TheElusiveHobo

I was accompanying my brother to the gym, and trying to figure out whether he wanted to lose fat or build muscle (even though he's skinny as a rail). The gym was at my local mall and was very large and mostly black and grey with a intense atmosphere, tinged with black rubber on the walls and had what seemed to be a hot mist up near the very high ceiling. My brother was in a very bad mood about his probable success with his goal here (being doubtful about his own ability to do something is not like him, though being confrontational and rude is) and after he bought a bucket of protein powder, he tromps off to some kind of personal locker room and takes a shower. The whole area fogs up from the hot water, and I try to cheer him up, to no avail. I give up and hopes he doesn't hear me using his smaller restroom right next to the door to the larger gym. He doesn't seem to, and emerges in a much better mood.

The next thing I know, seemingly because my brother wanted to do it after his shower, we're making some kind of sci-fi / action /disaster movie on an extremely low budget, filmed with plastic dolls and playsets, supplemented with cardboard props made by my brother. There's one shot in particular I remember of some kind of US government war room, with me doing the voice of the "general" doll, which isn't moving. Nothing in the shot is moving except for the viewscreen shield in the background, made of corrugated cardboard and half the size of playing card, sliding up to reveal the big TV. The alien villain is just some Venetian window blinds on the ground with incandescent light bulbs taped to it, with someone off-screen shaking it when in talks. Then the truck that the alien is attached to for some reason drives off, swerving left and right, smashing our villain into fenceposts, and shattering the light bulbs everywhere. the camera follows this as it happens and I, my brother and the entire movie crew laugh hysterically.