Screenplays

Tilt (2022). Charlie is a brilliant millennial with a 225 I.Q. who graduated high school at fifteen, then went on to collect a half-dozen degrees, including PhDs in Archeology and Forensic Pathology. Her academic focus was preordained by her mother who is a respected religious professor at Yale, and her father, who is a prominent evolutionary biologist. A young Charlie clings fondly to memories of travelling the lecture circuit and watching them deliver their very popular fiery debates on Evolution versus Creation. Though their divorce when she was a teenager rocked her world, their opposing personalities and perspectives continue to shape every part of who she is. Who she is, for the moment, is a self-conscious genius with a brain full of unrealized potential and a yearning for excitement.

Her first chance to break free of the rut of privilege that she finds herself stuck in occurs when she and her frivolous friends happen upon a twenty-six-hundred-year-old clay pot at the pre-exilic dig site of a Jewish High Priest’s family villa. Initial analyses suggest the contents in the pot may be remnants of the Breastplate of Judgement mentioned in the Bible which held urim and thummim, sacred objects that enabled the divining of God’s will in the ancient tradition of casting lots. Anxious to do something purposeful with her life, Charlie sets off to find the priceless objects. That’s when she literally runs headlong into the limo driver that’s supposed to take her from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem to a swanky scientific gala where her father is the keynote speaker. The brawny former Marine, Huck, stuck himself in a far graver rut fueled by a debilitating guilt from a wartime mistake, is immediately both intimidated and infatuated by Charlie who’s nothing like anyone he’s ever met. Together, their polar opposite personalities and expertise produce a symbiosis that sets them on a path of adventure that rejuvenates her, and saves him.

First, they detect and diffuse a remote-controlled car bomb meant for Charlie’s dad. Then they discover seven ancient Biblical manuscripts in a burial cave of the Hasmonean Princess Mariamne, only to have them stolen by goons of a “grey-market” dealer in antiquities. Left at the bottom of the deep cavern for dead, they somehow escape using his muscle and her brains to perilously swing from hanging ropes meant to harvest valuable swiftlet bird nests. When they track down the goons at a warehouse behind a discothèque, they find them with their throats slit by professional assassins. The manuscripts are gone and the stakes are raised even higher. But with Huck as her bodyguard protecting her, Charlie discovers a newfound confidence that invigorates her. Huck gets the best of the first encounter with three of the Sicarii cutthroats after jumping from the hotel rooftop onto a palm tree which flings him onto the balcony next door to Charlie’s room, all while she nervously awaits him coming over for what she secretly hopes has little to do with business. Next, her parent’s connections and her research, leads them up to the mesa fortress at Masada where they encounter more Sicarii intent on stopping them before they uncover the truth about the noble legend of nine-hundred-and-sixty men, women and children committing mass suicide rather than submitting to oppressive Roman rule. Once again, Charlie’s quick thinking and Huck’s brute resourcefulness, along with good fortune perhaps facilitated by the mystical power of urim and thummim, help them survive even more harrowing circumstances. When it’s over, Charlie is a hero and Huck is overlooked by everyone — but Charlie. Still, the forces of propriety seem disposed to returning them both to their very different worlds.

Jerome (2022). In the languishing Wild West town of Jerome, two determined miners release a curse as ancient as mankind. Fortunately, the many spirits that also inhabit the town, sourced by the near daily fatal accidents, misfortunes, and transgressions, are there to help restore order.

Amidst this ethereal chicanery, the character of the town is being shaped by a fusion of intriguing living characters as well. Principal among them is two capable, but disregarded women. Josie is a “soiled dove” whose striking looks overshadow her simmering ambitions, and whose past romances have produced two fortuitous reverberations that will prove key to Jerome’s survival. And then there is Annie, an apprentice reporter for the town’s only newspaper who uses her anonymity to uncover Jerome’s biggest mysteries, and its darkest secrets.

Meanwhile, there’s trouble brewing down in the Valley. Rogue Apache warriors kidnap a young Anglo boy in retaliation for an Army raid on their village, which threatens to reignite the bloody Indian Wars. Up in Jerome, the unproductive Eureka Claim has just been bought up by a manipulative robber baron with the resources and resolve to dig up the entire mountain. And the arrival of a sophisticated unmarried woman and her young son, whose bills are being paid by a mysterious benefactor, is creating quite a stir.

Through the historically inspired ups and downs, twists and turns, toils and triumphs of the next few decades, the town of Jerome and its colorful cast of residents — both living and dead — will face endless challenges brought on by Mother Nature, human nature, and the SUPERNATURE-AL. And for a brief moment in time, inconsequential Jerome will become the manifestation of the American Dream and the encapsulation of the skyrocketing American story of hard work leading to success, then excess, which threatens to drag it right back down to earth. Perhaps Jerome’s ghosts have a lesson to share with the rest of us — before it’s too late.