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Milk Duds: The Trailer

By Bruce Buschel

ACT ONE: Boy Meets Candy

fade in: Popcorn, large

cut to: Milk Duds, box

slo-mo: misshapen spheres

cascade onto buttery maize

intimations of endless bounty

hand disappears into bag (MOS)

scoops up a lovely melange

dark balls and white fluff

sweet chocolate and salty corn

match made in casting kitchen

VO: “The journey has begun —

as American as Shinnecocks

as rich as Milton Hershey

as suspenseful as a Damon

and/or Affleck spy thriller.”

ergo: born to be a cash cow

open wide and say moo-lahhh

ACT TWO: Boy Loses Candy

rack focus: one odd Milk Dud

neither caramel nor gooey

but hard and malty and round

freeze frame: it’s a Whopper!

guest cameo or McGuffin?

 

halfway through the bag

inciting insight is cited:

you are halfway through the bag!

VO: “Nothing lasts forever.”

tears appear in blue eyes

one tear breaks loose, rolls

ECU: price tag — $2.50

reverse angle: bottle of water

Clint squint foreshadows violence

swish pan: dream sequence

Chekhov’s gun in Bunuel’s eye

man on iPhone shot thru head

 

ACT THREE: Boy Gets Candy

angle on: a fistful of Popcorn

cue Ennio Morricone sound track

VO: “In a world of salt and

unpopped kernels, every man

searches for the last Milk Dud.”

montage: paper bag. beating heart.

great plains. German shepherd.

cymbals crash as the last Milk Dud

is found in the bag’s darkest corner

EXT: dissolve to mouth.

INT: dissolve in mouth. le fin.

closing credits roll:

special thanks to Hershey, PepsiCo

Syd Field, Anton Chekhov, Malpaso

Ennio Morricone, George Wallace

Hitch, Luis Bunuel, 2 Weinsteins

Voice-over by Don LaFontaine

    Written on location, Bridgehampton, New York.

    No candy was harmed during the making of this poem.

 

 

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