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MARK: I am about to place my fate in you, my jury.
Yes you, out there with your remote control, gathered in front of the modern-day
fire. You see, since I was a kid, I imagined my life as a movie. So it's only
appropriate that you, my audience, will decide if I am guilty or not, for I am
going to confess everything to you: every sin contemplated, every sin acted upon
in the nearly 40 years I've been on this good Earth.
My name is Mark and I write screenplays with my wife,
Lorna. We have been married 16-and-a-half years and have a 9-year-old son,
Walter. You may not sympathize with me at first because I seem to have it all
going for me. I drive a Mercedes, my west side kitchen has double-ovens, my pool
is heated, and I know famous directors on a first-name basis. I have imaginary
conversations with my family's pets and with any good-looking woman who falls
into my vision and, trust me, there are a lot of good-looking women --
actresses, models, trophy wives -- on my end of town. I am especially attracted
to a certain "soccer mom" named Danni. But please, don't judge me too harshly; I
have no excuses, but I have my reasons.
Let's get down to some facts. For the past two years or so,
my wife has suffered from depression. Over time, you will see what kind of
depression and learn its root causes, but since you're seeing my world through
my eyes only, it will take awhile for all the facts to come out. You will see me
learn of the abuse she suffered from my in-laws, see me witness her finally
battling back at them -- a scene I imagine as a boxing match from "Raging Bull."
You'll see me seek revenge against another man who was so awful to her long ago.
You will see me try to keep our family and our career afloat while Lorna spends
most of her time either in bed, or self-medicating with booze and pot alongside
a has-been movie producer named Steven. So while I try to convince my wife, whom
I love deeply, that the world would not be better off if she was dead, I seek
escape through movies, chocolate, ecstasy, and perhaps, through women.
Now don't get me wrong, I can avoid temptation. Take Annie,
for example. You'll see her ask me if I want a blow-job for my birthday with the
same offhandedness as when she asks me how much my house cost. And, when that
approach doesn't work, she'll try other ways to get me. But I'm jumping ahead of
myself.
Danni is a different temptation. She knows a lot about
seeking escapes, from her marriage and from her past. She understands me, or so
I think. She may be the best thing that's come into my life lately...or the most
destructive.
I suppose this is the story of the beauty and brutality of
a long-term marriage as seen through the eyes of a writer who aspires to make
art, but makes his living writing popcorn movies. Someone who wants to be a good
man, but finds himself contemplating many crimes. Someone who is guilty of the
crime of being human. Someone whose life is the only movie he can't rewrite.
Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
-- Official OUT OF ORDER Showtime Website
ERIC STOLTZ, FELICITY HUFFMAN, KIM DICKENS AND JUSTINE
BATEMAN STAR IN "OUT OF ORDER," A NEW SERIES FOCUSING ON A DYSFUNCTIONAL
LONG-TERM MARRIAGE PREMIERING ON SHOWTIME ON JUNE 1 at 10:00 PM WILLIAM H. MACY
AND PETER BOGDANOVICH CO-STAR
New York, NY: April 28, 2003 - The beauty and brutality of
a long-term marriage is the subject of OUT OF ORDER, a new limited series on
SHOWTIME. Starring Eric Stoltz, Felicity Huffman, Kim Dickens and Dyllan
Christopher, with Justine Bateman and co-starring William H. Macy and Peter
Bogdanovich, the series will premiere Sunday, June 1 at 10:00 PM (ET/PT) with a
special 90-minute pilot. The four additional episodes will air Mondays at 10:00
PM. OUT OF ORDER is a candid look at scenes from a modern, troubled marriage, as
told through the point of view of a successful screenwriter. Written by Donna
Powers & Wayne Powers, The pilot is directed by Wayne Powers. Donna Powers and
Wayne Powers also serve as executive producers. Peter McIntosh serves as
producer.
Ever since he was a boy, Mark (Eric Stoltz) has imagined
his life as a movie -- complete with animals that talk and special effects. But
these days the movie of his life has become a lot more complicated than the
popcorn flicks that he and his wife, Lorna (Felicity Huffman) write for a
living. Their latest project -- a script for an A-list director (Peter
Bogdanovich) -- is complicated by Lorna's battle with clinical depression. She
hasn't written in months and has started to self-medicate, smoking pot and
drinking gin with Steven (William H. Macy), a washed-up producer. Mark, who has
always remained faithful to Lorna despite a wandering eye and blatant come-ons
from a school mom Annie (Justine Bateman), finds himself becoming obsessed with
Danni (Kim Dickens), Danni's son plays soccer with Mark and Lorna's
nine-year-old son, Walter (Dyllan Christopher).
As executive producer Wayne Powers explains, "OUT OF ORDER
may be about a Hollywood marriage, but it's not just another Hollywood story."
-- Official OUT OF ORDER Showtime Press Kit (Releases)
In any movie inspired in whole or in part by real people,
you can't help but wonder where life meets art. In OUT OF ORDER, a series about
the trials and temptations of a successful husband-and-wife screenwriting team,
life and art do more than meet. They climb naked into the hot-tub together, do a
bong hit, and dream up a world that is both heartbreakingly real and hilariously
surreal.
OUT OF ORDER stars Eric Stoltz as Mark, a Hollywood
screenwriter who has managed to remain married -- and faithful -- for 16 years.
Felicity Huffman stars as his wife and writing partner Lorna, who is battling
clinical depression and writer's block with a diet of booze and pot.
At first glance, Mark and Lorna look a lot like Wayne and
Donna Powers, the husband-and-wife screenwriting team who created Out of Order.
"I think of Mark as a fraudulent version of myself," says
Wayne Powers, who also directed the pilot and executive-produced the project
with Donna. "There are a lot of similarities in there -- we have been married
for 19 years and we've lived through several crises -- but it's a fictitious
piece. It is a story about the beauty and brutality of a long-term marriage."
Getting that beauty and brutality first on to the page and
then onto the screen was a cathartic process, say the couple.
Donna, who like Lorna has battled clinical depression,
says, "This is the only movie that we have ever written that was just something
inside we had to get out."
Like Mark and Lorna, Wayne and Donna met at USC Film
School, where they began writing together at the suggestion of a professor. Soon
enough, the professional and personal began to blur. After graduation, Wayne and
Donna wrote for the television series, "Cagney & Lacey" and "The Equalizer" and
features such as "Deep Blue Sea," "Valentine" and "Skeletons in the Closet."
OUT OF ORDER is told through Mark's eyes, which tend to see
life as one big movie. There are talking animals, flashy special effects as well
as the gritty stuff of the human heart. "I think that 90% of art, if I want to
call what we do art, is intuitive and the instinct for this one was to do it in
this very unconventional way," says Donna. "We had been confined to writing
movies the way that somebody else wanted us to write them. So this was a
creative, as well as a personal, catharsis."
In the end, though, the emotional truth of Out of Order is
more important than any parallels one might find between the people on the
screen and the people behind the camera.
"I think we've made something that's very sexy, very
amusing and very mature," she says. "Something that offers more than the
anesthetized view of relationships that we usually get on network television.
This is a show about marriage and life and relationships. But mostly it's about
hope. We're all bound together by the way we live. And that's a good thing."
-- Official OUT OF ORDER Showtime Press Kit (Production
Notes)
Ever since he was a boy, Mark has imagined his life as a
movie, complete with animals that talk and special effects. But these days the
movie of his life has become a lot more complicated than the popcorn flicks that
he and his wife, Lorna, write for a living. Their latest project, a script for
an A-list director is complicated by Lorna's battle with clinical depression;
she hasn't written in months and has started to self-medicate, smoking pot and
drinking gin with Steven, a washed-up producer. Mark, who has always remained
faithful to Lorna despite a wandering eye and blatant come-ons from a school
mom, Annie, finds himself becoming obsessed with Dani, whose son plays soccer
with Mark and Lorna's nine-year-old son, Walter.
As executive producer Wayne Powers explains, "OUT OF ORDER
may be about a Hollywood marriage, but it's not just another Hollywood story."
-- www.tvtome.com
Wayne Powers, who co-created this edgy comedy-drama (and
co-wrote and directed the pilot), describes the series as "a story about the
beauty and brutality of a long-term marriage." Eric Stoltz and Felicity Huffman
perfectly embody the embattled couple, Mark and Lorna, who have made a lucrative
living writing scripts for popcorn flicks in Hollywood. Married for 16 years and
parents of a 9-year-old boy, the couple's fairy-tale life has taken a
nightmarish turn. Their latest script has been rejected; clinically depressed
Lorna has become a moody basket case subsisting on prescription drugs, pot and
gin; and Mark has developed a crush on a comely soccer mom (Kim Dickens).
-- tvguide.com |
