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(crying)

(keys ticking)

(light piano music)

(keys ticking)

(Christmas music)

- [Male Student] Media studies 516.

Professor Kane.

Moneyballs, why baseball sucks now.

Jocks play sports and nerds don't.

- [Female Student] The one chair.

For this paper, I've assembled the ultimate

"Game of Thrones" fan fiction index.

Reverse ranked by character life expectancy and cra--

- [Woman] Fox News is terrible.

Here's why it makes money.

The answer may shock you.

When I turn on my TV--

- [Sigurd] Media studies 516.

Professor Marty Kane.

December 12th, midterm.

Sigurd Rossdale.

The subject of this paper is, was,

to be the chrysalis phase of American pop stars.

Wherein high profile performers alter their image,

change their public face,

become a being so diametrically opposed

to who they once were,

that the transformation can only be likened

to a new stage of life.

The more I investigated, however,

the more it struck me

that often there is no transition phase.

Sometimes people just change, overnight.

So, the author of this paper, (light guitar music)

- [Annalee] I am not Sigurd Rossdale.

Hereinafter referred to as Shit Heel.

I am Shit Heel's ghost writer.

I'm not a student.

I was.

But then tuition like tripled, my grant got cut.

I chose dropping out over going broke.

So fuck it.

Now this is my life.

I write and sell papers to students.

A lot of students.

Yes, even some from your classes, Professor.

(chattering)

But this story is not about them.

This story is about Shit Heel,

and you're not gonna like it.

I should have known better

the second I walked in the door.

He handed me a Red Bull

like I was the one with the bloodshot eyes.

The place reeked of bong water and bullshit.

Wow, are we gonna be longer than I thought?

- Discussion of the subject is important.

- How much floor space does talking take?

- I want this to sound authentic.

- Don't trust me?

- I don't know you.

- Papers you sent me were plenty sample materials.

- Don't judge.

See, you're emulating now.

- 10 pages, single spaced, "Simpsons," celebrity cameos.

No, I was making it sound like

the person who wrote that had a good idea.

- You know, I have a 4.0.

Ow, oh, ow.

- He has a four point?

Got a needle?

- No, I don't sew.

- Of course not.

- [Sigurd] You use a needle?

- Works.

- Ow.

I might have a safety pin.

- It's a crap class, you know.

- What?

Alt Cinema?

- Professor's a wanker,

the topics are pretentious, and so is he.

You know, he doesn't accept papers by email.

- Oh, I know.

- And Alternative Cinema, really?

Alternative to what?

That assumes a norm that cannot be assumed.

- You don't think there's a norm in filmmaking?

- [Annalee] Hell no.

Unless you mean contemporary,

American heterosexual filmmaking.

- That's the point.

That is exactly what was meant.

- Is that shit on the end?

- Oh, it's resin.

Here, you want some?

- No.

Some grad student.

Alt Cin is a 200 level.

It's for sophomores and burn outs.

Should you towel the door?

No offense.

The pin.

- I did. - No.

(Sigurd coughing)

- [Sigurd] It's right here.

- It's filthy.

Hey.

Finger.

- Oh.

Ow.

Fuck it, ow, ow, shit.

- Look, I'm not a surgeon.

You do your finger, and I'll stop the pain.

- I hadn't finished telling you how I want--

- It's fine.

Hidden homo eroticism in mainstream movies,

1980 to present.

- Don't say movies.

- You're one of those film assholes.

You cannot say movies.

You must say film.

Almost be cute if it weren't incorrect.

- Movies is slang for motion picture.

We don't fucking call 'em talkies.

- What if they're shot on HD?

What are they then, film or video?

- The term film has come to mean

to the collective film--

- That's it's only job.

All movies depict movement,

but not all films are shot on film.

- It implies respect for the subject.

- For the subject?

No, it's personal.

You film students, it'd have to be called video students,

and who wants that?

- My finger really fucking hurts.

- Next time leave the bed where it is.

- Am I paying you?

- [Annalee] Not yet you haven't.

- Oh, it's right there.

So listen to me. - On the dresser?

- I have my thesis to work on.

I have no interest in this class.

The Prof is a wanker,

and if it wasn't a requirement,

I would take a dump in his lectern and walk off.

- I'll stop you right there.

- But it is a requirement.

And my success, my academic success,

which in turn determines my professional success,

is very, very important to me.

I sleep on alternate Tuesdays.

And here is this class,

these bullshit credits to fulfill,

which do abso-fucking-lutely nothing,

so you, this, this is time management.

You are not here because I can not write a paper.

You are not here to Cyrano some fool to glory.

You are here to do my chores.

- Yeah, fine.

- And I want my chores done right.

- I can't defend what happened next.

Have fun, Cinderella.

I don't need this shit.

- It's a bad way to do business.

- I do business with whom I choose.

One thing I'm not is your fucking maid.

I don't do windows, I don't take orders.

And if you have a problem with that,

good luck finding a house keeper who knows Fellini.

So, want to do this or what? (light music)

- Yeah, I do.

- Yeah.

You do.

No, no, no no no.

I think he's a witch.

I got it all worked out.

- Yeah?

- Title and everything.

- Alright, let's hear it.

- "Last Tango in Cash in Paris,"

everything you might have suspected

about the buddy flick,

but were too afraid to ask.

- Wow, that's really good.

Floor or bed?

- Whatever.

- Ow, oh.

- Got it.

That was probably a mistake.

A fun mistake. (light guitar music)

But I was kicking myself

before I even got home.

The last thing you want

is a client like Shit Heel

getting confused about what he bought.

I wrote his paper, hastily, if I'm honest.

Thought that was the last I'd see of him.

But some people have a way of finding you again.

- Hi.

Busy?

(keys ticking)

- I have a meeting.

You're gonna scare him off.

- Is it business or pleasure?

- Definitely business.

- I got an A in Alt Cinema.

- Knew you would.

- Well, you did.

So please, hats off.

- It's been on cable all month.

Kane's a sucker for puns.

The rest writes itself.

- Oh.

You should charge extra.

- Writing papers?

- Yeah, make it a surcharge.

Why not?

- Some people don't want As.

- Really?

- Yeah, I mean, they might want 'em,

but some people have never had an A in their lives.

Wouldn't seem like their work.

That's how you get busted.

- Yeah, yeah.

If pride goeth before I fall.

- I'm serious, he won't come if you're here.

- Did you write it for him already?

He'll come.

- Freshman.

First time.

- Now I see why you're so cocky.

You do frosh papers. - Go away.

- I have a project for you.

- Due when?

I'm busy these days.

- Next week, Tuesday.

- What's the class?

- Politics and Policy.

- I thought you were media studies.

- Well, politics is a media event.

- Such bullshit.

- No, no, policy is shaped by our perception.

Our perception of politicians and their campaigns,

their affairs, how they appear on television,

or HuffPo, or-- - Yeah I get it.

But shouldn't the class be called

Policy and Politics through the media,

or something over-descriptive like that?

- No, no, that would presume

that we're viewing our subject from a tangential position.

Without the media, there is no such thing as politics.

Null and void. - That's ridiculous.

Process and principles of government.

What they do, simple as that.

- No, leaders who make decisions

without the public's knowledge

is internal affairs, covert ops.

That is not politics.

- You're baiting me.

- [Sigurd] Well if a tree falls in the forest.

- It fucking makes a sound.

That's the stupidest saying ever.

- Okay, maybe.

But there's no one around the describe it.

Fuck.

Hey, you don't like me now?

- I never liked you.

- Well you haven't heard my proposal yet.

- Policy, politics, told you, I'm busy.

- What if I booked you 'til the end of the semester?

Wait a second.

All of my classes, everything.

- You can't afford it.

- I'm dead serious.

I could bankroll you exclusively.

- You want me to be your paper slave?

- Ghost writer, thank you.

Come on, you can focus.

No frosh year remedial math.

No switching voices.

It's one family of topics.

- Family isn't right.

- It just makes it easier.

Most of the work is for one professor.

- Wanker? - Yes, the very one.

He does Alt. Cinema 516--

- 516?

- Yeah, Media Studies 516. - I know.

Isn't that like the foundation of your degree?

(sighing)

- If you want to be technical, yes, it is--

- You want me to ghost the most important class.

- No, there is nothing important about that class.

After six years, I can tell you,

all I want are the letters after my name.

All the school wants are federally-backed loans.

That is a deal we cut.

The only thing I will do in here

that matters out there is my thesis.

- I don't like it.

- [Sigurd] Why not?

You score grades all the time.

- Not all scores are created equal.

Some are froshy papers.

Cookie cutter stuff.

I can pull one in advance.

I've done from my vault.

- You have a vault?

- Yeah, how do you think I keep up with demand?

I only do original material.

- I kind of thought that was the idea.

- You'd be surprised how many ghosts are still swift.

- But not you.

- Straight lifts from excellent material,

even light lifts can get you flagged

by the grading software.

The only business that matters is repeat business, so yeah.

- Excuse us. - I have a vault.

But that won't work for you.

You need tailors.

Custom designs for your very own special voice.

A whole semester's worth.

Do you get what that entails?

- I will pay you double.

Admit it, you ever try to lift a whole degree before?

- What about the other thing?

- That's your name for it?

- I just want to know what to expect

as your paper slave. - No, subcontractor.

- Cyrano.

You're Cyrano.

I don't understand this at all.

Thus began a fruitful time. (light music)

A collaborative time.

I cut loose my other clients,

which felt uncomfortably like going steady.

But there just wasn't room for 'em.

For weeks, I was camped out at his apartment,

writing paper after paper.

I only came back home for my clothes and birth control.

And when we needed to get out,

we'd go back to campus.

Do the handoff in public.

Like playing spies.

And I had to admit, Sigurd,

Shit Heel was right.

Before we met, I'd been spinning my wheels.

Lateral movement may as well be no movement.

For a change, it felt like I was getting somewhere.

"Video Drum," 1983. (keys ticking)

James Woods is sucked into an erotically violent TV show

and grows a tape deck in his belly.

X extends-- - It's a vagina.

- A vagina tape deck, yes.

X extends 1999 Jude Law and Jennifer Jason-Leigh

sucked into a violently erotic video game,

and grow plug-in ports in the lower spine.

- Not those, they're their assholes.

- These films were made 16 years apart.

The only difference between them is the technology.

- And the orifice.

- Is it just me or did David Conimer

spend the last 30 years making the same film?

- You really should try this.

Here look.

Alright, suit yourself.

- We get it, I mean,

man has machine, machine is sex,

and everything else is really a bug.

- Come on, I'm eating, food.

- This week's paper is on "Video Drum"

and the employment of the sexually grotesque.

- Okay.

- Okay, so next week's paper is on "Dead Ringers"

and the employment of the sexually grotesque.

- Okay. - Okay?

- It's about gynecology.

What do you want?

- By the time we get past spotter,

I would've written the same thing, like--

- Okay, this has pineapple in it.

Pineapple is-- - It's not like this

is gonna be interesting. - [Sigurd] Nature's sponge.

- I mean the guy invented a forearm that if you just--

- It tastes like whatever you put it in.

Anything.

- I thought that was tofu.

- No, who eats that?

- He doesn't acknowledge prior discussion.

He leaves the biggest questions unasked.

What makes a man dedicate his life to monstrosity?

What, is it the monsters inside his head

he needs to get out?

Or are the nightmares really for us?

Why can't we talk about that?

He asks so little of us.

(chuckling)

What?

- Us.

You're not taking the class.

He asks so little of me.

Come on.

You love it.

- It's just pineapple.

- Cronenberg.

It's indulgence to spend three grand

or whatever on the seminar.

A purely theoretical discussion

of an eccentric writer-director,

who has no bearing on foreign policy

or climate change or the debt.

It's a film asshole thing.

And you,

you love it.

(light instrumental music)

- I'm just trying to do my job.

- Hey.

- Yeah?

- Did you try something?

- Yeah, what?

- Don't get freaked out.

Remember you can say no.

- Show me or shut up.

- I have this thing.

- What thing?

- It's a dog fibula.

Not too wide.

What if I gently...

- I don't.

- Or you could.

- No.

- Okay.

- Is it your dog?

- No, no, that would be weird.

I found it, I was hiking.

Wanted to turn it into a pipe.

It's too thin.

- Have you used it before?

On other women.

- No.

No.

- You're lying.

- Yes.

- Who?

- No one important.

- No one?

- It's clean.

- It can't be.

It's porous.

It was in an animal.

Then in the ground.

And in women now.

Different women like you were checking their oil.

- This bone is like God's finger.

It can reach where mine can't.

It can touch you in places

that will make you speak backward.

- You have no idea how violent you are.

(light instrumental music)

- David Cronenberg was certainly

not the first to link intercourse with machinery.

But he sure understood that dance.

He said secretly the edge saw had a vagina in the front.

Of course, everybody said, wait a minute.

Cars have to be cocks.

There's gonna be a disaster.

Maybe women will like it.

- Shit Heel doesn't have a car.

He has, (yelling)

something else.

That is the last time we fuck in your van.

- [Sigurd] Would you get back here?

- Last time.

You're too ashamed to keep me in your room,

find a hotel room, money bags,

which you will pay for.

I don't care how late your daddy's check came.

- I told you as soon as I get

even a single fucking penny. - Super, I don't care.

Motel 6 infestations, very fat desk,

look, anything but that putrid mother fucking van.

I need air.

Some people had a camp fire here.

They were drinking the same.

- Yeah, you're probably sitting in broken glass.

- No more van, God damn it.

The van reeks.

- Well whose fault is that?

It reeks of our love.

- Oh, common cinnamon Christmas trees.

- I could switch to pine, if you like.

- You need a whole pine forest.

- [Sigurd] Or the yellow kind.

- What do the yellow trees smell like?

- Lemon?

- Who cares?

My back is breaking out from new rock.

- [Sigurd] Prissy.

- I'm not.

- I like my van the way it is.

- Crawling?

- [Sigurd] Says the woman ass deep in dirt.

- I'm on a log, thank you.

- Which isn't dirty?

- Logs are supposed to have worms in them.

I think most people would agree

that carpets are-- - Most people are prissy.

Most people have a backwards view of what is clean

and what is dirty. - Stop saying that word!

Upholstery causing skin rash,

I would consider-- - You don't have a skin rash.

- I do, look.

- Okay.

Well, that's gross. - [Annalee] See?

- No, there's nothing there.

I'm kidding, you don't have a rash.

- I itch.

- Do you want me to clean it?

- Don't touch me.

- The van.

- Do what you want.

- If it bugs you, I'll clean it.

What the fuck?

- What are we even doing here, Sigurd?

- [Sigurd] It's a field trip.

- How's your thesis coming along?

Because unless it's about rotting logs,

I think you're wasting your time.

I've been sitting in your apartment for three days now,

and you've been with me the entire time.

- Well we're out here now.

Your notes are in my van.

- [Annalee] Fuck my notes!

- Vanilla.

Yellow trees are vanilla.

- [Annalee] I wanted to set fire to something.

(guitar strumming)

I settled for the next best thing.

Do you recall, Professor,

the feminist-bent Shit Heel took on

in the weeks after Fall break?

On the sidelines, your border-line chauvinist

pupil's sudden advocacy for gender parody on ESPN.

I was sure he'd discover my quiet rebellion

when the grade came back.

But instead, he asked me to start doing the drop-offs.

He didn't have time.

His thesis, you know.

It just proved what I'd already come to suspect.

He was no longer reading my work.

So I threw one in for spite.

A fleeing of the usual suspects

as exclusionary boys club.

He would sooner call "Goodfellas" a little slow.

No way he'd let this one slide.

Except he did.

(crowd cheering)

- [TV Announcer] I think Snoopy has a couple of spots.

(horns blowing)

- Yeah?

- [Sigurd] Hey.

Is it a bad time?

- No, just finishing dinner.

- [Sigurd] Okay, sorry.

I don't want to stand between

you and your pumpkin pies.

- It's fine.

- [Sigurd] So when finals are over,

we should talk about,

or when the break's over,

we should talk about finals.

- I'm not taking your finals for you, Sigurd.

If you didn't learn what you needed to

during the semester. - [Sigurd] No I know.

I wasn't expecting you to. - It's not my problem.

What are you getting out of this?

- [Sigurd] Huh?

- I mean, I don't have a contract, you know.

So if you're not into it anymore--

- [Sigurd] There's this weird noise.

Are you doing dishes or something?

When I get--

- No, I'm just,

I just said I'm not, I don't have a contract.

Go ahead.

- [Sigurd] I'm asking you over.

- What?

- [Sigurd] Like a date.

- In your apartment, again.

- [Sigurd] Yeah a viewing party,

for something near to my heart.

Say yes.

- Alright.

(Sigurd laughing)

- [Sigurd] That's close enough, I'll take it.

Happy Thanksgiving.

- [TV Announcer] Well you know.

There's Snoopy rounding the corner.

Speaking of Peanuts.

It's a great site to see Snoopy.

(keys ticking) (light music)

- What the hell are you doing?

- I'm just looking for my damn,

oh fuck. - What?

What, what?

- No, shoot, it's starting.

- [Woman On TV] I don't know.

I think we should talk to somebody about it.

- [Man On TV] Oh I don't know.

Everybody will pretty much everything go there.

It doesn't seem fair.

- See that's what I was-- (shushing)

It's a commercial break. (shushing)

It's a Wendy's commercial.

- I know, I just can't get past the square burger.

It doesn't taste the same.

- [TV Announcer] Now at Wendy's.

- God damn, I hate commercials.

Don't you have this shit on DVD, or something?

- See, if I don't watch it in real time,

then some other dip shit will,

and that dip shit will be the dip shit

they base their fault line up around.

- You know you don't have a Nielsen box, right?

- DVR, every house is a Nielsen house now.

- Wait, you have a DVR?

- Yeah.

Whoa, oh.

You have to stop this.

Stop fighting.

(sighing)

(man chattering on TV)

- [Man On TV] Well you know,

I suppose if they were going to get litigious,

they could all just come after me.

Being a bad teacher sometimes has limitation.

- Did the 516 paper come back yet?

Just wondering if you noticed--

- Apu rocks.

Watch.

- [Apu] Thank you, come again.

(laughing)

- [Man] One beverage please.

- Watch these people here.

Wait for it.

- [Annalee] That's a pretty straightforward homage.

- Have you seen Requiem for a Dream?

- How high are you?

- That's genius homage. - From one to Whitney

Houston in a bath tub.

How high are you right now?

- I mean, I was about to crack a beer.

Other than that.

- I told you no more "Simpsons" abstracts.

- Okay, so, alright, we won't.

- And it's not even an impressive homage.

I mean, we get it.

Homer's drug of choice is the Ribwich.

It's no more potent than speed

to a dieting housewife for heroine

to Jennifer Connelly and what's-her-face.

What's his name?

- He looks like a girl, Jared Leto.

- Jared fucking Leto.

I mean, this stupid bullshit,

the Ribwich bullshit is missing the point.

It's missing the ethical debate.

Should Lisa take a bribe,

and take a dive in the spelling bee,

and let that stupid poster boy take--

- So you have seen it then?

- Of course I've seen it.

Everyone's seen it.

What happens when she decides to do the right thing,

she fucks up a word and she loses everything.

- [Man On TV] Your kids spells things

pretty good there, Homer.

Yeah, me and Carl don't spell so good.

- [Carl] Yeah that's right.

- I think you have a handle on your work.

- [Sigurd] Wait, what are you doing?

- Just watch the TV, it's fine.

- The whole point was to watch with you.

You know, you come over,

we watch a dumb cartoon, and have a laugh,

maybe make out a little.

- Discussion of the subject is important.

- What subject?

- [Annalee] It's what you said.

- You want to discuss the "Simpsons?"

- You don't want to discuss anything.

- Alright, I'm fucking lost.

- Forget it, just watch your show.

(crashing)

You insisted we discuss every and and the

in every single paper.

My academic success is important to me.

That's what you said. - You remember saying

I didn't trust you?

- You're missing the point.

- You are bent on feeling insulted.

Come on.

Hey, you're gonna freeze your tits off.

- Fuck you!

These papers are for your graduate degree.

They're part of what you do to earn it.

- A diploma does not mean that you're smart.

It means you do as you're told.

- Yeah, it's part of the deal you cut,

and you're welshing on the deal.

- It's right, I could just drop out like you.

- I couldn't afford it.

I don't have your money.

- Oh you didn't respect it.

You think the achievement itself is specious

and the arbiter is someone whose intellect is beneath yours.

He expects so little of us, you remember?

- I don't sound like that.

- Fuck, alright, just take your coat.

- You know, I'm smarter than all the fuckers out there.

But when I go, when I leave,

when this falls through,

I'll be qualified for a minimum wage at Jamba Juice,

and that's not fair.

- Fair?

How long have you been haunting this joint,

getting freshmen out of their homework?

- It's what I know how to do.

- There's a moral answer.

- I never claim morals.

- But you did question mine.

- Look, I know everyone could benefit

from a secretary, I get that.

I did it not because of the money.

Well, okay, a lot because of the money,

but because I felt like we weren't cheating doing this.

- We were always cheating.

- But you obviously cared about the work.

You got so turned on by ideas.

I don't know, I thought maybe one day

you might even show me your thesis.

But it's been all "Simpsons" and dirty sex.

Maybe you just used me.

I don't know, I thought you were different.

- You thought what?

- I thought you were different.

I was right.

- Okay I've used you.

Okay, I used you, as a friend.

I've used you as a lover.

As an equal, as a superior mind.

But here's the thing.

When someone says I could use you here,

what they mean is I want you here.

I want you here.

You keep me awake.

I don't hound you about my papers

because I trust you.

I trust you, Annalee.

I sure could use you here.

- For an asshole, that was awful sweet.

So you want to talk a little later

about the next 516 paper?

- Colbert's on soon.

- I mean it.

I want to start talking again. - Okay, okay, okay.

- I was thinking,

the chrysalis phase of American pop stars.

- Oh, that's terrific.

What does that mean?

- What's this?

I did it not because of the money.

A lot because of the money.

Sigurd, what the fuck? (light ominous music)

I am not Sigurd Rossdale.

Hereinafter referred to as Shit Heel.

(light instrumental music)

Told you you weren't gonna like it.

I expect you know what to do now, Professor.

Happy Solstice.

The paper store.

- I want to thank you both for coming here.

Miss Monaghan, it's good to finally meet you.

- [Annalee] Mm-hmm.

- [Professor Kane] Mr. Rossdale.

- Can we skip this?

I just want to know if I should be packing.

- You should be packing.

- You've got nerve.

- You bet ya. - Alright, alright.

We're just here to talk.

- Why?

You got his paper three weeks ago.

Shit Heel should be halfway up his own creek by now.

- That's nice.

- [Professor Kane] It's Winter break.

I think that creek is frozen right now.

- Nice.

- The Dean isn't coming back from Beaumont Somero,

wherever he is, just to sort out this,

well we don't really know what to call this, do we?

- Don't we?

What do you need?

Do you need it in writing?

Oh, that's right, you have it in writing.

- Your version.

- Oh, did you want to make a statement?

Please.

I implore you, go on.

I didn't think so.

I can't imagine you painting

a more thorough picture than she did.

Which brings me to the question.

Annalee, if I may.

What did you hope to accomplish

by sending this to me?

- I wanted to bust his ass.

- [Professor Kane] You said that I might be familiar

with some of your prior work.

- My clients are my business.

- Yell cheating on a college campus

is like yelling suicide is a psych ward.

Your little confessional.

- Not confessional, expose.

When you confess, you sign your name.

- [Professor Kane] He only had so many bargaining chips.

He had to figure he was gonna use one of them.

- Yeah, I didn't think he'd be that stupid.

What should Sigurd do, boys and girls?

A, he could plead ignorant,

call the paper a prank.

Something a classmate made up,

or freaky ex-girlfriend.

Or B, he could hand deliver the one person

that would corroborate the whole thing with,

you know, hard evidence.

That's a thinker, alright.

But you know what? - If you're so smart,

why'd you show up?

- Admit it.

You ever try to lift an entire degree before?

- Her version.

- I understand if we want to hear your version,

all we have to do is press play.

I have to ask. - I can't wait to hear this.

- What the hell were you thinking?

You've seen Serpico.

You know how this turns out. - Oh my God.

Is that what you were doing?

What, did someone promise you the Dean's list

to take down the paper store?

- Your vanity is ridiculous.

- Then why?

- It was for my thesis.

- You're so full of shit.

- Look, it's difficult to help you

if you're gonna be like-- - Fuck him.

Nail him to the wall.

Leave my name out of it,

and I will hand over-- - I'm afraid

I can't promise that.

- Why not?

- What kind of pull do you think I have around here?

Huh?

I'm not even tenured.

- Well fuck it.

Bet you wish you had eight copies now, huh, wanker?

- Alright, you're free to go, Mr. Rossdale.

Without evidence, your ass is un-busted.

Miss Monaghan, somebody will be in touch.

- No problem.

I got more pen names than you've had tables for one.

- And the University has a semester's worth

of your work that it can pour into its software.

One customer with a zero,

and your brand equity is zilch on this campus.

- What I do, I can do from anywhere.

Once I'm gone, I'm gonna email this to someone

who gives a shit.

- And then what?

What, you move to a town

where nobody knows your name?

In a business that you can't advertise?

What are you gonna rebuild?

I can see you found a marketplace

for your considerable skill set.

All these lazy students. - Oh come on.

- Just addicted. - [Sigmund] Really?

- To instant reward.

Now maybe his academic record should be invalidated,

but if I send this upstairs,

you go along with it,

and you will never be allowed on this campus again.

And not just here.

Any request for your transcripts

will turn up this story like a scarlet letter.

Now if this becomes a formal inquiry,

it's out of my hands.

Any help that I can give you

begins and ends in this office.

I don't want to see you end up

behind a counter of a, what was it, Jamba Juice?

(light music)

- So what's he get, community service?

- [Professor Kane] Sigurd, for you,

I think we just turn back the clock.

You get incompletes until the work can be redone.

And that's redone by you.

In case that part was unclear.

- [Sigurd] We take three classes,

plus my course load for Spring.

Shit, while we're at it,

why don't we add a dance minor?

- [Professor Kane] A second chance,

that doesn't appeal to you?

- [Sigurd] No it's not that, it's my schedule.

There is no room.

- [Professor Kane] Make some.

- [Sigurd] No see, if I don't stay

on the two year track then none of this matters anyway.

- [Professor Kane] As they say

in the knock knock joke, boo-hoo.

- [Sigurd] I'll submit make-ups.

- [Professor Kane] Well then you'll always

count as pass-fail,

which does some damage to your four point.

- [Sigurd] Fine, God damn it.

I will retake Alt. Cin to keep me cum laude.

- [Professor Kane] Done.

But there will be new films this semester,

so don't think you can just grab her old notes.

(yelling)

- [Sigurd] And her, what does she get?

- Happy Monday to you all.

Welcome to Alternative Cinema.

For those of you who don't know who I am,

shame on you.

My name is Professor Marty Kane.

Please enter that into your auto-complete settings.

Let me introduce Miss Monaghan.

Our new TA.

Please consider her a resource.

She is available for free individual

and group tutoring throughout the semester.

You can sign up for a session after the class.

Now, Alternative Cinema.

Begs the question, alternative to what?

Does the phrase assume a norm

that cannot be assumed.

Are we presupposed to what is proper

versus what is deviant? (light music)

What is clean versus what is dirty?

Or more importantly,

are you, the audience,

Miss Monaghan.

Miss Monaghan, are we ready?

Come here, come here.

I got it, I got it.

We instinctively trust the voice in our ears,

even if we know that voice is fallible.

This is the way that cinema

can rob us of our compass, moral or otherwise.

Now can anybody give me an example?

Miss Monaghan, how about you?

- Yeah.

Sure.

The cabinet of Dr. Kalagari

is considered the grandfather of the form.

One of the first examples of frame story in film,

we believe that our narrator is the hero,

as he uncovers Kalagari's secrets,

only to learn that his story is fiction,

and that he is insane.

- Excellent, yes.

Excellent.

- [Sigurd] Bullshit.

- I'm sorry?

- Her example is bullshit.

Being nuts didn't affect

the narrator's ability to tell his story.

It was a yarn for the other inmates.

So what if it's not true?

Neither is "Three Little Pigs."

- But he thinks it's true.

Which makes us think it's true.

That's the definition of an unreliable narrator.

- Oh.

I'm sorry.

No, I get it now.

So he's a liar.

But since he's the only one talking,

everyone has to take him at his word.

Okay, yeah, cool.

- These are excellent,

excellent points, both of them.

Very good, I think it's time to move on.

Anybody else?

Yes, Mr. Hooper.

- You mean, like "Fight Club?"

(some laughing)

- Only in the most derivative sense.

Kalagari has proven seminal. (light music)

Hitchcock famously drew on Varner's masterpiece.

- [Sigurd] Media Studies 516.

Professor Marty Kane.

Make-up assignment number one.

Topic, confirmation bias,

or why Freddie Nuendeich got what he deserved.

You don't need anyone to go

all Spanish prisoner on you to be duped.

Whether it's Dean Keaton's guilt,

or Mr. Orange's innocence.

People only look for the things they want to find.

Maybe that's why it's so easy for you

to believe that a feminist paper

couldn't possibly be mine.

So, setting the record straight,

I was never against female sports reporters.

It takes guts to grill a safe seed

about his botched coverage.

Even more guts to do it in heels.

But there's a reason for the gender gap

in the sports broadcasting booth,

and it's not chauvinism, it's experience.

There are men behind a desk

who can barely put a sentence together,

but we value their opinions because they've been there.

They've been elbowed by Kobe, beaten by Pedro,

sat on by Helotsian Gotta.

But no matter how much game tape

Susie Colber breaks down,

the biggest NFL hit she's ever taken

was Joe Namath's whiskey breath.

So, until the WNBA spits out a few more retirees,

or until we from the Rockford Peaches,

those gals are on the sidelines

because that's where their experience lies.

- [Professor Kane] Certainly long days journey into night,

then Williams came on board. - Reynaldo, put it away.

- Making an impact not only on New York theater,

but then transitioning to celluloid with--

- [Sigurd] All I'm saying is,

you can't know what the game is like

until you've played it.

- And then we consider women under the influence.

- There was a vibe there. - It has nothing to do

with knives, it has nothing to do with murder.

- Whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever.

- It has to do with how he identifies.

- I watched that movie like twice.

I still don't know what's going on.

Is there a body or not? - Dude, do you know

that's not the point, right? - Of course it's the

freaking point, Annalee.

The dude is blowing up the picture

over and over and over. - Yeah, the name

of the movie is Blowup, okay? - Guys, stop!

- Wow, you're a smart one, aren't you?

- Why are you convinced this is so hard?

It is not differential calculus.

You just need to be alive and occasionally awake.

Hooper. - I was tired.

- I was awake.

- It still don't make no damn sense.

I just want to drive that home.

- You know what, there is literally

no wrong answer here.

How did it make you feel?

- Fucking pissed.

- Great, why?

- 'Cause Kane's gonna give him another D.

- You came, both races.

- Antonio need a provocateur.

If you felt like pissed at the end,

there's a chance you understood it exactly.

- I really didn't.

- Oh, Anna, come on. - What did I say?

- This is your job, last time I checked.

- You know I didn't gather you together, right?

You signed up for this, you volunteered.

I have my own homework.

Risk aversion psychology in End Person Games

for Dr. Uva due tomorrow.

And if you don't know what that means,

just know it's gonna take

a little more than 90 minutes

and some popcorn to prep.

But you all just want some spoon fed answer

you can plug into your papers.

- Yeah, unless you want to write it for us, too.

Now that would be sweet.

- For real, yo. - [Guy] He showed our class.

He said that was totally fine. - How much you think

something like that cost?

- If you listen to nothing else I say,

just listen to this, for your own good.

You can never ever trust the people

that deal in that world.

You will get caught.

Ogden minus six.

Archiati minus 12.

- I weep for their squandered tuition.

- A parents tuition and don't.

It's their fault she's like that.

- How is that fair?

- That kind of dumb is cultivated

like a rare and beautiful orchid.

Gina Richard minus seven. - These are not the results

I hoped for when you started teaching my students.

- Sub-par sows ear.

I mean, no one should have told

Mitchell Hooper to go to college.

- Einstein said,

"Everybody's a genius,

"but if you judge a fish

"by his ability to climb a tree."

- Yeah, it's on your wall.

Mitchell Hooper is a fine fish,

but you know, academia is not his tree.

Smart enough to write 'em but not read 'em.

- Don't bother.

It's just a 516.

- I know what it is.

I can take it.

Lance Armstrong, Milli Vanilli,

and the little shit who cried wolf.

B minus.

That's a lot of red for a B minus.

- Sigurd's problem,

other than eternally searching for shortcuts,

is his authenticity.

Kid needs to find his own voice.

- I think the voice is pretty clear.

He's writing about me.

This is just like the others.

It's not a paper, it's a vendetta.

- He's searching through the wilderness,

groping for the truth.

It will get personal.

It will get worse.

- Relevancy of the re-release.

Why bother? (keys ticking)

80 inch home streams 4K,

on demand streaming, why leave the house

if "Eraserhead" is back in theaters?

Oh.

Here we go.

What Annalee, hereinafter referred to as Minion.

- Never understood as the reason

we'd line up to buy another ticket

to see Frodo and Sam, Luke and Leia,

or even Jack and Rose,

is not the new tech.

(car whooshing)

It's not even the story.

It's the ritual of its telling.

We revisit the past because

we want to be the people we were then.

When we first saw it.

Before we know how the story ends.

(Annalee grunting)

- No.

No, you're uncomfortable.

Surely you've seen the uncut version before.

- [Annalee] No such thing as an uncut version.

All movies are edited, hence cut.

- Well someday you might lighten up a bit.

- And yes I had seen the NC-17 version.

We watched it for your seminar.

Different on the big screen.

- James Spader was masterful.

- A puppet who fucked a leg wound.

- I have to tell you,

I'm very surprised by this.

- You shouldn't be.

(car honking)

- You wrote a very elegant paper on "Crash."

- I'm sure I did.

It was probably also the third paper that week.

- Your position, as I remember it.

- I never had a position on "Crash."

- You said that the employment

of the sexual-- - Sexually grotesque.

- It's a powerful metaphor.

- Not a metaphor.

Literalization of the sickness in "Saw."

- You said that the heart of the film

was not the so-called perversions,

but the willing community of the perverse.

And that these characters

built a relationship around this common bond.

- The car crashes make them wet in the pants.

- Sharing this perversion,

it makes them feel less alone.

- Yeah, that's how NAMBLA works, too.

- I thought that you'd have a more open mind.

Come on, let's get some coffee, okay, pie.

- Sorry, I gotta go shower the Spader off me.

- If you're going to write a paper,

why wouldn't you own up to it after?

- What did you want out of tonight, Marty?

- What are you implying?

- Why'd you drag me here?

As you would say, what did you hope to accomplish?

- Not everybody who's interested

in developing your mind wants to fuck you.

- I'm sorry.

- If you must know, tonight was a celebration.

I was notified by the tenure committee,

I'm up for review, finally.

- Wait, that's great, right?

- I was gonna tell you over coffee,

but you ruined that.

- When's the hearing?

- The end of classes.

But it's been a long time coming.

You know, it's not being an associate, you know,

not only is it a wholly inaccurate term,

but demeaning to a man my age.

An adjunct.

It's been seven years without health insurance.

- I'm familiar.

So wait, if you get this,

that means you can't be fired.

- Not without cause.

But before, they could just fire me for no reason at all.

- So what does one get a newly-tenured professor?

Cuff links?

Fancy pen?

- You know what I would love.

I'd love for you to stop taking

these opportunities that I'm handing you,

and treating them like I'm grounding you.

I've got to dive head first

into preparing for this review.

I need your full commitment.

- What else do you want?

- [Professor Kane] You'll take over my office hours,

tomorrow for starters.

- Yeah, sure.

- Good.

And I enjoy a good Scotch.

(knocking on door)

- Oh, sorry.

We thought--

- [Annalee] Oh, I'm doing his office hours today.

- Oh, that's totally chill.

I'd rather talk to you.

- Well, we--

- Wanted to ask about our grades.

- I should probably talk to you separately for that.

- We wanted to ask if there

was any extra credit we could do or something.

We can ask that?

- Extra credit isn't really Professor Kane's thing.

- [Hooper] An extra paper?

I mean, he likes papers, right?

- Emily, if I remember right,

you're solidly in the B range without even trying.

- I'm trying.

Who said I'm not trying?

- [Annalee] I just meant that--

- Em wants a four point.

- I do.

My sister just got engaged,

and I'm down a bullet point in the family newsletter.

- Well an A is totally in reach,

if you just like-- - [Emily] What about your

discussion groups, we've been to like all of those.

- Those aren't for credit, they're for you.

- Right, but I mean. - It's like extra school.

- Yeah.

- Well it's all extra, isn't it?

If you take a walk off campus and into the woods,

no truant officer is gonna come find you.

- I guess.

- You gotta stop using your credit hours

and your grade point as a yard stick.

And you've shown a ton of improvement

in such a short space of time.

- Am I passing?

- Okay give me a sec, I'll bring it up.

- I don't think Kane likes me.

- Well I like you, Hooper.

So let's see.

You are passing is what you are.

- See, I told you. - I'm passing?

I'm fucking passing. - I told you.

- [Annalee] You're almost at a C.

- I just want to do better, you know?

I feel bad my parents had to like mortgage

all their shit for this.

I just, fuck.

I thought I was gonna have to

start studying for my CDL,

saving up for a rig.

- Can I ask you a personal question?

- [Hooper] Yeah, of course.

- If you'd been failing, like,

flat out totally failing,

would your parents be sad that you quit,

or would they be happy to stop writing you checks?

- My dad would fucking disown me

if he saw me on a truck.

- [Annalee] Why, what does he do?

- He drives a truck, obviously.

- Well.

You know, there's plenty of time

to raise your grades before finals.

- Oh yeah, alright. - Definitely, thanks.

- [Annalee] Yeah. (light instrumental music)

- [Emily] Come on.

- [Hooper] I'm so glad it was her and not Kane.

- [Professor Kane] Alright, how many of you

watched all the before and after parents?

- [Sigurd] Media Studies 516.

Professor Marty Kane.

Make-up assignment number seven.

Topic, Steve Jobs, modern Caesar.

- [Professor Kane] Which alternatives crossed over

to the studio system,

maintained an alternative aesthetic,

and who sold out?

By a show of hands.

- Emmanuel Conte said,

"Immaturity is the inability

"to use your own intelligence

"unless you get outside approval."

In short, if you can't think for yourself

then you're a child.

Miss Monaghan used to tell me

frequently how immature I am.

But Miss Monaghan, or Annalee as she was known

in her former life,

was also prone to grandstanding against

a permanent display of corporate branding

on her person, being used as a billboard.

Her words.

Even used to cut the labels out of her clothing.

But now,

now she has officially joined Media Studies.

I can tell because she sports the uniform.

See, no one would be caught

dead in here without a MacBook.

The brand creative thinkers use.

Why do we accept as gospel

that the computer age's most notorious autocrat

is the symbol of free thought?

Because here, our doctrine,

is the consumers control brand identity

by signaling their allegiance.

So Miss Monaghan as a creative thinker

doesn't really have a choice now, does she?

So what changed?

What changed?

Not a God damn thing.

No one tricked her into homogeny.

Tadpoles only turn into frogs.

Maggots only turn into flies.

Once he found out he was an almighty swan,

oh that fucking dumb thing

forgot all about the family who took him in.

At the end of the day,

at the end of the day,

we only change into who we already were.

- [Professor Kane] How many people here think

that Scorsese has held onto

that gritty mean streets feeling?

(banging on door)

- Where are they, Shit Heel?

Where are they?

- Where, what in the fuck?

What are you talking about?

Hey, put that down.

- Don't make me ask you a third time.

- [Sigurd] What are you talking about?

- My papers. - [Sigurd] Your papers.

- My intellectual property.

- I paid you fair and square for those.

That makes them work for hire.

- False pretenses, Shit Heel.

- Why do you want them?

- Maybe I'll publish.

- You have copies on your hard drive for that.

- This isn't complex.

I don't want anything of mine with you.

- Then why aren't you asking me for the tapes?

- 'Cause fuck those tapes.

- That's good, that's good.

I wouldn't give 'em to you anyway.

- What am I supposed to think

when you say shit like that?

- The worst, think the worst.

- Well you don't leave me much choice.

- [Sigurd] Fine.

Damn it. (keys ticking)

I never wanted any of this shit.

But that August, I got a letter from my advisor.

What the fuck?

- [Josette] Mr. Rossdale, if you insist up

on using profanities and raising your voice.

- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

- [Josette] If you'd like to see the handbook.

- I would not like to see the handbook.

- Then I'm sure you are aware

that students are not eligible

to submit a thesis-- - [Sigurd] I don't need

to see the manual.

I took the fucking,

I'm sorry, I'm sorry,

I took the class, I took those three hours

you say I'm-- - Three and a half.

- Yeah you're right, I'm sorry.

That extra half credit is a real gate keeper.

- [Josette] It's not an arbitrary figure.

- Oh, it's the definition of an arbitrary figure.

- Just because one is not privy to a logic,

doesn't mean there is none.

- I took the class.

It's four credit hours.

Even here in communications.

Four is more than 3.5.

- You didn't take the class here in communications.

You took the class at the college of information studies.

- It's the same fucking class.

It's the same professor in the same building.

It might even be the same fucking room.

No, no, no.

I deserve an answer to that.

I deserve an answer that makes sense.

I deserve to know why you are keeping me trapped here

for an entire extra year

when I learned the things I was supposed to learn.

Here I am, I'm ready for the big work.

I'm a boat tied to the dock.

I'm in for 3.5 credits.

I'm being tethered to shore.

Just fucking bobbing in the wake

with the jet skis and you know,

I got the growing up the side of me,

it's the scales on the bottom.

They're white, they're hard,

they're fucking crusty. - [Josette] Barnacles.

- Yes, thank you, barnacles.

I could not think of the word.

- Okay.

You're a kayak.

Are we meant to just let you

float along the rapids without first learning how to paddle?

- I got my bachelor's here.

That's four years.

Six figures in the hole.

If I wasn't learning how to paddle,

please, what the fuck? - A Bachelors isn't a Masters.

That's why they have different names.

And as a matter of fact,

you were enrolled in the correct course

until you deliberately decided to switch out.

So I am not sure what you expect me

or the University to do. - It conflicted with work.

It conflicted with my job.

I work, for money.

- In your field?

Because perhaps I could-- - No, no, no.

I was a cater waiter.

There's nothing paid in my field.

Not without a Masters.

- And you felt an internship was beneath you.

- No.

It was not beneath me, it was beneath my rent.

- Have you considered entering

the grad school housing lottery?

- If I win the lottery, is it free?

- Housing fees can be rolled

into your financial aid package.

- So more debt?

- I'm not sure if you're aware of this,

and if not, it may ease some of your concerns,

but as long as you are enrolled in college,

you don't have to start repaying those loans.

As a matter of fact,

I think a three year course--

- I will jump off a bridge.

And the bank can scrape my brains up as collateral.

Okay.

What if I were to take an extra class this semester?

Can I start my thesis then?

- Just out of curiosity,

what is your thesis proposal?

- I have no idea.

- [Josette] It's not going to be easy given your schedule.

- Is that, are you?

Oh thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, I swear to God,

if I become a mogul one day,

I will name a library after you.

Hey, what is that?

Isn't Alt. Cin a 200-level?

- Have you taken it before?

- No. - Then it doesn't matter,

as long as you stay within the department.

- I feel like a faster kayak already.

- And Professor Kane's Cronenberg seminar.

- It's gotta be what it's gotta be, I guess.

(light music)

Yeah, yeah every Saturday.

That was the only time I was available.

No, no Kevin, that's not what I'm saying.

No, no listen, listen.

I can still do shifts,

I just can't--

No.

No, no no no no.

God damn it. - Are you going out tonight?

- They fucking carded me last time.

- That's gay.

- Good morning.

If you are supposed to be in Alternative Cinema

with Professor Marty Kane. - No of course not.

- [Professor Kane] You are in the right class.

- Why should you be anything different?

Complete fucking cock. - Please enter my name

in the auto-complete settings, thank you.

Now for those of you who think

that you're gonna come into class,

watch a movie, eat some popcorn,

maybe make out with the girl next to you,

you have chosen poorly.

In addition to the syllabus,

there will be some outside viewing.

- "Fat Girl."

- It's about your mom. - [Professor Kane] As well.

- "400 Blows" is about your mom.

(chuckling)

- There's grading requirements.

These are to be hard copy,

hand delivered, no emails, no exceptions.

This paper should focus on homoeroticism from 1980

until the present.

It's due Tuesday.

Have a good weekend.

- No, this isn't mine.

- Whose is it?

- [Sigurd] Joe?

- Oh I'm Joe.

- Sup?

Thanks.

- Dude, B minus though.

What we paid, shit should have been an A.

- That's not how it works, dude.

She told us.

- Dude, don't be asking me to remember.

- Hey fags.

Hang back a second.

- What's up?

- You got any weed?

(phone buzzing)

Hey guys.

You gotta go.

Your girl's here.

Come on.

Come on.

Let's go.

Hey, hey.

Yo, get up, get up.

- Dude, relax, chill.

- What are you, Frosted Flakes?

- Unclench the sphincter.

- Guys guys guys, please get out, please.

- [Dude] Fuck dude, chill.

- Guys, you're gone.

- Yeah man, unclench the ass.

- What the fuck did you just say to me?

- Oh my God, whoa man, relax.

- You too big guy, let's go. - Fuck dude, relax.

- Unclench the ass.

- Paper's due Tuesday.

- Yeah.

- Monday, student cafe, no open mark.

Have fun with your thesis.

- Hi, Josette.

Hi, it's Sigurd Rossdale.

I was in your office just,

you know who I am.

I have schedule problems, swear a lot.

The kayak, the kayak, I'm the kayak, yeah.

- [Announcer] This is the loan in Kurt Rossholder.

Partners in crime.

Prevention tango catch.

- I wanted to talk to you about my thesis proposal.

You know what?

Nevermind, thank you.

October fourth, a breakthrough.

A revelation.

My path has become clear.

My vision, swept clean.

The subject of my thesis was to be some bullshit.

Leading candidate,

something about cable news Chairans

and their impact to tell on, I don't know.

But by God, it was going to be some clever bullshit.

Something that manufactures deep meaning

from superficial symbols.

Something so, oh Jesus,

something so fucking meta

that next years freshmen will do a study,

of my study.

In other words,

convoluted and self-referential,

just the way the department likes it.

But then,

I met her.

And scrapped all that

for something that might get me expelled.

We academics look down our nose.

We call her a doer, not a thinker.

A lowly contractor in a room full of architects.

Her worth is less in our eyes,

and statistically in the workplace,

because she comes in and doers by sheep skin.

No matter how versatile her mind,

we cite the superiority of theoretical

knowledge over applied.

Without Newton, there would be no NASA.

No, no, fucking gene therapy

without Watson and Cricketts.

How we reassure ourselves

we didn't just pitch our tuition

down a fucking rabbit hole.

So my thesis will be an experiment.

Proof or disproof of hypothesis.

The only thing studied by Media Studies

is the color of the emperor's new clothes.

I will send out my course work

the way some students send out their laundry.

Every assignment ginned up

by someone who unequivocally disbelieves every word.

At the end of this,

all it takes for a diploma

is to show up and pay up.

Then she is not the only paper store around here.

- Thought telling me this would make things better.

- Why did you tell him?

- Because you already lied to me.

- No, no about us.

Why did you tell him?

- 'Cause it was part of the story.

I don't care what I turn into,

just as long as there's no statue.

- [Sigurd] I'm gonna get cremated.

- [Annalee] Yeah well leave me with that stupid urn

that looks like some bowling trophy thing.

- [Sigurd] And have someone scatter you.

- Only if they want to.

I don't remember saying that.

When did I say that?

The Canyon, like--

- I don't have them.

- [Annalee] What?

- Your papers.

I don't have the papers.

- Bullshit.

- No, the day Marty called, I threw 'em out.

I put 'em in a sack,

and drowned them in the river like feral cats.

- Appalachian trail.

Now your poor kids--

I feel sick.

- [Sigurd] You should.

Those cats deserve better.

- You never even read them, you lousy fuck.

- [Sigurd] I read them.

- Where be the bitches in this here film?

(gasping)

- Get out a blank piece of paper.

We're gonna have a quiz on Goddard.

- Ogden, minus three.

Archieti minus five.

I mean, minus nine.

Dowd, minus five.

- Three, nine, and minus five.

- Minus five, yeah.

- Next.

- Rossdale, absent.

Hooper, minus five.

- How irritating. - What?

- When they miss their quiz days.

They know what it does for their grade.

Alright, you know what,

I'll double grade 'em Friday,

and I'll just,

I'll ask for a one page abstract on any topic.

- What are you doing?

Sigurd got a zero.

- Yes?

- So he gets a zero, that's how it works.

You don't do extra credit.

That's what you said. - Of course, of course.

You think it was an isolated incident, his absence?

- I wouldn't know.

If he wants to fuck off all day, that's his business.

- Not when my tenure review is nigh.

I got seven failing kids,

that's a quarter of the class.

Very inauspicious group.

- Well if you let him off the hook,

it's not fair to the kids that showed up.

- Pardon me if I add a grain of salt

to your ethics advice.

- What did Sigurd do with the last two chances you gave him?

- Does that hurt?

- It's fine.

The tenure committee, they want to see success.

Is that the deal?

So what about the other seven kids?

And you didn't pull all those strings

to have me take roll and pass out quizzes.

Good afternoon, all.

Professor Kane got stuck in a meeting,

so I'll be teaching class today.

So, today we'll be looking at "Grindhouse."

A term you probably know because of Tarantino.

After all, he was a fanboy before he was a thief.

First, let's discuss 1943's "Lady of Burlesque"

which coined the term

named for the bump and grind houses of 42nd Street.

Let's back up a step.

What's "Grindhouse?"

Amanda.

- I don't know.

We haven't covered that yet.

- Bishop, what's "Grindhouse?"

- Mandy's right, we haven't--

- Emily, what's "Grindhouse?"

- Hey that's not fair.

She's in your study group.

- Look, you can't give us a quiz

on something we haven't learned yet.

- [All] Yeah. (chattering)

- Guys.

This isn't a quiz.

This is just to get you thinking.

So, don't wait for me.

Just call it out. (light music)

How do you know it's a grind house flick?

- Violence.

- Violence.

- Violence and casual sex.

- Casual sex.

What else?

- It's always all grainy looking.

- Low budget production.

- Well that's something that can be faked, right?

- Yes.

You can.

Why?

Why would someone try and replicate that?

- 'Cause you don't want to see a bunch of shiny shit.

You want to see real shit.

- Oh my God, you people are so surfacey.

It's about like fucking female vengeance.

Women kicking fucking ass. (some laughing)

- In the back.

- Someone drives the grind house.

- [Annalee] What else?

- [Student] Rape and pillaging.

- Rape and pillaging.

Porn, porn.

So why is porn different?

- Consent?

(some laughing)

- Absolutely make sure you write

this one down for Kane's final.

But this is only the origin story.

How things began is such a small part

of what they become.

See you in class.

- Probably not. (gentle music)

- It's not even that generous.

It's like, look how many people miss me.

And my stone palace. - So stupid.

- In the end.

It is why we want credit.

For having been.

- Yeah, it's not our best feature.

Why don't we leave departed on a mountainside

for buzzards like the good old days?

- Some cultures still do that.

You need a mountainside, kinda.

- Don't say never,

your people are far too squeamish about bones.

- I like the notion of nature taking it back.

Grass.

Coming up from the sidewalks.

Railroad ties dissolving into the ground.

- Are you gonna be a railroad tie?

- Yeah.

Beats being a mummy.

In a fucking forever box like these guys.

- I don't care what I turn into.

Just as long as there's no statue.

- Why don't you get cremated?

- No, then you have that stupid urn

that looks like some bowling trophy thing.

- Have someone scatter you, then.

- Only if they want to.

If someone wants to take a road trip

and dump me in the canyon like Donny Karabotsels, go nuts.

But no fucking way am I leaving instructions.

That's like worse than a monument.

That's like saying from now on,

this canyon is fucking mine.

I mean, it's just bossy.

This fucking command from beyond the grave.

Dump my ashes on the Appalachian trail.

Now your poor kid's gotta do all this hiking

to dump your ashes in some deer turds

so you can be part of the everlasting cycle.

Your kid can't go walking in the woods now

without thinking about fucking death.

(sighing)

- I'd scatter you somewhere.

- It's on you.

- I'd scatter you everywhere. (light music)

- [Annalee] Really.

- [Sigurd] Yeah.

- Hooper, talk to me about "The Fly," go.

- Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, 1986.

- This isn't trivia night, themes.

- Themes, themes.

I'm bad at these.

- [Annalee] Emily help him out.

- Oh, the primary theme is transformation.

Mainly because he turns into-- - A fly, it's a fly.

- Good, Emily, because transformation

is the scientists' goal, too.

- No, what?

- No, it's because he wanted to teleport.

- Yeah, but--

- My notes say teleport.

- Yes, but what is teleportation?

- You know, like, up, there, over there.

Teleport. (laughing)

- Can one of you please just answer

without looking at your notes

to see what Kane told you to say?

- I didn't look at my notes.

- That's 'cause you didn't take any notes.

(laughing)

- She's getting on you.

- Yeah.

I mean, me too, it was okay.

- What if we just focus

on what's gonna be on the midterm

instead of the papers?

I mean, isn't that a bigger portion

of our grade, anyway?

- Yeah, I mean, if I do good on that,

I'm gonna get a C, right?

Fucking tight.

- Why is that alright?

Why is that tight, Hoop?

Don't you want an A?

- If I got an A, someone would think I cheated.

- What if I told you that right now

you're probably sitting on an A?

- [Hooper] No I'm not.

You said last week that I got--

- Beginning of term, you have 5,000 points available to you.

You can afford to lose 500 of those

and still get an A.

I mean, Emily is right, the grades are weighted,

so the final and midterm count

for more than all the quizzes combined.

But right now all of you have As.

- Wait, I mean, it's the same, right?

Like, math-wise.

- Well it is, but we're just looking at it

from a different direction.

Hooper, a few weeks ago,

the unreliable nerd, or what did you say?

- "Fight Club."

- Right, what did Marty say?

- Derivative.

- You weren't wrong.

You should know that.

I mean, "Fight Club" won't be on the midterm.

You should know that too.

But you weren't wrong.

- [Male Student] Yeah, it's like he was just

thinking about it from another direction.

(laughing)

- [Female Student] So is "The Fly" gonna be on the midterm?

- Sure.

- Alright then. (keys ticking)

- What about... - It's 'cause of

all the little bits.

Like, when he teleports,

all the little-- - Molecules.

- They gotta go back the same way they were before.

But I mean, things don't work like that.

Every time you move, you change what's around you.

When what's around you is different,

that makes you different.

Every molecule in him would know what it's like

to be apart from the other ones.

Even if a fly never got in there,

he was always looking to change.

It just didn't happen the way he expects.

- Swear to me you didn't write this.

- It's all him.

- I mean, he couldn't have written this three weeks ago.

- He's been working his ass off.

- That you could squeeze this from a stone.

- Aren't you gonna grade it?

- No, no, not now, later.

The committee, I swear to you,

they want every academic journal I've ever appeared in.

- Is that a lot?

- No.

So I've got to get a really nice binder.

Don't worry.

I am humbled and amazed.

Keep up the good work.

(gentle instrumental music)

- Sigurd Rossdale, Professor Marty Kane.

Media Studies 516, April 12th. (ominous music)

Final make-up assignment.

Topic, Alpha 60 versus Eric Harris.

Everyone has thought

about killing himself. - [Sigurd] Everyone has

thought about killing himself.

Everyone.

For the privilege of the dead is to die no more.

The hard part's getting the note right.

Something quiet and stoic, dignified.

Football season is over.

Brooks was here.

Maybe it's better then to go out big and loud,

like Private Pyle.

Your meeting crystal fucking clear.

Make sure you storm out

just so no one thinks you limped away.

And my thesis was definitely

intended as a kind of suicide bomb.

I might not have known it at the time,

or maybe I did.

I mean, Jesus, and least snake oil moisturizes,

but what are you people selling?

What system just lets a mind like Annalee

walk out the door,

but goes out of its way to find

an indefinite home for me?

This place is nothing but a coven

of criminal naval gauges and I,

I plant to lay waste to it.

In hindsight, I can pinpoint exactly when

I knew I was in trouble.

We were watching "Ordinary People" of all things.

She couldn't sit still.

White people problems.

But every time Mary Tyler Moore hit screen

as that pastel cyborg of a mother,

Annalee's back went rigid.

Like she'd witnessed a hanging.

We're at the climax.

Donald Sutherland weeps at her.

We'd have been alright

if there hadn't been any mess.

But you can't handle mess.

- There's your mess, bitch.

There it is.

- [Sigurd] I tried to deny it for a few weeks,

but the flaw in my theory was obvious.

However little she thought of the source material

or the professor,

something in the work itself

just lit her up like a kid

who just learned how to cartwheel.

And how could I blow that up?

On the other hand,

if I told her just how many different ways

I'd been lying to her,

that she'd never speak to me again.

No matter how much money I owed her.

So I did what academics do best.

Nothing.

I sat quietly by.

Impartially observing my experiment

while she felt abandoned and enraged.

I impartially observed as she

grew to hate me.

I decided to come clean.

Picked a day and everything.

But of course as we all know,

what happens when Lisa finally does the right thing?

She fucks up spelling her word,

and loses everything.

Maybe this is too mainstream an idea

for Alternative Cinema,

but a broken heart.

- Just as long as there's no statue.

- [Sigurd] Is only cliche when it's not your heart.

- I don't remember saying that.

When did I say that?

- [Sigurd] She has erased everything about me.

Except the part where I ruined her life.

So, as much as I have wanted to swoop in, somehow,

and save Annalee from your professorial treadmill,

I guess we just all have our chrysalis phase.

Caterpillars become moths.

Students become teachers.

Even a tree that falls in the forest

sometimes become a railroad tie,

waiting to rot back into the Earth.

This paper officially fulfills my obligation, Professor.

That means no honor board hearing.

She's safe,

and you can go shit in your hat.

I quit. (doorbell ringing)

- Please, come in.

Just clear off any seat, make yourself at home.

Red Bull?

Or would you like something with pep?

- I'm fine.

- So.

To what do I owe this unexpected visit?

- This says Sigurd Rossdale.

- So?

- You said you were letting him go.

- Now when did I say that?

- I rescue the seven failing kids,

you give him the grade he deserves.

That's the deal.

- How do you know he doesn't deserve this grade?

- An A minus?

Maybe I didn't know it was to which

hat he was referring.

- Oh no.

Oh Christ.

- Did you bother to read it at all?

- I haven't read his stuff in weeks.

It's drivel.

It's the half romantic rantings of the deranged.

If he's not gonna take this seriously,

why should I give him the time?

- Because you're his teacher,

and that's what he pays you for.

- There are people one pays to care about you.

They're not called teachers.

- Then what the hell have I been doing,

busting my ass? - Anna, I'm not gonna

flunk Sigurd, I can't.

My tenure review is next week.

- But I told you, these kids I've been working with--

- Oh please, I don't care about these kids.

Fuck 'em, they mean nothing.

It's too much deviation from the norm.

What is the committee gonna say?

My barely functioning sophomores

are now in the 98 percentile.

Okay, there's a big red flag.

My best grad student,

he's flunking a 200-level.

Another red flag.

They're outliers.

The committee's gonna want to know why.

Who's this new TA? - Don't.

- What are we doing different?

What kind of strings did I have to pull

to get you here, huh?

Would you like to explain the previous six years?

- Fuck, Marty.

Why did we even bother? - Because it's what

you wanted to hear.

There was never a solution

that didn't land these grades

in the middle of the fairway.

Now what you've done is outstanding work.

- What do they get in return?

- Their marks will show improvements.

- [Annalee] Improvement?

- Yes, to a degree.

I'm not gonna give Hooper an A.

It won't seem like his work.

- His paper on "The Fly,"

what grade did you give him?

- [Professor Kane] I don't know.

- You said you were humbled and amazed.

What grade?

- I gave him a C plus.

Oh will you calm down?

A C plus-- - Fuck you, calm down.

- Oh don't be so overdramatic.

- When Hooper hears that grade, it'll ruin his life.

- Oh please. - Ruin his life,

because Hooper succeeding and Sigurd failing

might just fuck up your tenure.

- Yes.

Yes, it will fuck up my tenure.

Tenure is not a merit badge.

It's up or out.

Consolation prize, non-renewal.

But that's alright.

Because I'll just brush up my resume,

which now bears the skunk spray of rejection.

But I'm fine.

Because I'm sure I'll find a school

who's just itching to find a tenure track

for a recently passed over middle aged man.

- Tenure track isn't the only track there is.

- No, I can become an adjunct again.

The day laborer of University life.

Shit pay, no overtime, no insurance.

Not even unemployment.

- Well I hear Jamba Juice is hiring.

- Get 'em back. (steady music)

- He quit.

For real this time.

- I won't ask, you won't tell.

But I'm sure you have your methods.

And in three years when you're getting your doctorate,

(knocking on door)

you'll think back on this moment,

and exactly how you chose to thank me.

- Sigurd.

Sigurd.

(gasping)

Jesus.

What the fuck, you scared me. - What the fuck, you?

I'm not the one going in for the jugular.

- [Annalee] What the hell happened to you?

- What?

Shit.

- Thought that whole killing yourself

thing was like a metaphor.

When's the last time you slept?

- About 30 seconds ago.

- That was some paper.

- Did Kane shit in his hat yet?

'Cause that would be awesome.

- Sigurd.

- [Sigurd] Sorry, I know he's your Yoda.

- He's not, he's not my Yoda, okay jackass?

Fuck Marty, he is nobody's Yoda.

Don't quit.

- It's done.

In the morning-- - [Annalee] Nothing's done.

I'm living proof.

- [Sigurd] No, you're the exception, always.

- [Annalee] Just shut the fuck up.

We need your recordings.

All of them.

We're gonna take 'em to the Dean.

What's your password?

- What happened?

- He's a liar is all.

Password.

- No, I didn't do a million make-up assignments

so you could turn it in and get yourself expelled.

- Those make-ups had nothing to do

with academic integrity.

They were about keeping you on the hamster wheel

so he could get his tenure,

and I'm making damn sure he goes down with us.

What is your password?

- Cyrano.

Capital C and a zero.

It doesn't matter, anyway.

We both agreed to the terms.

- This from a guy who made his thesis into a bomb.

- Yeah I thought you might like that.

Did you like it?

- Can't decide.

On one hand, it seems incredibly stupid.

You had every reason to think

they'd just toss that proposal out on its ass.

- Yeah. - But in its own way,

it's kind of ingenious.

I mean, they almost have to say yes

if only to bury the thing,

and they toss you, you spy publish,

probably a bigger platform.

And as a certain wanker once said,

you mention cheating on a college campus.

- Fuck, I didn't even think about that.

I should have consulted you about this so much earlier.

- [Annalee] Damn it, Sigurd.

Where the hell are those recordings?

- I don't have them.

- What?

- Yeah, I didn't need them anymore.

- God damn it, Sigurd.

Did you even take a breath

before trashing an entire semester's worth of work?

- Here's what I know.

My lie, no matter what the reason, hurt you.

And that is a scar I will always have to live with.

His lie.

However noxious, you're a fish who found water.

Be grateful.

If you threw this all out now,

you'd just be stupid.

And one thing you most definitely are not is stupid.

- Well, if throwing it all away is so stupid.

- Oh I fucking hate school.

It took me six and a half years

and a six figure loan to figure out I don't like school.

- Well I'm glad you found a zen about it.

Or at least a zen-aesthetic.

But I'm turning it the fuck in.

- Yeah, well I heard somewhere

that without evidence it's just an accusation.

(light music)

- Sigurd.

Why didn't you tell me that--

- I really hope you just burn 'em.

(keys ticking)

(people chattering)

- Annalee.

Hey.

- [Hooper] Hey, we got you something.

- Come on, Mitch, don't get it all sweaty.

It's a gift certificate.

- To the Apple store.

- Guys, this, you didn't need to do that.

- Well, anyways, congrats and thanks.

- Yeah, thanks again.

- Step one, get to the top.

Step two, open container.

- No one needs beer this bad.

- The point is the journey.

- [Annalee] You are fucking with me.

- [Sigurd] A fellowship, huh?

- [Annalee] They're sending me to England.

- [Sigurd] Oh, fancy pants.

- [Annalee] I've been warned everyone says wanker there.

- You found your people then.

- And you are.

- Me and Lucy are doing alright.

You underestimated her, you know.

New brakes, new shocks, new blankets.

- The van.

Lucy is the van?

- Oh yeah.

The heat even works now.

AC doesn't.

- Sigurd, you're living in the van?

- Yeah, I mean it's the fastest way

to pay off the student loans.

It's okay, it's okay, really.

It gets me to work.

I blow shit up all day.

Gets me back to the state park.

Nature's taking me back.

- You kinda smell though.

- This is what nature smells like.

- Was she always called Lucy?

- Steering panel came loose,

and I feel like she needed a fresh start.

- Oh.

- So.

The weirdest thing.

There I am at the mail deposit box,

and out falls this fucking letter.

- Ass.

I've been sitting here waiting.

- Congratulations, Mr. Rossdale, thank you,

on the acceptance by the graduate studies committee.

- You just let me sit here the whole time.

- On your masters thesis. - Climbed eight

million stairs. - Requiem for a Ribwich.

- Swan song of classic homage.

- It's a pretty boss title.

They should have known it wasn't me.

Come on.

- Cover to cover, ginned up by someone

who disbelieves every word.

- Kane was wrong.

They will never invent software better than you.

- He has tenure now, you know.

His fucking tenure.

- Still I'm glad that you didn't turn him in.

This looks good on you.

- I really wanted to.

You know, I just really,

really really wanted to.

- That extra year of school

really broadened your vocabulary, didn't it?

- I burned the papers in the reservoir,

scattered the ash.

- It's what I would've done.

- No you wouldn't.

- I would, too. - No you would not.

- I would, too have. - You didn't even,

you had them in your luggage instead of clothes.

I mean, (Sigurd laughing)

what exactly were you gonna do with them?

- I don't know.

I don't know.

It's probably the same reason

I had that tape recorder in my pocket that night.

Even when I was trying to come clean.

- Because it was part of the story.

- Something like that.

I'm gonna get this framed.

Fucking masters degree.

Break glass in case of emergency.

Guys in the crew will love it.

- Where are you gonna frame it and hang it, in Lucy?

- Yeah, don't make fun.

She can hear you. - Oh.

- She has ears.

It's really nice in there now.

It's got the vanilla trees and everything.

Hey.

You wanna?

- Oh.

No.

- It's worth a shot.

(steady instrumental music)

(keys ticking)