Based on the Movie

Q: How can you tell when a producer is lying to you?A: His lips are moving.Movie madness meets midlife crisis in Billy Taylor's hilarious novel, as a recovering dolly grip battles egos, absurdity, and a soon-to-be-ex-wife, all to keep a really lousy movie from falling to pieces.It's been nine months since Bobby Conlon's wife dumped him for a hot young film director, and he's doing great. Okay, so he occasionally breaks into Natalie's apartment and sobs along to her old Carole King records, but that's only when he's out of meds. He's better now. One hundred percent. And to prove it, he's throwing out that year-old Christmas tree decorated with five hundred empty Vicodin bottles and flying to Texas to work on a movie starring Ralph the Swimming Pig.Once in Texas, Bobby realizes he's signed on to the most dysfunctional movie ever. The director can't direct, the pig catches pneumonia, and just when things can't get any worse, Natalie and her boyfriend are hired to take over the movie. Suddenly, no matter which way Bobby turns, fresh disasters await. Still, in spite of everything, he clings to the hope that a happy ending might still be possible. This is the movie business, right?