[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1v_q6TWAL4]
Have a pressing question that you want a dozen answers to? Ever plagued late at night with the need to know our favorite cheeses? Look no farther, because Ask the Failcrew is here! Send in your questions to @made_of_fail on Twitter or our Tumblr queue (questions can be asked anonymously!) and we’ll post short answers to one question each Wednesday!
Sometimes you feel like there’s some sort of mystical tome that explains everything about the world. Something that you could go into a library and request, or at least request that the librarian not slam down right in front of you when you were really looking for The Poky Little Puppy. I mean seriously, it’s not like Golden Books is too concerned with the mystical disturbances at the Hellmouth, so why should I be?
That trailer, by the way, is brilliantly done, and the author has made trailers for every season of Buffy and Angel. Give them a looksee (though be warned, Mark is still in the middle of Season Three so don’t spoil him).
Speaking of books, on this first installment of Ask the Failcrew, we find out What would be your first major-release non-fiction book deal, and who would play you in the eventual movie?
(Readers, answer this question in the comments! LET’S KEEP THIS CONVERSATION ALIVE)
Adam Griffith (@kitsunewill)
Hmm. Probably the account of how I saved humanity from a horde of rampaging kill bots, and became emperor of the world. I would be played by Jack Black and it would be a musical.
Alina Leigh (@LJmysticowl)
The Prescriptivist Revolution, a story of how I attempted to save the English language. The climax sees me breaking into the University of Chicago Press, demanding they help me make the Manual into federal law, only to suffer a breakdown and be led away, sobbing, “There is no ‘of.'” I don’t care who plays me, but let Sally Field play my mother, it will cheer her up.
Devin Baker (@eso_si_que)
Why Are We in Kentucky? It’s surprising to a newbie how often you have to go through Kentucky to get anywhere in Cincinnati. I hope Donald Glover, but it will probably go to Andrew Garfield.
Evelina Burke (@Eviey)
My Mom Is A Disney Princess (And Other Suspicions I Have, But Cannot Actually Prove). Lewis Black would play me in the movie. I know he’s male and quite a bit older than me, but he’s the only one who could perfectly embody the way I rant.
Kevin O’Shea (@alliancesjr)
Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain (Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Obscurity), a thrilling tale of how my many adventures went unnoticed as I became a stepping stones for my friends to achieve internet fame and fortune, but the shocking twist reveals that I learned my life was pretty cool anyway and I’m okay with that. Certainly not projecting at all. I’d hope to be played by Nicholas Brendon but it’d probably be Danny Strong.
Noel Thingvall (@NoelCT)
Stuff That Nobody Reads: A Collection of Shit What I Wrote While Doing Nothing Else of Value with My Life. And I would hope to be played by Greg Grunberg.
Rowan Bristol (@RowanBristol)
Rommy (dust jacket picture is an anime portrait of a grey haired
chobits-style fairy, looking perky and cheerful.)
The story of the construction of an avatar to explore the online world
and all its different subcultures ranging from latex-wearing technosexuals to punk christian furries; how that avatar took on a life of its own; and in reclaming thr identity from that avatar, something new emerged, enabling the protagonist to come out of the closet and find love.
The Movie: Jonah Hill, with an animated version of Zooey Deschanel as the avatar.
Sabra Schirm (@cue_face_palm)
Oddly enough, I have thought about my life as a non-fiction book before. Yes, I’m serious. No, I’m not (completely) crazy. It used to be a running joke between a friend and I that we would sit down and write a collaborative book about our lives, both before we met and how our lives intersected and affected the lives of our mutual friends and sell it as a Soap Opera/Tella Novella. I’ve dealt with friends’ rushed marriages-of-convenience to legitimize a pregnancy to secure inheritance, discovered a loved one faked his death, and was told about my former beau’s secret illegitimate half-brother. No, I’m not making this shit up which is why they don’t have ridiculous names to go with all the Crazy As Shit drama.
So, appropriately enough, I think either What is This Crazy Bullshit?! or Screw This, I’m Going to Hogwarts are the titles I’d have to go with. I wouldn’t want to scare away the readers by being too blunt, which is why the more honest title How to Break a Girl In a Year: My Life would probably not work so well for me (insert self-depreciating LOL here).
As for the movie, well…call me old school, but I think I’d cast Neve Campbell to play me. I miss her. She was great. I kind of wish more of the actresses popular right now were more like her in that she has a brain AND talent. Unfortunately, these two things seem to be mutually exclusive in newer Hollywood “starlets.” Aside from which, she was an entertaining “Scream Queen,” and considering how many times my life has made me want to scream, I find her an oddly appropriate choice. Probably TMI, but hey…you opened this Can of Crazy.
Whew, I’m glad mine wasn’t in there as I did not read the question properly.
I couldn’t think of anything non-fiction-y. Driver’s Ed manual? Pizza manufacturing handbook? Brain did not engage.
Becoming The Beard: One man’s quest to control his own facial hair without letting it control him.
…XD
But who has a beard magnificent enough to portray such a- wait. Of course. Robin Williams.
Randal Milholland.
Randy Milholland’s beard is really a colony of cordyceps. It’s eaten his brain and now animates his body through direct nerve stimulation.
Hmm…. mine would probably be titled “Not Quite A Love Story”, it’d be a romance story where the girl (me) has this long relationship with this guy that goes from hating each other, to friends, to best friends, to something romantic, and eventually to ultimate disaster. But it’d have a happy ending where both people wind up with happy, decent lives, just not with each other. As for who’d play me in the movie… it’d probably be Kristen Bell (since she’s almost as short as I am and can easily pull off the right mix of perky and sarcastic.)
I think mine will be called Perfectly Ordinary (or Ordinarily Perfect) about an average geek girl who grows into her own and comes out of her shell via online interactions. It’d be a dramedy (or a tragicomedy) and I’d be played by Zooey Deschanel because she’s adorable and I think encompases the current geek girl trend.
Acting Your Age is Highly Overrated
Basically about how I learned to embrace my geekdom and maybe how I’ve encouraged others to do the same. There’d probably be some life lessons and junk in there somewhere too.
The events in the movie Garden State are already similar to something that happened to me in my life at the time it came out (minus, of course, the making out with Natalie Portman part…sigh), so I always figured Zach Braff could play me in a movie. We look nothing alike but the personalities are close. Based purely on appearance: David Blaine.