More Made-up Plots For Tree-centric Films
Ten more movies I would love to see "green"-lit.
When Must Love Trees: An Unconventional Guide came out exactly one year ago (congratulations, Tobin!), I included in it sixteen plots for tree-centric films that I had thought about writing at one time or another. You’ll have to buy the book to check those out. But, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my book, here’s ten more, completely free:
Comedy
“Creaky Friday”: Mark, a suburban arborist, and Cecil, a 246 year-old Pin Oak, spontaneously change bodies after lightning strikes Cecil while Mark is doing routine pruning. Can they get it all sorted out before Laura, Mark’s wife, notices too many changes?
“Someone Else’s Root”: This one-night stand comedy involves a dioecious couple, Stan and Liz Holly, who find themselves both attracted to Ziggy Ash—a charismatic, mischievous, and polygamomonoecious stranger.
Romance
“Two Trees and a Lie”: This erotic thriller finds passionate Elena caught between the wealthy comforts of logging industrialist Markos and the irresistible and itinerant Jezza, who currently makes their home within the walls of a hollow Giant Sequoia.
“Unrooted”: An ancient Bristlecone Pine is given the gift of perambulation upon reaching 5,000 years of age, allowing it to seek out the descendants of the Clark’s Nutcracker who help seed it five millenia earlier. An unlikely romance ensues.
Crime
“Fir, Spruce, and Six Smoking Loggers”: A Guy Ritchie-esque romp that follows a cadre of petty criminals as they try to transport $8.5 million in a coffin made of both fir and spruce. (“Wusat in veh?” “Munny” “G’on, now! Yeh done put it in a deadbox made of Spruce an Fuh? Dah fahck’sat now?”)
“Growing Boyos”: Chronicles the Irish Mafia in the little-known city of Podgeferry in the 1880s. Divided into rival gangs the Oaks and the Maples, their skirmishes ultimately climaxed at the bloody “cross-pollination on Druid’s Lane,” which saw the destruction of both groups and an end to the terrifying “reign of trees”.
Horror
“Lord of the Bonsai”: Inspired by 80s slasher classics, this VHS-only jewel finds Hasherton, a decrepit and derided bonsai artist, commanding his tiny trees to poke, prod, and strangle his enemies to death.
“The Tree Made Me Do It”: A haunting courtroom epic which follows Lisa Mudge, a seemingly perfect housewife, who secretly murdered nine of her neighbors with a gardening trowl (and cannibalized five), all while claiming she was under orders from the Christmas Tree in her living room.
Historical
“The Royal Oak”: In Interregnum England, as the young Charles II strove to escape the forces of Oliver Cromwell after the beheading of his father, Charles I, he hid in an English Oak. This chronicle of his reign cuts back and forth between his time in the tree and his later rule in order to show how those nightmarish hours in the tree made him into the king he would become.
“Bodhi”: This exuberant musical imagines the Bodhi Tree (the Ficus religiosa under which the historical Buddha sat whilst achieving enlightenment) to be a booming baritone with a remarkable four-octave range. Don’t blink, or you might miss the kickline!