Thursday, April 18, 2024
Monday, April 15, 2024
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
Friday, August 12, 2022
What is even more Inconceivable!
Now there is a spin-out from Inconceivable! titled The Pregnant Adventures of Helene Talos. Will this action-packed screenplay about the transformation of a 30s NYC woman from hipster to momster find some traction on the path to a producer? It is written as a classic 3-act script, 15 beats totaling 49 scenes, 67 pages, 51% dialogue. All locations in NYC, strong female lead with diverse female supporting roles. Feel good ending with a feel-good twist. Perfectly packaged for a professional, prodigious producer.
Poster copy: "Is it better to love or to be loved?"
There is a producer with rights of first look...truly, even more inconceivable! What shall the next project be? Maybe a witch, a crime series, a dog movie or something else equally and totally unthought of...
registered WGA 8/11/22
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Inconceivable! once again way ahead of the news...
The Las Vegas man accused of holding his girlfriend hostage, murdering her 4-year-old son and keeping his remains in the garage freezer now claims the boy’s mother aided in the cover-up.
Brandon Toseland, 35, has been charged with the murder of Mason Dominguez, child abuse, kidnapping and domestic violence after Mason’s mother, Dahsia Maldonado, snuck a note pleading for help to her 7-year-old daughter’s teachers in February.
From the NY Daily News, May 3, 2022
Monday, May 2, 2022
Contemporary drama with comedic and historic elements. Strong female lead and supporting roles
Book
to Screen Submission
Title:
Inconceivable!
Logline: Inconceivable! is a contemporary drama
with historic and comedic elements about Helene Talos, a young, married,
soon-to-be mom in NYC who wants nothing more than to deliver a healthy baby and
keep her athlete’s body at the same time. When she is assaulted by a new mother
and the end of her first trimester, only a rare and dangerous medical procedure
saves the baby. Helene is forced in her second trimester to keep still and “wrestle
in bed” with visitors who have secrets, conflicts and opinions of their own. Society’s expectations about the size, shape,
and purpose of everyone’s breasts is subtly and cleverly layered throughout her
encounters.
Inconceivable! is
driven to its surprise hysterical conclusion by unforgettable female characters
of all ages who want to help Helene, but they all have secrets, motivations,
and breasts of their own…
…Not to mention her dazed and confused husband, Greco,
who cannot wait to make cheese from her breast milk.
Genre: Contemporary
drama with historical and comedic elements, featuring strong female lead and
supporting roles.
A-list
talent, big budget, international locations, no sex or violence.
Agent’s feedback:
“The strongest thing about Inconceivable! is
that it takes a very singular issue, i.e. Helene and Greco’s anxiety about
their pregnancy, and branches out from that into a detailed journey through
their pasts and heritage. The method of using short chapters to juggle
viewpoints from multiple characters works well and kept me interested
throughout. I was impressed by the overall scope of the story and more
specifically, by the skill with which the author has developed a dozen (or so!)
key characters. By the epilogue, everything came together nicely and I wasn’t left
wondering about loose ends. It’s an interesting story and fun to read!”
Bio: Steve Marshall Cohen began his writing
career as a journalist, covering corporate finance, venture capital and
entrepreneurship - where everything is researched, factual and technical, and
where everything he wrote was published within a week. He thought it
would be fun to write fiction, where he could choose the topic, what to
research and where he could take creative liberties with the facts. Steve
chose a common topic - pregnancy - and treated it in a uncommon way, seeking to
fuse a journalist's training with a novelist's creativity. The result is Inconceivable!
Steve lives and writes in Hunter, NY in the literal
shadow of Hunter Mountain, where sunset in the winter is about 3:30pm.
That means lots of long, cold winter nights in front of the fireplace and
the keyboard.
Plot: Helene learns she is pregnant and is at once
over-joyed and over-whelmed. Her loving
husband Greco is over-joyed and under-prepared for the coming 40 weeks. Their doctor requires that they complete a
pre-natal questionnaire known as “The Family Pedigree Questionnaire” [“FPQ”]. Each question takes them on a different
journey into the past, with its tear-jerking secrets, and soul changing conflicts.
Helene thinks she is Irish – she’s not, we find out
when Greco returns from a sudden European trip.
Greco thinks he is Greek – he’s not, we find out when Shaina (Greco’s
client) uncovers her own past in a world-war II orphanage in Ireland.
Characters:
· Helene
Talos, young, athletic mom-to-be, wife of
Greco. Competitive amateur road-runner
with flourishing career as a wig-designer for women with hair loss from
chemo-therapy and other medical conditions. Also, glamour wig designer for
theatrical productions, Broadway, fashion shoots.
· Alais,
her Irish, widowed, mother
· Dr.
Arnez, her also pregnant gynecologist
· Dr.
Portnoy, her indecipherable genetic specialist
· Dr.
CC, her high school friend and drug dealer
· Shaina,
a world leading fashion model, with Ph.d. in European history and a deep desire
to be more than a clothes hanger.
· Greco,
Helen’s husband, a location scout for a large ad agency
· Plexi,
Greco’s uncle, manager of “Protector of Crete” diner in Queens, NY, holocaust
survivor
· Althea,
Greco’s mother, a waitress at the diner, sister of Plexi
· Little
Flower, Greco’s colleague at the agency
· Supporting
roles of many ethnicities and races, including Rastafarian, Northern Irish,
Eastern European, Southern Italian, Japanese, Transgender.
Note: This novel/script
extremely timely now with its layers of breast-feeding, the role of breasts in
self-esteem and racial disparities in NYC.
Status: Self-published
novel with Amazon sales; uncirculated adapted screenplay. Part II (“Born an Orphan”) & III (“Truth
and Ruth”) of trilogy in progress.
Author also has TV series pitch deck ("Soon To Parent”) based on
characters in the novel.
Contact: Steve Marshall Cohen
smarshallcohen@usa.net
917 589 8862
Alternate
Log lines:
Inconceivable!
by Steve Marshall Cohen
(A)
Inconceivable! is a
contemporary drama with historic and comedic elements about Helene Talos, a
young mother to be in NYC who faces the challenges of her pregnancy – assault,
genetic risks, generational secrets, and conflicted doctors and friends – while her husband’s job sends him
around the world with a gorgeous super-model who knows beauty is only skin
deep. As her due date approaches, her
prenatal classmate threatens to destroy everything she did to protect her
baby.
(B)
Wanting to know the gender of their baby, Helene and
Greco Talos, a 30something NYC couple, go the gyn for a test. Giving “informed consent” for the procedure provokes
a chain of events that reveals no one in either family is who they think they
are. Over 10 full moons, Helene struggles with family, drugs, and self-esteem
as her body changes. Greco loves her new
body, especially her bigger breasts, even though he works with super-models all
day.
After 40 weeks, all exhibit high anxiety when the baby
refuses to be born on schedule.
Contemporary drama with comedic and historic elements.
Strong female leads and supporting characters for women aged 20 to 70.
Inconceivable! by Steve Marshall Cohen
(C)
The simple desire of a conflicted young mother in NYC,
Helene Talos, to know the gender of her unborn, sets off an inconceivable chain
of events, involving genetic research, super-models, medical miracles and a celebration
of a little-known chapter in Irish history. Her dazed and dizzy husband Greco does his
best to keep up, but Helene’s adventures lead to dangerous circumstances for both,
especially in the last days before the due date.
Inconceivable!
is a contemporary drama that covers on trend issues including pregnancy, genetic
science, homelessness, orphans, and the aftermath of WWII. And throughout, Inconceivable! has a
keen focus on women’s breasts – their size, shape, and function in contemporary
culture.
Contact Steve Marshall Cohen
smarshallcohen@usa.net
917 589 8862
Inconceivable! has it all
Like the long cool woman in a black dress, Inconceivable! has it all. Ukraine history, birth, death, female lead with female supporting roles - an androgynous genetic counselor, a Barbra Streisand impersonator, a mother who breastfeeds in public - while smoking and drinking! - and a breast cancer survivor. All woven together so subtly that you hardly know you've just seen all that! Plus, karaoke and comic relief. Current and timeless at the same time. When Inconceivable! comes to the screen, viewers will agree Inconceivable! has it all.
Friday, April 29, 2022
Flashback to Eastern Ukraine:
integral scene in Inconceivable!
Producers, if you want a movie with a relevant Ukraine component, read Inconceivable!
Authentic flashback scenes to the annihilated village of Lubomyl in 1941.
Written long before the currrent war...
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Inconceivable! You can read the script here:
https://www.inktip.com/script/1h6im3u_inconceivable-by-steve-marshall-cohen
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Inconceivable! Perfect for Untitled Entertainment to executive produce!
- Hard to tell from the logline, but Inconceivable! features a leading character who is a super-model played against type -- Shaina Jaantee is drop-dead gorgeous, but at the same time. a student of World War II history, brilliantly entrepreneurial, interested in the history of fashion, and produces a show in Ireland focused-on the lost fashions and culture of Eastern Europe before World War I. (How timely!)
- Untitled Entertainment, founded by Weinberg and Stephanie Simon, has offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, representing top talent including Madonna, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Jared Leto; fashion figures Christie Brinkley, Naomi Campbell and Joan Smalls, and actors Jane Fonda, Naomi Watts, Uma Thurman and Penélope Cruz.
Monday, April 18, 2022
Synopsis of Inconceivable! Available to Big Budget Film Producers. Completed script available via Ink Tip platform.
Synopsis of Inconceivable! by Steve Marshall Cohen
Time and
Place: 1999, New York City
Genre: Contemporary Drama with historic and comedic elements
Leading role: Helene Talos, early 30s, athletic, wig designer by trade,
married, pregnant
Helene Talos
is frantic, buying pregnancy and childcare books at Barnes & Noble on 5th
Ave in Manhattan. When she gets outside,
she is overcome with emotion, spins the bags around her and the books fly out,
hitting pedestrians, taxicabs and a baby in a stroller. She is arrested for assault and her husband
Greco must bolt from a business meeting to bail her out at Midtown South. That’s when she tells him she’s pregnant. No
one presses charges and she is released.
The next
morning, they go to her gyn, Dr. Edie Arnez who asks them to give “informed
consent” for a medical procedure. But
neither can answer the required questions about their ancestry. Helene’s father committed suicide, and her
mother refuses to say why. Greco
confronts his mother at the Greek diner where she is waitress, but she refuses
to reveal the truth about his father, who he has never known. Her uncle backs
her up.
Greco Talos
is a location scout for an ad agency. He is assigned to accompany Shaina
Jaantje, a world-famous super model, on a location shoot in Ireland. Due to
volcanic ash in the atmosphere, the flight is diverted from Dublin to Berlin.
Greco seizes the chance to follow-up on clues to his background, leaving Shaina
stranded in Dublin and Helene in NYC, pregnant, conflicted and pregorexic (anorexia
while pregnant). In an annihilated village (shtetl) in the Pale region of
Ukraine, Greco meets Hershl Chosid, the local historian, who tells him the
story of Herman Peltze, via flashback.
FLASHBACK TO EASTERN UKRAINE, 1944
How Helene’s father escaped the massacre of his shtetl.
Betrayal…
FLASHBACK TO DUBLIN, IRELAND, 1945
How Helene’s father and mother met and married. Irish love story…
Shaina uses
her time in Ireland to research local history. [Shaina is played against type:
the is drop-dead super-model, and deeper, highly intelligent and
entrepreneurial, with a keen interest in World War II history and
culture]. She brings her entourage to
Clonyn Castle, which had a past as an orphanage after WWII. Her boytoy Irish lad is so in love with her,
he visits a synagogue in Cork to find out more about the orphans. [Script note: for the role, import an
unknown, young, red head, Irish Catholic actor and make him a break-out
international star!] After attending a sabbath service at a Jewish synagogue in
Cork, he learns how 100 Jewish orphans lived at the castle in his village. One resident orphan was Shaina’s father –
others were Greco’s uncle and his
mother.
When Greco
finally gets to Ireland, he makes a radical proposal to Shaina – that they both
abandon the Irish tourist campaign and instead, charter trips following the
path of the orphans from the battlefields and concentration camps of Poland and
Ukraine to the castle in Westmeath and then to NYC. In a quintessential Irish pub in Westmeath,
Ireland, she agrees and carries the plan back to her client in Dallas.
Meanwhile,
back in NYC, Helene goes for a morning bike ride and CRASHES! Nearly killing an
infant and killing a puppy. She is
assaulted by the enraged new mom, triaged at the scene, and undergoes emergency
surgery to save the fetus and her own life.
[This is played for tears, as classic operating room drama, with beeping
monitors, dripping IVs, sweaty brows – all women. [Female surgeon is hero!]
Complete bed
rest is prescribed, so Helene pretends to stay in but, but has a series of
visitors at her too-small lower east side Manhattan doorman apartment. Dr Coeyman brings drugs, her mother brings
organic tea but refuses to tell the truth, Madama Bernardaud, a high-society
wig client who reveals her double-mastectomy when asked about breast-feeding.
Dr. Portnoy, the androgynous genetic counselor confronts Helene with her tox
screen – it’s filled with “unknowns” from Dr. CC. Helene must get clean now! or
the baby might have birth defects.
Her high school
best friend who is now a “pain doctor” who lives to prescribe. Dr. CC is the villain, always lurking, ready
to supply Helene with any and every drug throughout her pregnancy. [She appears while Helene is in labor,
offering an injection to ease her pain.]
Starting the
third trimester, they go to a pre-natal seminar and meet Shayla Willians, who
desperately needs scalp medication and a wig. She turns out to be another
threat to Helene’s pregnancy, with just ten weeks to go. Helene and Greco visit Shayla’s’ slum apt in
Harlem to give her a new “do” when, EXPLOSION!
Greco is the hero, running into the burning building to pull Helene and
Shayla downstairs before the roof collapses on them. No time to grab the
cocaine Shayla left in the apartment. [Foreshadow – cocaine addicted baby.]
They are
still in search of the reason for Helene’s father’s suicide – they search her
childhood home and find the answer! In a
closet in a sealed box marked Casa Susanna are pictures of her father
cross-dressed as Connie Francis. Daddy
was a tranny in the 50’s – unbearable embarrassment for Helene’s mother. Helene knows exactly how to confront her
mother now – she calls a client and sets up a date for a night at Lucky Chengs,
a world-famous NYC drag bar and cabaret.
Her mother FAINTS! when Barbra Streisand turns out to be a man, but now
she is willing to admit the truth.
Helene feels
no contractions as the pregnancy matures to 40 weeks. On the tenth full moon she convinces Greco to
go for a MOONDANCE!, where she will dance naked in the moonlight, hoping the
lunar pull at full moon-high tide will act on her own water. Homeless men gather ‘round her in the dark –
in a FLASH! they have Greco’s face in the frozen mud and are threatening
Helene. One of the homeless men looks
vaguely familiar – have they met before? The threat dissolves into help the
couple get home safely. But – still,
after all that stress, no symptoms of imminent birth.
They are
still in search of the reason for Greco’s mother’s secrecy about her husband,
Greco’s father. With the photos he got from Shaina’s trip to Clonyn Castle, he
confronts his mother and uncle in the basement of their diner. She confesses: Talos is an adopted name; the
family is Ashkenazi from the Pale and her husband was a crown heights orthodox
jew killed in Viet Nam, never knowing he was a father-to-be. His mother dated just this once and never
again.
DECEPTION!
Dr CC sneaks into Helene’s labor room to give her an powerful injection to ease
the delivery. Dr Arnez enters just in
time to prevent the injection – a tense confrontation over who’s drugs are
better!
EMERGENCY!
Shayla goes into labor when she learns her boyfriend Cedric has been killed in
a tragic traffic accident. She’s gurneyed into the delivery room just before
Dr. Arnez’s water breaks – and Helene is still getting nowhere. After hours of pitocin drip, she feels
deepening contractions and now all three women are in the delivery room at the
same time: Dr. Arnez delivering the drug-addicted baby, Dr. Arnez having her
own contractions and Helene on the bed, but still not dilating! Tragically,
Shayla lives only long enough to glimpse her baby for a moment and to hear it
scream the pain of withdrawal.
KARAOKE to
the rescue! Greco enters the delivery room in scrubs and performs “Dizzy”. [Tommy Roe, 1969] The laughter causes
convulsions and – finally -- baby Truth crowns! Moments later, Dr. Arnez lies
down, and her baby comes! That is one
busy delivery room! Exhausted nurses congratulate themselves – 3 babies
delivered in 10 minutes!
The next
morning, Helene’s reluctance to breastfeed has vanished and she leaves the
hospital with Greco, and an infant at each breast – her white baby Truth and
black baby Ruth, whose parents Shayla and Cedric are dead. To all friends and relatives gathered in the
hospital lobby, Helene shouts “Twins!” Her neighbors on the Lower East Side, led by
her tipsy doorman, meet them at the sidewalk and sing Handel’s Hallelujah!
Chorus, KARAOKE style. She exits the NYPD squad car driven by the same cop who
arrested her in Scene 1.
THE END
EPILOGUE
INSERT
SERIES OF SCENES THAT WRAP-UP ALL THE SUPPORTING ROLES IN A PRETTY BOW AS THE
CREDITS ROLL. THESE ARE POIGNANT AND
FUNNY.
Contact:
Steve Marshall Cohen, 917 589 8862, smarshallcohen@usa.net
LA Feature Film Producer seeking high concept, dramatic A-list finished scripts, consider Inconceivable!
Inconceivable!
Central Crisis: Helene Talos, a married young mother
to be, wants her baby but doesn’t want to gain weight, eat better, get off
drugs, breast-feed or slow down her competitive business or amateur running
career. In nine months, Helene deals
with pregorexia (fear of gaining weight during pregnancy), assault, high risk
pre-natal surgery, the secrets her mother kept from her, lice, explosions and her karaoke-prone
husband, Greco.
Main Character: Helene Talos, 30s successful wig
designer to the stars and upper elites of society. Married
to Greco, a location scout for a large NY advertising agency. The typical double-income, no kids couple go
the gyn for a first trimester check-up and the secrets of their ancestors begin to emerge. Genetic counseling from an androgynous
therapist helps Helene develop into a proud mother of inter-racial twins.
General Setting and tone: Inconceivable! is set in
1999 in New York City. It has the tone
of Moonstruck mixed with As Good as it Gets and a little When
Harry Met Sally. There are also
historic elements and diverse female supporting roles. (Sequels take place in
2001, when the towers fall on the new parents and the last of the trilogy in 2005, when the twins start school.)
Status: completed screenplay Inconceivable!
based on self-published novel with the same title. Can share script
instantaneously via Ink Tip platform.
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Inconceivable! marketing status report:
Registered at WGA-East, I348062
1 pitch feedback received via Stage 32 - positive! (Meehan)
3 pitches outstanding via Stage 32 - Barkan, Ewing, Terpilowski
1 query responded to via Ink Tip - preferred lead 3bnwf3xt5j
Indexed at Ink Tip as of today
"Big Break" contest entered via Final Draft - finalists announced January 28, 2022.
6 hard copies duplicated, ready for mailing
Thursday, September 23, 2021
The Plagues of Helene Talos
In Inconceivable!, the pregnant female protagonist Helene Talos, faces ten plagues in nine months.
Can she conquer them all and deliver a happy, healthy baby?
- pregorexia
- crash
- assault
- surgery
- secrets and lies
- self-pity
- lice
- explosion
- labor
- the F.P.Q.
Monday, September 13, 2021
(written by a Ph.D. dissertation coach)
Review of Inconceivable! by Steve Marshall Cohen
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Good Day and Welcome to my two-page pitch for Inconceivable!
I was a successful business journalist and marketing executive. I have written hundreds of magazine articles, speeches and marketing materials on business subjects. Inconceivable! is my first screenplay, based on the self-published novel with the same title. Genre: Contemporary Drama with historic, medical and comedic elements. Strong female lead and diverse female supporting roles.
Inconceivable! is about how the genetic science associated with pregnancy puts an end to three generations of secrets and lies for both sides of the family. Scene 1, Helene Talos, late 20s, self-employed wig-designer in New York City determines she is pregnant. Scene 82, she gives birth. In between, she suffers a bicycle crash, is assaulted by a new mother, has “miracle” surgery to save the baby, confronts her mother over dark family secrets, takes experimental drugs given to her by a desperate-for-cash doctor, discovers the cause of her father’s suicide, escapes an apartment building explosion, saves her husband from a mugging and much more! Plenty of plot.
Her ambitious and loving husband Greco Talos, 30s, couldn’t be happier to be a father-to-be. He can’t wait for Helene to nurse! But then the androgynous genetic counselor they must visit, crashes his world by knowing more about him than he knows about himself. When Seiko-San, his boss at Ins & Outs, World’s Best Location Scouts, assigns him to scholarly super-model, Shaina Jaantje, the two become entangled in the most inconceivable (but totally believable) way.
One of my specialties was writing business plans for corporations. I am skilled at researching markets and translating data into meaningful (and successful) marketing plans. When I decided to write Inconceivable! I used that expertise to choose a large market segment and create characters with the goal of appealing to that audience. For the target audience, I chose female movie watchers of child-bearing age and for the subject I chose pregnancy. I researched little known aspects of pregnancy*, created distinctive characters struggling with those issues, and added historic, medical and comedic elements to make it dramatic and entertaining. It is a fast read - 85 scenes, 125 pages, 50% dialogue.
New York City plays a big role. The city is depicted as multi-cultural, diverse, multi-lingual. AD LIB CROWD CHAT IN MANY LANGUAGES (Scene 6). Landmarks are key to the action – Prometheus in Rockefeller Center (Scene 2) and Gramercy Park (Epilogue) for example. New Yorkers will recognize and relate to the many locations from the Lower East Side to Harlem.
Breasts play a big role. Every female character is affected by her breasts. This includes nude modeling, androgyny, mastectomy, nursing, cross-dressing and ultra-modesty. This theme is handled as subtext in a respectful, entertaining and mature way, and it increases audience appeal. Sometimes, it’s funny!
Talent plays a big role. The lead and supporting roles are dramatic and challenging – lead actors can play multiple roles, stretching their craft and making this a unique project**. All the characters have distinctive traits and are written against stereotypes – for example, Shaina Jaantje is a super-model who is a scholar of World War II history and a successful, creative entrepreneur (Scene 47). Another example: NYPD cops are depicted as heroes – good guys who have their act together and who are appreciated and respected by the locals (Scene 26).
Inconceivable! has legs. The novel is now self-published*** and selling (a little), and the screenplay is available to circulate. Within it is 3-act play with an all-female cast (Scene 32), and an ensemble TV-pilot with all females-pregnant (Scene 60).
My lifestyle affords time and place for writing, editing, collaborating and creating my new career, to equal or exceed my success as a non-fiction writer.
Once this project has traction, next is a TV-pilot, Corduta Ardelean, about a Romanian Witch who goes to a remote area of the Catskill Mountains to practice her skills without interference from the witches back home. I intend to go about it the same way – research and write the novel, adapt it to screenplay and spin off from it. You could say I have legs too.
Thank you for helping make something Inconceivable!
Steve Marshall Cohen
221 Ski Bowl Road
POB 622
Hunter NY 12442 USA
smarshallcohen@usa.net
917 589 8862
Notes:
*Pregorexia – fear of gaining weight during pregnancy, causing complications and mal-nutrition in the fetus. Helene Talos suffers from it.
**To make things even more Inconceivable! there are two karaoke numbers performed by the male lead, and a show-stopper number near the end (Scene 62) performed by a Barbra Streisand impersonator.
*** link: I’ve earned $42.00 in royalties from Bookbaby so far. Actual reader review: “Had a wonderful read! I laughed, learned, and was thoroughly entertained. I know these characters and am looking forward to meeting them again. Perhaps in a movie.”
Inconceivable! by Steve Marshall Cohen | BookShop (bookbaby.com)
Friday, May 8, 2020
Logline for Inconceivable!
Inconceivable! is a contemporary drama with historic and comedic elements about Helene Talos, a young, married, soon-to-be mom in NYC who wants nothing more than to deliver a healthy baby and keep her athlete’s body at the same time. When she is assaulted and the end of her first trimester, it takes a rare and dangerous surgery to save the baby. She is forced in her second trimester to keep still and wrestle in bed with family secrets, society’s expectations and the size, shape, and purpose of everyone’s breasts.
Inconceivable! is driven by realistic, unforgettable female characters of all ages who want to help Helene in her third trimester, but they all have secrets, motivations, and breasts of their own.
Not to mention her husband, Greco, who cannot wait to make cheese from her breast milk.
Inconceivable! was written in Hunter, NY, deep in the Great Northern Catskills and is available for kindle, nook and in old fashioned paperback.
Contact Steve Marshall Cohen
smarshallcohen@usa.net






