RED LENIN: THE BEARD OF SORROW

Written by
Matthew Lepore

INT. POST 232 - NIGHT

A DIY-garage rock venue. Dimly-lit. Seven or eight TEENAGERS
and TWENTY-SOMETHINGS stand bored at the far end of the
room.
MANAGER (O.S.)
Ladies and gents, prepare yourself
for RED LENIN!
Crumpled band list. On it, among several band names is "red
lenin", circled in red pen.
The crowd claps. THE BAND walks onstage:
PAUL MASON sits behind the drums. Cheesy looking porn
'stache. Wife-beater. This guy just screams "drummer".
JEFF BURNS, rhythm guitar. White as a ghost. He fumbles with
his shit and waves.
BJ 'BOMBER' DAVIS, bassist. Greaser-looking type. Kind of
feminine.
Lastly, JUDAS MASON, Paul's older brother creeps on stage.
Quintessential indie-rocker type. Hip. Well-managed beard.
Judas swaggers up to the mic, guitar in hand.
The band strikes up their first song, A ROCK FOR TWO. Real
heavy pounding rock anthem. The first few chords play and
then-CUT TO:
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Judas sits alone in his room on his bed. Guitar in hand.
Messy. Dark.
A prescription bottle sits, pills spilled out on his drawer.
Judas plays the same chords from A Rock For Two. He's
struggling, and hits a lot of sour notes.
FADE TO BLACK:

2.
EXT. STONEWALL, NEW JERSEY - DAY
We switch to a documentary-style, taking in Stonewall in all
its glory.
A park. A hill. A baseball diamond.
JUDAS (V.O.)
I've always taken inspiration from,
you know, my home-town in my music.
Really, everything I do.
Abandoned factories dot a river. The New York city skyline
from miles and miles away.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
I think the concept of a home town is
really...cool. Like, there's millions
of little clusters you could be from,
but you're from this one.
Boarded-up cinema. Pizzaland, made famous by The Sopranos. A
soccer pitch.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
Just the whole randomness of it all.
But it's not random, cause this is
kinda where you're meant to be--for
better or worse, you know?
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
Talking head of Judas in his room. Lower-third reads: "JUDAS
MASON - SINGER-SONGWRITER".
JUDAS
It's a comforting feeling.
He pauses.
JUDAS (cont'd)
Or, maybe, it's sorta scary? All I
know is...I'm here instead of
somewhere else.
A drumset. Stacks of records. Nintendo Gamecube. The
prescription bottle from before, unopened.
JUDAS (O.S.)
I try to figure shit out like that
with my music.

(CONTINUED)

3.
CONTINUED:
We come back to him.
JUDAS
It helps.
EXT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
Paul sits in front of his garage. Lower-third reads "PAUL
MASON - DRUMMER".
PAUL
Judas is all about the music. We've
been playing in bands together since
we were twelve.
FOUND FOOTAGE of the two, as kids, playing in a youth talent
show.
PAUL (cont'd)
I've always been along for the ride.
He's the guy in the limelight.
Paul plays the drums.
PAUL (cont'd)
I wouldn't call it second banana,
exactly. I prefer to think of myself
as my brother's keeper.
INT. DIAMONDS "OFFICE" - NIGHT
RONNIE DIAMONDS sits at his desk. He's young, really young-too young to convince us that he's the bigshot he presents
himself as. Ill-fitted suit. Sunglass indoors.
Lower-third reads: "RONNIE DIAMONDS - ENTREPRENEUR".
DIAMONDS
Well, you know, I di-scovered the
Masons. Always knew Jude'd especially
had something special in 'im. Very
important to work with 'im. Plus that
sister of his is a stone cold fox.
A family photo of the Masons. The Mason sister's face is
blurred out.
DIAMONDS (cont'd)
What can I say? I'm a man of
business!

4.
EXT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
In-ground pool. White picket fence.
PAUL
Peter's always changing. Changing our
sound. Coming up with new ways to
play music. Making us sound
different.
INT. POST 232 BAR - DAY
BJ and Jeff sit at the bar. They share a lower-third. "BJ &
JEFF - LOYAL BANDMATES".
BJ
The band might as well be called 'The
Judas Mason Project'.
JEFF
Sometimes I don't even strum. When BJ
turns to me and asks what's wrong, I
just say that 'Judas is carryin' it'.
BJ
As far as Jude's concerned, we're
just there as set dressing.
INT. PRACTICE ROOM - DAY
The three band mates sit around as Judas plays.
BJ (V.O.)
Hell, we once sat at a practice for
three hours before he noticed we
weren't playing.
CUT TO:
Judas is still playing. Everyone else has left.
JEFF (V.O.)
And that was only cause we'd gone
home.
INT. THE ANGRY COFFEE BEAN - DAY
Judas sits on a stool, playing acoustic in the corner-stage
of a coffee shop.

(CONTINUED)

5.
CONTINUED:
A poster behind him reads: THE JUDAS MASON PROJECT.
Judas' talking head again.
JUDAS
I like to get away from the band once
in a while. Clear my head. I need to
clear my head a lot, you know?
The cafe is filled with the band mates, Ronnie Diamonds, and
a few more FRIENDS and FANS. One fangirl, MIA MATTERS,
watches him in awe.
JUDAS (cont'd)
Whenever I play these smaller shows,
I get a chance to really connect with
the fans, and shit.
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Shadows of sex on the wall. Judas guts Mia from behind. Wild
stuff. Voyeuristic.
CUT TO:
The two lay in bed. Mia's asleep. Judas gets up and walks to
the dresser. He picks up the prescription bottle. Inspects
it.
He grabs the top.
A beat.
He puts it back down.
Judas looks out the window.
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - EXTERIOR
Paul, sitting in a floating chair in the pool.
PAUL
He started dating this chick. Real
catch.
MONTAGE
- Mia and Judas walk hand-in-hand down the street.
- Mia and Judas share a meal at a cafe.
(CONTINUED)

6.
CONTINUED:
- Mia and Judas screw in the back of a car.
PAUL (V.O.)
Nice rack.
- Judas plays acoustic for Mia. She loves it.
- Judas finished playing. He hands Mia his guitar pick. "M
'n' J" scratched into it.
PAUL (V.O.) (cont'd)
But...suddenly he had no time for
me.
Paul's talking head.
PAUL
It sucked.
INT. DIAMONDS "OFFICE" - DAY
Ronnie checks his cell phone.
DIAMONDS
Amelia. Mia for short. Bad egg. No
good for Jude.
He shows us his phone--a Facebook profile picture for Mia.
DIAMONDS (cont'd)
Sweet piece, though. Not to say
Ronnie Diamonds was jealous or
anything. The Diamond always has a
chick screaming his name.
MOTHER FEINBERG (O.S.)
Ronald Feinberg, get down here this
instant!
Ronnie goes Titanium White.
MOTHER FEINBERG (O.S.) (cont'd)
I told you: dinner, one hour! Your
macaroni's getting cold!
Lower-third comes back, reading: "RONALD FEINBERG - LIVES
WITH MOM".
INT. POST 232 BAR - DAY
Talking heads, BJ and Jeff.
(CONTINUED)

7.
CONTINUED:
BJ
After a while, we stopped playing
shows.
JEFF
We broke up over text. I still have
the texts.
CUT TO:
Jeff reads from his phone.
JEFF (cont'd)
"Dear Brother, BJ, and James."
He looks up.
JEFF (cont'd)
He didn't even know my name. "If you
love something, let it go. I know how
much you guys love me, so I think
it'd be fair if you guys got off my
back. Just kidding. I know you guys
are sick of me. We won't play anymore
shows, or record anymore songs. Think
of it this way...
The crumpled-up band list. Someone steps on it. A shoe print
covers the circled "red lenin".
JEFF (cont'd)
"You are all free now."
EXT. MASON RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Paul sits at the patio table, lit by candlelight.
PAUL
I cancelled so many dates, missed so
many movies, parties, hell, I missed
my own shows, just for him. Just to
play drums in every show he booked.
And he dropped me like that.
The candlewick burns down.
PAUL (O.S.)
But after all that, he still didn't
deserve what she did to him.
The candle goes out.

8.
EXT. STONEWALL, NEW JERSEY - DAY
More postcard shots of a sleepy town. Steel bridge. Passing
cars.
JUDAS (V.O.)
I really like poetry. It helps me to
think. There's a Bukowski poem,
Nirvana, and it's always hit me
pretty hard.
EXT. THE PARK - DAY
Judas walks the path across from a lake.
JUDAS (V.O.)
"Not much chance, completely cut
loose from purpose..."
Judas sits on a park bench.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
That's me to a T.
Talking head of Judas. He laughs.
JUDAS
Anyway, the guy is riding a bus
through the snow, and he's going to
"somewhere". And the bus stops at a
little cafe, or maybe, it's a diner.
Anyway, they stop there.
Mia shows up, and sits down.
JUDAS (V.O.)
He orders food, and takes everything
in. He watches the waitress, he hears
the cook in the back, he watches the
snow.
Judas starts off playful and puts his arm around her. She
brushes it off. He's confused.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
"He wanted to stay in that cafe
forever. The curious feeling swam
through him that everything was
beautiful there, that it would always
stay beautiful there."

(CONTINUED)

9.
CONTINUED:
They fight. Judas is distraught. She's angry. She yells at
him.
She gets up and walks a few steps. Mia rummages through her
bra and tears of the guitar pick necklace she's made. She
throws it at him. Walks away. Doesn't turn back.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
"Then the bus driver told the
passengers that it was time to
board."
He picks up the guitar pick and looks at it a long while.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
"The young man thought--I'll just sit
here. I'll just stay here."
Judas sits down on the park bench.
JUDAS (V.O.) (cont'd)
So he's on the bus. And he looks
around at everyone, and at the snow,
and he notices something.
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
Judas' room. Darker than dark. Judas' talking head. He looks
empty.
JUDAS
"They had not noticed the magic." I
don't really know what it means. But
when I can't clear my head, I just
repeat those words: "I'll just sit
here. I'll just stay here."
The bottle of pills sits torn open. Half-empty.
JUDAS (cont'd)
(broken)
It helps.
EXT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
Paul sits and thinks.
Talking head.

(CONTINUED)

10.
CONTINUED:
PAUL
I reached out to him a couple times.
Wasn't anything I could do.
EXT. STONEWALL, NEW JERSEY - DAY
Rain pounds the town streets.
PAUL (V.O.)
I thought to myself, 'I need my
brother back'. I didn't know what to
do.
People walk hurriedly to get out of the rain.
INT. POST 232 BAR - DAY
BJ
Ronnie contacted us.
JEFF
Said we had a show.
BJ
I had hocked my bass for drugs.
JEFF
Luckily my dad had one from his old
college days.
BJ
I had more fun with the drugs.
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - DAY
JUDAS
When I heard that, you know, the guys
had booked a show, and wanted me to
play again. It made me feel like I
belonged.
He fumbles with his guitar.
JUDAS (cont'd)
Like I mattered. Like I was right
where I was meant to be.

11.
INT. POST 232 - NIGHT
The rock venue again. The same crowd. The same entrance. The
same song.
The band plays the first few chords from A Rock For Two,
then we-CUT TO:
INT. MASON RESIDENCE - NIGHT
Paul. Bed. Guitar. He's strumming the notes, can't form the
chords right. He throws the guitar down.
He goes over to the spilled bottle of pills. He sweeps them
into his hand.
CUT TO:
Judas dumps them in the toilet and flushes. He looks at them
swirl.
He goes back to his guitar and he starts to strum again. He
flubs the notes some more.
He stops. Breathes. Plays again.
After a few missed chords, he finally hits the right note.
He cracks a smile.
He goes to strum again.
FADE OUT