Me And Earl And The Dying Girl Part 9

That sounded like a cowboy accent.

GREG.

Yeah, I was using the wrong part of my mouth. Accents are all about using certain parts of your mouth. That's why foreign people's faces are sometimes kind of jacked up. Like how Daniel Craig has those weird pouty lips like a woman.

RACHEL.

He does not.

GREG.

Look at him! Look how he's sticking his lips out. Actually he sort of looks like a frog.

launching into autopilot because Rachel is remaining silent/expectant I just know a lot about accents, even if I can't do them. I've studied them. I mean I've seen a lot of films. A cool thing about accents actually is the way they change from like eighty years ago to forty years ago to now, if you watch movies that are older. People's mouths were just shaped differently back then, I think.

Sometimes I want to walk around doing an American accent from the 1950s, because that in some ways is the weirdest accent there is. You really freak people out that way. When people hear it, they don't think, 1950s; they think, that guy sounds all weird and rigid and conservative, like an a.s.shole robot, and they don't know why.

I mean, I had to watch a bunch of films from back then before I realized that people just talked differently.

RACHEL.

So you're really like a movie expert.

GREG.

I'm not an expert. I've just seen a whole lot of them.

RACHEL.

What's your favorite movie?

INT. THE GAINES TV ROOM - TWO HOURS LATER

On the screen: KLAUS KINSKI. On the couch: RACHEL and GREG. On Greg's lap: a bowl containing leftover BEEF TIPS that he found in the fridge.

GREG.

See how the camera's moving around, sort of jittery, like it's handheld? OK. Do you sort of get how it makes the film feel less like fiction and more like it really happened? You know what I mean?

RACHEL.

Yeah, I think so.

GREG.

It's awesome, right? It feels that way because it feels a little like a doc.u.mentary. Because that's the camerawork that you have in a doc.u.mentary, lots of handheld, no huge smooth crane shots like in big action movies.

RACHEL.

It feels a little like reality TV.

GREG.

Yeah! That too. Well, except the lighting in reality TV is always really unnatural, and here, they really can't bring a lot of artificial lights into the jungle. Actually, they might not have anything besides reflectors.

RACHEL.

What are reflectors?

GREG.

gnawing beef Mmmrflectors urmmff . . . hang on, this scene is awesome.

RACHEL.

You should try making some movies.

MOM.

from doorway He does! He just doesn't let anyone see them.

GREG.

MOM WHAT THE h.e.l.l ARE YOU DOING.

MOM.

Oh honey. Did you not offer Rachel anything to eat?

GREG.

JESUS MOM.

RACHEL.

I'm not hungry!

GREG.

infuriated Mom. Jesus Christ. You can't just spy on us from the doorway. And you def MOM.

I was just walking past and I heard Rach GREG.

initely can't just tell people about, um, RACHEL.

It's MOM.

Greg, you're being a little silly abou GREG.

s stuff that you know is really priv AGUIRRE.

When I wish for the birds to fall from the trees, then shall the birds fall from the trees.

MOM.

ou work so hard on these movies with Earl and then y RACHEL.

It's OK, I don't need to see them.

GREG.

See? Did you hear that?

MOM.

just keep them to yourselves like you don't wan GREG.

Did you-Mom. Did you hear what Rachel said.

MOM.

She's just being nice. Greg, you have some juice on your chin.

GREG.

Will you please just get out of here.

MOM exits, smiling wryly, like she just did something clever and wasn't in fact a HORRIBLE MOTHER. Meanwhile, Greg is back to eating beef tips, because when he is stressed out he eats compulsively.

RACHEL.

Here, let's rewind it. I think we missed an important part.

GREG.

Yeah, it's like the best part.

RACHEL.

after a lengthy silence If your movies are secret, I won't tell anyone. You can trust me.

GREG.

frustrated It's not that they're secret, it's just that they're not good enough for people to see. Once we do a really good one, we'll let people see it.

RACHEL.

That makes sense.

GREG.

What?

RACHEL.

I understand.

GREG.

Oh.

They look into each other's eyes.

If this were a touching romantic story, in this moment some STRANGE NEW FEELING would wash over Greg-a sense of being understood, in a basic way that he almost never is understood. Then, Greg and Rachel would make out like lovesick badgers.

However, this is not a touching romantic story. There is no NEW FEELING that washes over Greg. There is no BADGER MAKE-OUT SESSION.

Instead, Greg sort of s.h.i.+fts uncomfortably and breaks eye contact.

RACHEL.

Can I get you a napkin or something?

GREG.

No no I'll get it.

The first film Earl and I remade was Aguirre, the Wrath of G.o.d. Obviously. It couldn't have been any other one. We were eleven, and we had seen it approximately thirty times, to the point where we had memorized all of the subt.i.tles and even some of the dialogue in German. We sometimes repeated it in cla.s.s, when the teacher asked us questions. Earl especially did this a lot, if he didn't know the answer.

INT. MRS. WOZNIEWSKI'S FIFTH GRADE CLa.s.s - DAY MRS. WOZNIEWSKI.

Earl, can you name some layers of the earth?