zwigoff really collects 78s).  Some other possible candidates for Quarter's semi-obscure cultural signifier:

I think Ezra Pound is perfect.  Or maybe Hart Crane, although he may not be recognizable enough for the pseudo-art-crowd/ultra-contrived target audience.

Also, lots of slow-motion scenes.  But not slow-motion running scenes because Quarter makes his own shoes.

[Sarah]

About the spinning, I think a drop spindle might be preferable to a spinning wheel.  It would be portable, so Quarter could whip out his fleece and spindle in all kinds of contexts. 

[buffcoat]

When either A) the Pockyclypse comes or B) 18th Century Renaissance Faires replace the current "Sword and Sorcery" brand, you spinning, bread-baking people will finally be hip!

Till then...

[Kibblesmith]

"My uncle has a trunk of old clothes we could cut up for costumes!" - Unknown (Family saying).

It comes up a lot in this "Let's-put-on-a-show" atmosphere.

[dave from knoxville]

A spinning wheel would be accompanied nicely by a butter churn

[Phantom Hugger]

A spinning wheel would be accompanied nicely by a butter churn

Plunko sounds like she was Amish and had a one way rumspringa trip.
That might explain why she lives with some weird hippie grandparents.

[senorcorazon]

I have nothing to add (yet) but just want to say that after 10 days away from a computer I thought for a moment today that I was not missing anything. And then I read this post. 2008 is awesome.

[dania]

Howzabout we do a reverse I'm Not There and have one actor play every single character in the movie.
Also I don't think the character should be called Plunko but I'm very excited at the concept of having the movie title first and working everything else out later.
Maybe Plunko could be the starfish's name or a bands name.

Here's an idea. Forget the sex change, she's a quirky, creative yet unpopular individual, due to a clerical error she gets sent to a special ed school. She doesn't say anything about it to her elderly grandparents (who she naturally lives with) and nobody at the school notices. At first she's happy to be doing finger painting instead of normal lessons but soon starts to shake things up and serves as a catalyst for the entire student population to start doing crazy things - starting punk rock bands, painting huge guerrilla graffiti murals at midnight, making their own clothes etc.
Eventually the exasperated school administration discovers she is not supposed to be there and she is forced back to a normal school but she has changed the lives of all she met at the special ed school forever.

I propose naming the character "Proco" as I got a postcard from a person named that who is running for office.  Oh and, yes that is the first name. 

[dania]

Also I was thinking that maybe Plunko should be called Plunko because her name is something like Pauline Lousie Unko, but her name tags and belongings are marked P.L.Unko. Kids teased her and called her Plunko but she likes it.

absolutely brilliant.

I can already see the part of the trailer where it just cuts between all the characters saying her name in succession.

Oh crap I hadn't read all the posts and I just saw yours, and now I don't think we should change it.  Plunko it is!

[KickTheBobo]

Also I was thinking that maybe Plunko should be called Plunko because her name is something like Pauline Lousie Unko, but her name tags and belongings are marked P.L.Unko. Kids teased her and called her Plunko but she likes it.

absolutely brilliant.

I can already see the part of the trailer where it just cuts between all the characters saying her name in succession.

They totally do this (that editing device) in the tv commercial for Juno that's been running constantly on the tube.

Please don't let this topic die!

OK, if anyone is up for it, I say we go whole-hog and make this a full-fledged FOT group project. I'm thinking a website (we've already got the domain) and a short trailer. make everything as believable as possible.

anybody in?

[Martin]

I'm in! I want t-shirts, viral videos, blog posts, buzz!

[Sarah]

It would be SSD's "Metropolitan Diary" hoax writ large.

I don't know what I have to contribute, but I'm willing to help if I can.