Synopsis of
I'M INNOCENT!
All screenplays/scripts by Susan Griffith and Emily Cooper
are protected by copyright through the United States Copyright Office and by registration with WGAW (Writer's Guild of American, West.)
Synopsis of
STET
This movie invents competitive grammar and punctuation events -- much more interesting to watch and participate in than spelling bees!
A diverse group of ten and eleven year olds led by one feisty teacher form a grammar and spelling club and train hard for an editing competition, despite the opposition of the principal, who in a spell-check world devalues both excellence in spelling and grammar and the abilities of these students.
When the group arrives at that out-of-town contest they find their opponents will all be college students. Will they compete?
2018 Susan Griffith and Emily Cooper
CooperGriffith (Screenwriting Duo)
Synopsis of
HEY, SOOS!
Gill Watts is the nerdiest man in the world, as well as the richest, but he will not share - not even with his deaf son, Gilly, who wants to save the impoverished Indian Reservation where his
girlfriend lives. Gilly speaks, lipreads and signs, and his drumming is sweet.
Enter, apparently from Mexico, new houseman Jesus (Hey, Soos!) whose futuristic translation
app allows him to speak and understand any language - even sign, and he and Gilly hit it off with the first ever sign-language rap battle. Jesus has a terrible sense of direction, a terrible sense
of proper clothing and a terrible sense of what is appropriate conversation, but he can perform -- Oh! and he can change water into wine.
Jesus, believing that Heaven picked Gill to receive the ability to make lots of money and now
expects to see that money making a major positive impact on the world, shows Gill a video of his past life and its focus only upon accumulating money – but Gill does not hear the A Christmas Carol message in it – and he still does not hear it later when his son's now-pregnant girlfriend
becomes dangerously ill.
Finally, when Gill Watts is alone and in jail for the very, very stupid driving expected of the oblivious, chauffeured rich guy that he is, an A Christmas Carol nightmare of a terrible future finally drives home his need to change.
Gill rides a bicycle night and day to get to his son at the reservation, and, once there, he donates the billions it takes to save the reservation and his grandchild. Jesus leaves, heading back to Heaven - or Tijuana.
Cheeky manservant brings A Christmas Carol drama to stingy rich guy's house. Is this man Jesus
(“Heysoos”) a WTF dude from Tijuana or the WWJD man from Heaven?
Synopsis of
OF COLOR
Bo, a depressed light-skinned woman who lives in black and white (within a black and white film), finds increasing dashes of color in her life as she begins a friendship with her neighbor Jet, although she persists with her plan to jump to her death from a hot air balloon.
Knowledge about her dark-skinned father abruptly brings color to her world -- and to the film. Will it be enough to make her life worth living?
Synopsis of
TOOLIE
Twelve-year-old tool-belt-wearing Julie (named Toolie by her baby sister) lives with a family that is oblivious to the creative home improvements she designs and constructs -- and she wants to escape.
When she finds herself to be as small in scale as the tiny scale model of her house that she has built in the backyard, she moves in, unaware that she will find herself at the mercy of the much-larger world outside that house and missing her family.
Tool-belt-wearing Julie ('Toolie' to her baby sister) makes creative home improvements but her family is oblivious. She wants to escape to the tiny scale model of her home she has built in the backyard.
Living in a colorless world without emotion, pale Bo is about to jump from a hot air balloon when, learning that her late father was a dark-skinned man, she accepts emotion and color into her life - and the movie.
Led by their feisty cheerleader teacher and despite the resistance of the principal, a spunky group of misfit middle-schoolers prepares for an editing competition that turns out to be a college-level contest.
Synopsis of
T HANKS GIVING
This is a comedy/drama with music and main characters singing throughout and a cameo forTom Hanks. And it's a movie designed to be seen on Thanksgiving Day, the one day when families are together and will go to a G-movie.
T. HanksGiving -- an It’s a Wonderful Life for Thanksgiving, a better Chevy Chase holiday movie, and, okay, a Jerry Maguire guy role -- is a movie from the 30’s made for today.
T. HanksGiving follows Albert Roth (played by two actors, as a younger man and as a more middle-aged man), first at college, where he attracts the glamour girl, but loses her to his more wealthy roommate. Deeply hurt, Albert learns about economic success from his college classes, observes the success of the Condor social club, and sets out for elitist success.
Along the way he befriends K.T. (played first by a younger actress and later by a more middle-aged one), with whom he enjoys music, but he drops her for a stylish, high society-bound assistant and companion, Cologne and he pursues a more rarefied life as a video master of negativity.
At the top of Albert’s success K.T. re-enters his life and the two become bonded -- humorously and romantically -- as Albert’s professional world crashes: His lucrative contract for a cynical movie for television is lost when, by mistake, the wrong film is previewed: K.T.’s uplifting Thanksgiving film. Albert has won the right girl -- and eventually the right slant for his career.
The movie’s audio track, is mainly old standards with a few original tunes.
Midwest student creates elite, critical persona to impress the frat elite and goes on to fame for his negatively-slanted films - until he hooks up with KT, who through a mistake changes his focus and his personality.
Celebrity impersonator Marco Romano is a former hippy who has used marijuana and too much alcohol. He likes to creatively meet the needs of people around him, sometimes passing as someone he is not – he cons for “good”.
A surprise haircut from Marco’s long-suffering girlfriend Courtney produces an uncanny resemblance to newly- chosen Pope Innocent. Marco’s agent Moe notices the resemblance and gets Marco a job impersonating the Pope at the grand opening of Pope Mall. A video of the event goes to the Internet.
Guardians at the Vatican notice Marco in the footage online and dispatch two representatives to the US to recruit Marco for a very important job. After he is certain that they are not Mafiosi collecting on Courtney’s drug debt, Marco listens to their proposition - that he impersonate the "indisposed” Pope at public appearances for a week or two. No speaking will be necessary. The money is good, so Marco accepts the offer.
Marco takes leave from the life he knows: from girlfriend Courtney; from his mama, who, though confined to a nursing home, does not miss an opportunity to tell him how he has fallen short from his younger brother Michael, a priest and the apple of their mother’s eye, who is also disdainful towards Marco; and from Moe, his agent and friend from a checkered past who now finds Marco just enough legit work.
Marco’s first balcony appearance is a challenge, given his fear of heights, but little more was required of the Pope than Marco can deliver by standing and waving. Only an inner circle of assistants know that Marco is a Pope substitute.
When drunk, the Pope falls and hits his head, resulting in a brain injury that requires a medically induced coma of indeterminate length. Marco is asked to stay on longer to cover for the Pope.
Marco sees the job of Pope as making life and all people better, but, despite reading everything he can get his hands on at the Vatican and online, he can find no job description for Pope that addresses how a man of such power can "make good happen."
Finding nothing and no one to guide him, Marco, disguised as a workman in a Vatican lunchroom, talks with various pilgrims to the Vatican and gains perspective on the needs of Catholics. And he studies social media, sending supportive tweets to Catholics and collecting through email funds needed for hunger.
He talks to the Pope while he is in a coma, and with him when he awakens. As the Pope returns to full consciousness, he shares his wish to end the alcohol dependence that came with his pain of wanting to make amends for the pain priests have given boys of the Church.
The two men, fast friends, proceed toward different futures: One man will leave the Vatican to go into the world and act for good there, while the other will change the role of Pope in new positive ways.