+

P.J.

It’s happening, brother. The dream you never had the guts to follow through on, I’m actually god-in-a-barn doing it. Funding is complete, cast is locked in, filming starts tomorrow. I’ve already got 8 pages typed up, but the rest of the script, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just write ad-hoc, see where the vibes take me.

Can’t believe it, brother, a real cinematic endeavour.

Jesus M. Christ.

John [De Ford]

+

+

P.J.

First day of shooting done and I gotta tell you, brother, I feel drained. An honest drained. An actor’s drained. Yeah, everyone told me, John, you shouldn’t start with the titty model’s death, the relationship isn’t there yet, but what they don’t know is that she’s not really dead. She comes back at the end, wounded in the hospital bed.

Or maybe she won’t?

I haven’t decided yet, to tell the truth. The actress playing the nun is pretty sexy. I saw her changing in the port-a-loo out front and she has those nice water melon patties that mom used to have. Hey, don’t judge, she left the door ajar, she wanted me to peek.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. First action scene tomorrow, [again] arranged there against the advice of those hacks who don’t know a single salted thing about the art of movie-making. I mean, if they did know, they wouldn’t be producers, they’d be directing tentpoles, uh-huh?

John [De Sayles]

+

+

P.J.

Just finished the most intense, frantic, nightmarish at times first week that would’ve broken any other director and, brother, I gotta say, I’m not as stiff as I thought I would be. Must be those superior De Hart genetics! Actually, Wings [Hauser, if you haven’t seen ‘Bedroom Eyes II or ‘Cold fire’] said I was an off-the-books clockwork djinn, a real robot man, kept poking me with that tribal spear he found in the dumpster the other night, “where’s the blood, Johnny, where’s the blood?”

He’s a funny guy, Wings, very outgoing. If I weren’t an extrovert myself, I might worry that he’ll steal the film away, but, you know me, brother, I don’t concern myself with the insecurities of others, and, besides, I’ve seen what the producer calls “the dailies” and I’m doing exactly what I knew I would, what’s needed for the role. Stoic charisma, coiled destructor, and then passionate lizard-beast with Pamela.

God, she’s a nugget, an absolute queen-empress. Best thing ever sucked into the John De Hart gravity well, for sure. Honestly, brother, no intent to be lurid, but I cannot wait to get my hands on her body in the romance scenes. That’ll be the last six weeks of the shoot, which should give us enough time to get to know each other. And I think she already likes me, brother. Last night, outside the port-a-loo, she laughed at my duck joke. I’m not kidding, she laughed so hard that I’m seriously thinking about writing it into the script. That’s how good it was. And it’ll give some levity to the scenes where I’m not physically romancing her, show that’s it so much more than that.

Btw, did you know Donald Sutherland put his dick inside Julia Crystal for real in ‘Don’t Look Now’?

Food for thought, brother.

John [De Frankenheimer]

+

+

P.J.

Just writing a quick update to let you know I used the duck joke in a scene and everyone loved it. I even improvised another one about a perverted doctor stripping with his sexy playmate patient, and that was also a crowd pleaser. I always knew we were funny, of course, but to this degree? Gotta stop underestimating myself.

Speaking of…

Brother, eight days until the cinematic romance of the century and I’m counting down each snaily minute. Pamela probably is too, I’m sure of it. That’s what Wings said. He’s been sleeping on the floor of her motel room since the discovery of a cockroach in his Volvo 850, and he told me she says my name when she sleeps. I suppose it makes sense, you start to blur with the character you’re playing after a while. Same thing’s happening to me too. Can’t even remember what a courtroom looks like anymore, let alone our old office. Were the walls grey? Who knows? Who cares?

John [De Waters]

+

+

P.J.

I’m an honest man to a fault, as you know, brother, a no bullshit, no excuses homoserine, and I gotta tell you that today was the toughest day I ever had in my entire adult life.

Yeah, I know, it’s strange to hear me let out a moan like that, but let me explain things through. See, we were on set as usual, with everything ready to shoot Pamela’s funeral scene, and we started doing that and it was going okay, but then, out of nowhere, Wings starts swaying his arms back and forth like a drunk, and when I ask him to rein it in a bit, be more sombre – it’s my wife’s funeral, brother, you know what I mean? – he snaps back some real shit-shack lunacy, tells me to shimmy shimmy slide into my dead mother’s neck-cunt. That was bad enough, but then he slaps me, three times in front of the whole crew, and in front of Pamela too, standing with that creep Billy Smith off-camera [I’m beginning to really dislike that guy, could be the eyebrows]. Of course, I could’ve ended it right there and then with one finger, but I kept my discipline, told him to take an hour to recompose himself and then come back on set. It was sage advice, and it did work as he came back and we shot the funeral scene successfully. He still did the swaying, but I think I can add some wind effects from clip-art in the finished cut, make it look natural.

But that wasn’t even the toughest part. I mean, it wasn’t at all the toughest part. After the shoot, as I was going back to my room, I overheard Billy Smith saying some ‘go to the devil’ shit. As in, he was calling out to Satan himself, telling him to come and witness this drilling. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about – you can’t put holes in private property, I know that cos of Wings – so I peeked round the wall into the alley and…I don’t want to write it out, it’s too crude…but he was raw dogging Pamela up against an open dumpster. And what’s worse is her pussy was shaved. I mean, I specifically told her not to do that, that I preferred a growler, but she did it anyway, for that rat bag Smith maybe, I don’t know, and now there’s only two days left until the romance scenes. What am I gonna do, brother? Yeah, I know, I’ll think of something, I always do, but still…

John [De Bont]

+

+

P.J.

Sorry to continue the recent chain mail of negativity, brother, I really am, but I gotta say, today was abysmal. All that Pamela stuff neutered me, carried itself into my karaoke performance. It’s strange, as I was singing, I remembered when we were kids and mummy had drunk too much, you know, in the kitchenette paddling pool, standing over us, naked, with the red stiletto on our privates, that giant, hairy black hole laughing down at our chubby little faces, wow, beyond terrifying. I think I managed to mask it up on stage, call it natural De Hart charisma, I suppose, but things weren’t as smooth as they should’ve been. Jeez, that little fucking Jezebel. I only hired her for the romance scenes and now she’s gone tried to derail me like this. Derail a De Hart, on his own set!

Well, she won’t be getting the better of this Ivy-League-educated sophisticate, not a fucking chance. Cos I’m a man of decision, a coal-in-the-balls son of the 70’s who will dominate her vapid little salt water ass, fucking eviscerate it, and that slutty tedious tiny microscopic fucking hamster wheel of a brain too. If she even has one. Brother, you know me, I’m not petty at all, but I swear, this payback will be surgical, the dumb witch-whore won’t even know what hit her. No one paws at a pair of plastic titties like John De Hart, no one thrusts a thirteen incher harder, with more conviction, no one lasts as long as I can without editing and those pills that make your dick numb but still hard enough to fuck. Billy Smith? He can jibber-jabber to Satan as much as he fucking likes, he’ll always be an alley mutt, just like her, and he’ll get his desserts same way she will. Little rat doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve added some new bits to our final fight and we’ll be shooting that shit tomorrow. See how he walks after I’ve finished with his skinny ass, the little rat fuck Iago. If he even knows who that is. Phalistine.

John [De Carpenter]

P.S. Apologies for the vulgarity, but it’s well-deserved!

+

+

P.J.

Despite superhuman courage and Batman-esque resolve, I gotta say, it’s been a very dispiriting day at what I’m now referring to as the swamp.

See, the producer, the unofficial one, stepped in and said [in his weaselly little Peter Lorre voice] that distribution would be pulled if I went ahead with the suitcase scene. I defended my position, of course, told him she’s in the suitcase, folded up and naked, cos the bad guy drugged my beer and turned me Satanic, and what could a Satanist do that was more depraved than fucking his girlfriend in a suitcase? Nothing, that’s what. It made complete sense narratively, but the little rat face couldn’t see it and whined that the dick-biting part had to go too. Obviously, he knew it wasn’t really Billy’s dick – it was his dick with a thin layer of plasticine over the tip – but he didn’t get it, only Wings did, which I appreciated, but then he smashed a bottle of imported Fratelli Sette over his own head and started blurting out gibberish, something about Mongolians having lesser mermaids or drier ones or something like that, and he was blurting it like a machine gun, non-stop, to what was either a grip or the cinematographer, I don’t know, anyway, it was a complete disaster and would’ve been terminal if I didn’t pull myself together and say, John, this is the art of movie-making, you’re better than them, you’re better than everyone [in the vicinity, not Ford or Needham, I’m aware of my [current] limitations], just poke Pamela and go home, fix things in the editing room. And that’s exactly what I did. Of course, I didn’t end up actually fucking Pamela for real as she is beneath me, she doesn’t deserve to be connected to Julia Crystal artistically, but she was competent, got her titties rubbed by a real man, not a cardboard Satanist, and I think, at the end, she understood on some level what she had lost in crossing me.

Well, as mom used to say, plenty more fish in the fishery. And I’ve got my eye on a good one for the next film. Dona Speir, Hard Ticket To Hawaii, you know her? Very good on screen, very expressive. Could be a keeper.

John [De Hughes]

+

+

P.J.

Last day on set, very poignant. Had to fire Wings when he didn’t turn up for his final scene, but I’ll keep his name in the credits. You know me, brother, I’m not a monster.

John [De Demme]

P.S. that weaselly producer, as expected, rejected my idea to credit Pamela as ‘Pummel Her Bryant,’ said legally her real name had to be used. I suggested ‘Slut Camper’ as an alternative, but he vetoed that too. Weasel.

+

+

P.J.

Post production is going smooth as gelatine…so I’ve heard.

Can’t recall if I told you this or not, but the producer and I decided I was too close to the material and it would be better for the finished product if I waited outside the editing room.

From what I gather, he’s doing a good job in there. I told him, don’t worry about making me look good, just focus on the movie. That’s what matters. He agreed without reservation [without blinking too, he’s quite unnerving when he does that]. I trust him.

John [De Turteltaub]

+

+

P.J.

The moment has come, brother. It’s the grand opening of Geteven [pronounced ‘Get-ur-vun’]. Yeah, I thought about keeping the original title, ‘Road to Revenge,’ or changing it to ‘Roadtorevenge’ [pronounced ‘Road-tor-venge,], but they both sounded too generic so I eventually just went with the shorter one. You know me, brother, I’m a gut guy.

Anyway, here I am, outside Menomonee Falls Cinema [Wisconsin], looking at the poster for MY movie with MY name, John De Hart, as top billing. Truly a sight for grubby eyes, as mom used to say.

Nothing much to report as of yet. Most of the cast is coming tonight, except Wings, Pummel Her and Billy Fuck-Face, who said they were busy filming the new ‘Phantasm’ sequel in Oregon. Strange how they all got cast together again, but that’s Hollywood, constant recycling of what’s gone and what should never have been, propped up with what-can’t-fucking-act i.e. Pummel Her and Fuck-Face.

Anyway, I just wanted to write one last time, let you know that I won’t be needing or thinking of you anymore. This is the beginning of something gargantuan, I can feel it in my bones. Same way Cassavetes and Amos Poe and that pervert Waters did it, independent wallets and art as prime mover. That’s what I’ve done with ‘Geteven’, a revenge movie on paper but so much more under the hood.

I know you’re happy for me, and jealous, and terrified. I know it because I used to be you and now I’m not. I moved on. Moved upwards. To paradise.

Goodbye brother

John [De Cassavetes]

+

+

P.J.

Seen the film five times now, brother.

Obviously, I would’ve done a better job with the editing, but it’s not too bad. Not great either. I think he slowed down the action scenes, probably due to my hands being too fast, and made my skin strangely pale in the romance scenes. He also added some flaps around the waist, the cheeky little pup. And used shots of Pamela looking blank facially while I’m groping her, which doesn’t make sense artistically or biologically. You touch a nipple, you get a moan. It’s science, brother.

I guess the guy just resented my charisma, hence the sabotage. Or, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he was trying to make it more naturalistic, Cassavetes style.

I don’t know.

Ah well, if it does fail, we won’t have to look far for where the blame lies.

John [De Arc]

+

+

P.J.

No calls yet.

Not that I expected any. Hollywood is the land of plastic sameness, no imagination, no respect for my brand of charismatic stoicism.

I don’t even care though, brother. I’ll just do things my own way, by myself.

There’s a Bulgarian guy I met last night [at that Manhole bar we used to frequent, remember?], very rich, very wealthy, very interested in making movies that mean something. Of course, I told him about ‘Geteven’ and he loved it instantly, said I could get funding in his country no problem, and maybe a nice young-looking model that would properly commit to the romance scenes and reply to e-mails unlike that Valkyrie witch, Donna Spare.

So, that’s one potential avenue, if need be. And we always liked European cinema more than the US, didn’t we, brother? The lack of boundaries, the naturalism, Edwige Fenech, the blonde girl from ‘Baron Blood.’

Maybe I should just go to Bulgaria? Make a new version of ‘Dracula’, ‘Duckula’, ‘Nosterafu’, whatever the hell it’s called. Can’t hurt to try. Cameras must be dirt cheap too. And other stuff.

Food for thought, brother.

John [De Baptist]

P.S. Just searched ‘Famous Bulgarian Actresses’ and wow, Tzvetana Maneva. Wonder if she does art films…

+