SWEET NOVEMBER [2001]

She Just Needed A Month 
To Change His Life Forever

Angelica: You know, there are people who don't work 24 hours a day.
They stop, relax, have lives.
Nelson: I have a life, Angelica, and I'm late for it.

Sara, as Nelson handed her some money: What are you doing?
Nelson: Buying redemption.
 Sara: Redemption's not for sale today, sorry.
 Nelson: Okay, guess I'm going to hell today.

Sara: What do you do, by the way?
Nelson: I'm in advertising.
Sara: Advertising. So you enjoy it?
Nelson: People tend to enjoy what they're really good at.
Sara: So, besides your job, what else makes you miserable?
I mean, what do you do for fun?
[Nelson didn't answer her]
I didn't think so.

Sara: Nelson, I can help you.
I have a gift, a special ability to help men with problems.
Nelson: I don't have problems.
Sara: Now, see that, usually, is the first sign.
Nelson: Of what?
Sara: Denial.
First of all, I think you work too much.
Nelson: Really?
And what do you know about work?
Sara: Plenty.
You admitted you do nothing else and it doesn't make you happy.
Nelson: I admitted nothing. I was silent.
Sara: No special interest, no pets... you hate dogs.
Nelson: Busted.
Actually, I do have a pet, a fish.
Sara: A fish? Doesn't count. Cold-blooded. Sorry.
You are a walking case study.
Look at you.
You're a workaholic at such an advanced stage that your intimacy skills have withered away to almost nothing.
Left untreated, Nelson, you could become emotionally extinct.
Nelson: Out of sheer perverse curiosity, how does a lunatic like you help a guy like me?
Sara: You live in a box.
I could lift the lid, let some light in.
Nelson: Wow, that's deep. I feel almost cured just hearing it.
Sara: If you want my help, it'll require a commitment on your part.
You have to live with me here for a month.
No more, no less, and no work allowed.
Nelson: You don't even know me and you're inviting me to move in?
And how's my girlfriend supposed to feel about that?
Sara: Girlfriend? You don't have a girlfriend.
I mean, it's something that you feel.
There's something intimate a woman leaves on a man that you don't have.
Nelson: Her name's Angelica.
Sara: Well, I feel sorry for Angelica.

October's almost over.
We can start midnight, first of November.
If you're brave enough to commit, I'll devote myself entirely to you.
~Sara Deever

Nelson: Still friends?
 Sara: Only if you give me what I want.
Nelson: What?
Sara: Time.

Try to be wrong once in a while.
It'll do my ego blood.
~Nelson Moss

Nelson: Why'd you quit?
Sara: It started out small and then it got big.
Nelson: That's generally considered a good thing in business.
Sara: Yeah, well, everything got big.
Egos, lives, desires.
I didn't like the big me.
I wasn't very happy.

Marry me.
I stood on the street, and I realized, this is it.
Life will never be better or sweeter than this.
I'm happy.
I'm in love.
Marry me.
~Nelson Moss

She told me if she couldn't live a normal life, 
she was determined to live an abnormal one the the best way she could.
~Chaz Watley

Nelson: She loves life more than anyone I've ever met.
How can she just give up?
Chaz: You listening to anything I'm telling you?
She's not giving up.
She's making the most of the time she's got left.
Don't mess with that.

Sara: You know, he asked me to marry him.
Chaz: He's not the first.
Sara: No, but it was the first time I wanted to say yes.
Chaz: So why didn't you?
Sara: Because, Chaz, I let the whole thing go too far.
Chaz: Too far for who?
Sara: Both of us.

Chaz: He'll be back if you let him.
Sara: I don't want him to come back.
Chaz: It's okay to break your own rules, Sara.
You fell in love, that's great.
It may not follow your master plan, but you can't control everything.

Nelson: For you, my sweet Sara, I bring you 12 gifts of Christmas.
1, the famous Colombo log. The salami that started it all.
2, a kaleidoscope of a coiffeur, for the barking-mad pet crusader.
Number 3, a bullwhip for the dizzy dominatrix,
so you can rule your world in style and whip me into shape.
4, I present, Sara, a custom-made fragrance capturing that special something a woman leaves on a man.
Sara: Nelson, this is...
Nelson: Only the beginning.
5, why is Harriet so Hairy?
The definitive guide to understanding our transvestite firends.
6, tiny bubbles, for those leisurely soaks we love so much.
Number 7, a hundred mini train tokens for the many, many great rides of your life.
Number 8, a collection of music to swoon by.
Which, by the way, happens to go very nicely with gift number 9,
dance classes.
Mildred's Academy of Dance, guaranteed to get you off my toes in a week.
Sara: You sure?
Nelson: I'm positive.
Number 10, for the gentle lady who hates doing dishes.
Sara: A dishwasher! Whooooooaaaa!!!!!
Nelson, this is too much.
Nelson: It's not enough.
Number 11, live, and in your apartment, back by popular demand, I give you... Ernie!
Sara, hug Ernie: Hi, baby, I miss you.
Nelson: And if this last gift doesn't prove how much I love you, nothing will.
[Nelson sings]

 Nelson: Sara, please, I'm not leaving you.
I know you love me.
Sara: I do.
 I've never felt anything like this before.
I never thought I'd have the chance, and you gave that to me, Nelson.
Nelson: Then why are you doing this?
Sara: Because it's starting to happen.
Nelson: I don't care.
Sara: Nelson, if you leave now, everything we had will be perfect forever.
Nelson: Sara, life isn't perfect.
Sara: All we have is how you'll remember me.
And I need that memory to be strong and beautiful.
If I know that I'm remembered that way, then I can face anything. Anything.
Nelson, you're my immortality.
Nelson: I want to take care of you.
Sara: I'm gonna be all right. I'm going home. They know I'm coming.
I need to do this.
Nelson: It doesn't seem...
Sara: Just like I need to know that you'll go on and have a beautiful life.
The one you deserve.
Nelson: I only want you.
Sara: You have me forever.
Now let me go.

*****

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE [1997]

Evil Has Its Winning Ways

 I need a quote. Give me a quote.
"Mr. Lomax had no comment on today's events.
Speculation, however, was widespread that the young lawyer's unblemished string of victories would come to an end in this courtroom."
It was a nice run, Kev.
Had to close out someday.
Nobody wins them all.
~Larry

Alice: Let me tell you about New York.
"Fallen, fallen, is Babylon.
It has become a dwelling place of demons." Revelation 18.
Wouldn't hurt you to look it over.
Kevin: Couldn't forget it if I tried.
Alice: Oh, really? And what happened to Babylon?
Kevin: "Thou mighty city, in one hour has thy mighty judgement come.
And the light of a single lamp shall shine in thee no more."

Kevin: It's been great. The whole thing's been great.
John: That's our secret. Kill you with kindness.

Jackie: I want to see Leamon, I make an appointment.
Mary Ann, giggles: You're kidding, right?
[Jackie shaking her head] God, how you handle it?
Jackie: Take a look around, honey.
Look, you've got 3 choices.
The Holy Trinity; you can work, you can play, or you can breed.

I'm the hand of Monalisa's skirt.
I'm a surprise, Kevin.
They don't see me coming.
That's what you're missing.
~John Milton

If you never see your husband, have a relationship with his money.
~Diana Barzoon

I know we have all this money and it's supposed to be fun, but it's not!
It's like a test.
The whole thing is like one big test.
~Mary Ann Lomax

Maybe it's true.
Maybe God threw the dice once too often.
Maybe He let us all down.
~John Milton

John: Got to go with your gut.
Kevin: That's your advice?
John: I'll back you either way.
Maybe it's your time to lose.
Think I haven't lost before?

I know why this is happening.
It's the money. Blood money.
We just drank it down, both of us.
We knew it.
Winning those cases, taking the money.
We knew they were guilty, but you just kept on winning every time.
~Mary Ann Lomax

Kevin: What did you do to Mary Ann?
John: Free will. It's like butterfly wings.
Once touched, they never get off the ground.
I only set the stage. You pull your own strings.
Kevin: What did you do to Mary Ann? [point a gun to John]
John: A gun? In here?
Kevin: Goddamn it, what did you do to my wife?
John: Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, 
10 being the most depraved act of sexual theater known to man,
1 being your average Friday night run-through at the Lomaxes,
I'd say, not to be immodest, Mary Ann and I got it on at about 7.
Kevin: FUCK YOU!!!! [shooting John]

Kevin: Who are you?
John: Who am I?
Who are you?
Never lost a case, why? Why do you think?
Because you're so fucking good? Yes! But why?
Kevin: Because you're my father?
John: I'm a little more that that, Kevin.
Awfully hot in that courtroom, wasn't it?
"What's the game plan, Kevin?
It was a nice run, Kev. had to close out someday.
Nobody wins them all."
Kevin: What are you?
John: Oh, I have so many names...
Kevin: Satan!
John: Call me dad.

I want you to be yourself.
Guilt... it's like a bag of fucking bricks.
All you got to do is set it down.
~John Milton

Let me give you a little inside information about God. 

God likes to watch. He's a prankster. 

Think about it. 

He gives man instincts. 

He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, 
I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, 
He sets the rules in opposition. 

It's the goof of all time. 

Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow.

And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? 

He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off! 
He's a tight-ass! 
He's a SADIST! 
He's an absentee landlord! 

Worship that? 
NEVER! 

~John Milton

Kevin: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," is that it?
John: Why not?

Kevin: In the Bible you lose.
We're destined to lose, Dad.
John: Consider the Source, son.

Diaboli virtus in lumbis est. Diaboli virtus in lumbis est. 

The virtue of the devil is in his loins. 

~John Milton

*****