Watching Hud with My Dad

My pop died of emphysema several years ago, and I've always wished I'd had more time to visit with him. He wasn't around much when I was a youngster. My mom always said, "Your daddy worked hard, but he also played hard." And if you'll pardon my language, my dad was a cross between Archie Bunker and Brando's description of his father in Last Tango in Paris: "He was a super masculine, whore fucker, bar fighter."

My dad was from Tennessee. His name was Hugh L., and the L. was only an initial and didn't stand for anything. Having a middle initial as a substitute for an actual name was evidently a custom in the hills of Tennessee where my dad grew up in the 1930's. There is a common joke there that the people are so poor they can't even afford a full name, and could only afford a middle initial. My dad eventually told everyone the L. stood for Larry, just to get them to shut up about it, I guess. Larry is what my mom called him until his dying day.

My dad was a kind, compassionate man, but he had a rough exterior and was an unrepentant womanizer. Growing up in Chicago in the 1960's, on the very few, rare occasions my dad was home and not working or playing, I was actually able to watch TV with my dad. We couldn't watch any comedies. If I turned it to Get Smart or Hogan's Heroes, he'd say, "Get that shit off there." So I'd have to turn it to Gunsmoke, The Rifleman or Wanted Dead or Alive. Testosterone city. Needless to say I was a bit deficient in the sense of humor department as a child and later in life. What my Dad did like was: he liked beer, he liked women, he liked baseball and he liked country food; food like biscuits and gravy, and wilted mustard greens soaked in bacon bits and hot grease. Cracklings, even, whatever the heck that is. And he liked a good western, too.

The only time he really busted my ass when I was a kid was when I took too long to water the pigs during the heat of the day in the burning hell of a Texas summer, and when I went swimming in a stock tank without permission near a place called Hippie Ridge in Wise County, Texas. But he was always busting my balls about something later in life, in my early twenties especially, when I was a shiftless, lazy, college dropout, Rimbaud wannabe. But, short story long, when I knew the old fucker only had a few years left to live, I loaded the car up with VHS movie cassettes and drove up to Roane County, Tennessee to see him. I tried to take a variety of movies for him to see. Some movies I took I knew he would like, like the Clint Eastwood western, The Unforgiven. (I always get choked up at the end when those prostitutes come out in the rain to see Clint Eastwood ride out of town.) And some movies I took just to mess with his head, like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. When the little dwarf in the red room sucks up the corn from a silver spoon in an extreme closeup while the soundtrack plays in reverse, that's about the time my dad said, "Sheeeit, son, get that shit off there." Leave it to David Lynch to blow my dad's mind. That's about the time I hit the eject button and I popped in Hud.

I knew my dad would probably get a stiffy watching Hud, because he was Hud, in so many ways. Ruggedly handsome like Newman, with chiseled features and a confident swagger. I never once heard my dad laugh in his life... seriously... never! I heard him chuckle once or twice, either watching a John Wayne movie or some other western movie that had a brief moment of comedy between scenes of killing dark-skinned people. But, by golly, he sure liked watching Hud! Hud, the drunken, womanizing cowboy. He came pretty darn close to laughing a time or two, especially when Hud was extricating himself from the clutches of a jealous husband. My dad told me of a few such close calls in his life. When my dad was sober he wouldn't have two words to say, but when he was drinking, he was a hillbilly raconteur who would get on a drunken binge and couldn't shut up. I'll withhold some of the scandalous details since there might be women and children about. I think you get the picture.

Hud was adapted from the Larry McMurtry novel, Horseman, Pass By. Hud's younger brother is played by Brandon de Wilde, the kid from Shane as a young man. Larry McMurtry is a life long native of the Wichita Falls area, where my mom and dad and our family lived a time or two. There are some good chapters on the making of Hud in Larry McMurty's book, In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas. Released in 1962, Hud is a great movie and a great nostalgia trip for anyone who grew up in Texas. Academy awards went to Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas, and to James Wong Howe for his brilliant cinematography.

I was glad my dad and I got the chance to watch Hud together one of the last times I saw him. It was one of the very few times we ever bonded, as they say. If you could call it that. That's when my dad told me that I was named after a character from the Zane Grey western novel, The Lone Star Ranger, and General Leslie Groves of the Manhattan Project. My mom, who eventually divorced him, had always told me I was named after some of my dad's Air Force buddies. I know my dad wasn't much of a role model, but he was my dad. We don't get to pick them. It's like the genetic lottery. I guess I could have done a lot worse. He was a good man most of the time, except when it came to married women and booze. He never was there for me as a kid, but he always put food on the table. Now I suppose he's up on that great big barstool in the sky.

Movie Jonesing and DVD Buying Escapades

I've been busier than a one-armed paper hanger (no offense to one-armed paper hangers) and haven't had time to do this blog up proper, as they might say. I haven't had time to work on my screenplay in progress, Jacksboro Highway. I haven't had time to write some freelance stuff I've had notes on for some time (one about Depression era babies, the other about international arms trafficking regulations), and I haven't had much time for anything except working for The Man.

But I have squeezed in some movie watching time, and this is purportedly a movie blog, or so I've been lead to believe. What's the use of having a blog if one doesn't record inane ruminations in it, right? So this will be a recent update in which I write about the DVDs I've been lucky enough to purchase and find the time to watch. Bored already, right?

I watched the special edition DVD of Alan Parker's, Angel Heart. It had some great extras, including interviews with Mickey Rourke. The movie is one of the greatest gumshoe whodunits ever put to cellulose, and a terrific period piece. I love the scenes in New Orleans. It is easily Mickey Rourke's finest performance, playing alongside a champ like De Niro. Good stuff! I thought Lisa Bonet did a great job, too.

On to Raging Bull, the 2-Disc DVD Collector's Set. True cinema at its finest. Another period piece that will knock your block off. The boxing movie that changed my mind about boxing movies. And who knew? Cathy Moriarty was only sixteen when she was cast alongside Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. This Collector's Set is so great. Three audio commentaries with Scorcese, Schoonmaker, Irwin Winkler and Jake La Motta. Lots of featurettes about the making-of. For just pure filmmaking savvy, this is Scorcese's best movie ever, hands down, and Robert De Niro's finest performance ever. Absolutely brilliant, all of it!

Scarface... the 2-Disc Platinum Edition... oodles and oodles of extras, but unfortunately no director's or other commentary. Just featurettes, interviews, making-of extras and delected scenes.

The script for the 80's Scarface remake was written by Oliver Stone in France, while he kicked a coke habit. In Miami and Latin America, he hung out with drug lords and law enforcement personnel as he researched the illicit drug trade. It's a great, violent movie, with lots of bullets and lots of babes, and a true, gangster classic. The Platinum Edition has great interviews with Oliver Stone, director, Brian De Palma, and producer, Martin Bregman. Scarface is a masterpiece and cult classic in every sense of the word. The movie was dedicated to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht who directed and wrote the original 1932 Scarface.

I watched to 2008 released 30th Anniversity Edition of Midnight Express, the movie for which Oliver Stone won his first academy award for best adapted screenplay, and also another Alan Parker movie. (One of my all time favorite movies by Alan Parker is Pink Floyd, The Wall.) This edition has lots of extras, including a great commentary by Alan Parker and interviews with Oliver Stone. Midnight Express is a great prison movie, though painful to watch at times. Actor Brad Davis is amazingly believable as the young American with a hankering for some hashish.

So, that's been some of my DVD buying escapades and movie watching pleasure. I love the director's commentaries and featurettes on anniversary and special edition DVDs. Making movies can be such a weird adventure! Hearing the anecdotal stories behind the scenes is lots of fun for aspiring filmmakers and civilians alike.

HAVING MY BABY Now Available on DVD

You can now purchase HAVING MY BABY on DVD. Almost five long years after I began producing HAVING MY BABY, I can finally see the fruit of my labors. Many thanks to all who made it possible.

http://www.havingmybabymovie.com/Store.asp

Hollywood Love Fest - The 82nd Annual Academy Awards

It was fun to watch the 82nd Academy Awards and once again see all the beautiful people kick up their heels and throw their annual shindig. I thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did a great job co-hosting, and for me, it was fun to see a Hollywood sacred cow like good old democratic socialist Ed Asner in the crowd, as well as an old timer like Christopher Plummer there as a nominee, even if he did not get his due. Christoph Waltz was a difficult actor to beat, I suppose.

I love the work of cinematographer, Robert Richardson, especially when he was working with Oliver Stone. He was hard to miss tonight sitting behind Quentin Tarantino with his trademark long hair and beard, now snow white, looking like a character in a kung fu movie, the old man from the mountain. He was nominated for best cinematographer for Inglourious Basterds. (I have to get the spelling right on Inglourious and Basterds!)

I was happy to see a young, acoustic guitar-strumming song writer like Ryan Bingham win the Oscar for Best Song for the theme song from Crazy Heart. He went from rodeo cowboy breaking bones riding bulls and living in his pickup truck to Oscar winner in a few short years. He paid his dues and came up the hard way. I bet his life story would make a great movie.

Quentin Tarantino did not look too happy when Mark Boal won for Best Original Screenplay. QT’s script was definitely original, but too silly, I think, to win the top screenwriting honor, and had too much white space.

There is no way any director other than James Cameron should have won for Best Director. The dedication, innovation and persistence behind Avatar cannot be equaled for a long time to come. I guess The Academy thought the time had come for a woman to win Best Director. So be it. I loved Strange Days and Point Break, by the way, both directed by Kathryn Bigelow, but no way The Hurt Locker was better directed than Avatar.

And The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture? There is like no way! James Cameron was robbed, probably by the military industrial complex and the necessary glorification of the war. I actually fell asleep at the theater watching the last twenty minutes of The Hurt Locker, but I was wide awake at the climactic ending of Avatar. The Hurt Locker was a propaganda snooze fest compared to Avatar. I know a lot of film purists and Cameron haters didn’t want to see a special effects-heavy production like Avatar win, but the movie is way too grand and magnificent to be overlooked. What a travesty! Plus it has almost grossed a billion dollars domestically! Let’s face it, it’s entertaining. Oh well, it’s not the first time a movie or director has been robbed at the Oscars. I’m sure it won’t be the last. Just look at Martin Scorsese and Raging Bull. Movies are so much fun to watch when they are good, and good is such a relative term when it comes to cinema and the Academy of Motion Pictures. An audience is a fickle thing.

We place actors on such pedestals, and make them into demi-gods, yet they are for the most part normal people who just happen to have a cool job. Just for an instant tonight watching the Academy Awards I thought I was watching an homage to great statesmen or perhaps the scientist who invented the cure for polio, not a bunch of people playing house and cowboys and Indians. I have to admit, I loved every minute of it. As an industry, cinema has only been around for a little over one hundred years. That’s the blink of an eye in historic terms. I hope I’m around long enough to see many more movies and many more innovations.

Blind Pigs and the Paris, Texas Criterion Collection

I have been asked to write a script for a new film project. A new acquaintance, who is a cinematographer and fellow collaborator on the new project, recommended that I watch the Wim Wender’s Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, Paris, Texas. He recommended that I watch it for inspiration, I suppose, before attempting to write the new script; as Wim Wenders is one of his favorite directors. As fate would have it, the Criterion Collection of Paris, Texas was due for release on January 26, 2010.

I had watched Paris, Texas years ago but basically had no recollection of it, due to the fact it was 1984 when it was released, and also due to the fact that was too many “inebriated” years ago. I just remember Harry Dean Stanton wandering in the desert, and I believe I tuned out after that. I had never watched a Wim Wenders movie, and being a college dropout and autodidact, I was not well versed in foreign films or movies in general. For years in the Seventies and early Eighties I avoided television like the plague, and found very little time for movies. To this day I’ve never seen an episode of the television show, Dallas, and many other hit shows of that era. I have blank spaces like an amnesiac for whole swatches of that era. I had always fancied myself a poet, which was probably a bit of a stretch, since teenage doggerel and mind-altered verse does not necessarily amount to poetry. So this is not so much a review of the movie Paris, Texas (I’m not worthy) as it is the ramblings of a film auteur wannabe.

One pleasant surprise I discovered was that the screenplay for Paris, Texas was written by Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright whose play Tooth of Crime inspired me to become a playwright and write my first play, Warboots. (Warboots received a somewhat nice review by critic Lawson Taitte of The Dallas Morning News when it premiered on the stage in Deep Ellum in 1993.) Paris, Texas is based loosely on Shepard’s book, Motel Chronicles. The screenplay was adapted further by Dallas screenwriter, L.M. “Kit” Carson. Carson’s son by actress Karen Black, Hunter Carson, plays the son named Hunter in the film, and did a superb job. (I’ve always loved Karen Black, especially in Day of the Locusts and Easy Rider.) I was surprised when I looked up Hunter Carson’s name on IMDb to discover that he has done very little acting since. He was very good in Paris, Texas as the young boy abandoned by his parents and left to be raised by relatives.

I must admit that while watching the Criterion Collection of Paris, Texas I kept waiting for something to happen. I like movies where something happens. I like movies with a linear plot and sequence of events that keep me interested. I was left thinking, maybe something is happening and I’m just not an astute enough observer to “see” it. I must confess, I just don’t get most “European” movies. They’re way too subtle for my tastes. The three “foreign” movies I can say I did like are Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, Costa Gavras’ Z and the Chinese erotic movie, Sex and Zen. There are a few others, but I won’t bother listing them all.

The movie obviously deals with mental illness. Travis, Harry Dean Stanton’s character, is obviously mentally ill, probably paranoid schizophrenic. Why else would he be walking through the desert, mute and detached from reality? It would take more than just a broken heart to compel such wandering for four years. (I knew a guy like that who used to walk all the time on the highway. He never wore socks and wore big, thick boots. He wasn’t schizophrenic, but he had a slight speech impediment and it was rumored that he had dropped too much acid in the Sixties and Seventies. He told me he once saw ZZ Top when they were a garage band in Ft. Worth. He had a lot of old war stories from growing up in Ft. Worth in the Fifties and Sixties. He was actually a nice guy, just misunderstood and the object of much bullying.) One of my favorite scenes of the movie is the mentally ill guy screaming a monologue of apocalyptic content on the highway overpass as rush hour traffic rushes by below. I thought that was pretty brilliant to have that turn up out of nowhere. I’ve been around a lot of mentally ill people, and that scene was spot on.

I finally “got” Paris, Texas after watching all the extras and listening to the director’s commentary by Wim Wenders. That’s when I discovered that the movie was for the most part made up as they went along, a pastiche of scenes stuck together like a celluloid poem, a “poetic” movie if you will. I guess the film purists “got it” all along, or were satisfied if they didn’t “get it” right away. I’m afraid my attention span isn’t the best for European movies or sentiments.

My heartstrings were touched the most when French actress Aurore Clement, who plays Hunter’s aunt Anne, pleads on the phone for Hunter to come home. That was a sad and touching moment. (Aurore Clement is stunningly beautiful, especially in the French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now Redux.) Dean Stockwell is also great as Walt, the brother of the wandering Travis, and the beautiful Nastassja Kinski did a great job with her Southern accent and portraying Jane, the long lost mother eventually found working in a peep show in Houston. The movie actually didn’t have an ending until Sam Shepard dictated the ending over the phone to Wenders, because by that time Sam Shepard had other obligations as an actor on another movie set, and fax machines did not yet exist.

Robby Muller’s cinematography is superb. I loved the big, blue skies of Texas and the Southwest, the clouds, the trains, the colors, and the grandeur of the opening scenes in the desert area around Big Bend National Park, near Terlingua, Texas. Equally unique and nostalgic are the many shots of motels, stores and cafes (inevitable I suppose in any “road movie”), which Wim Wenders mentions in the commentary as being homage to the photography of Walker Evans.

The Criterion Collection also has great extras other than the director’s commentary: an interview of Wenders by German journalist, Roger Willemsen; excerpts from a 1990 documentary on Wenders featuring interviews with Wenders, Robby Muller, composer Ry Cooder, Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Peter Falk, Hans Zischler, novelist Patricia Highsmith and director Samuel Fuller. It also has new video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders, who was a young production assistant on the movie, and Claire Denis, who was assistant director.

The Criterion Collection has many other extras too numerous to list here. The film did provide much inspiration, but most of the inspiration came from watching the extras. Just getting the opportunity to listen to the director’s commentary alone was worth the price paid for the DVD. It was very interesting to learn about the many struggles of Wim Wenders to see the movie to completion, such as stealing shots on the Houston freeways, coming up with an ending midway through the film when there wasn’t a complete screenplay, and searching for some sort of central vision from a potpourri of ideas which weren’t totally worked out before filming began. Those are trying circumstances for any filmmaker. There is an old Russian saying, “Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.” Congratulations to Wim Wenders for his steadfastness in seeing his incomplete vision to the end, for winning the Palme d’Or and for making a beautiful, poetic movie in the process.

Mob Hits - The Opening Scene of My Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo Screenplay

The following is the opening scene of my 231-page screenplay, JOEY & JEFFIE, a love story with a mob backdrop, based on the stormy relationship of New York mobster Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo and his Creole, showgirl wife, Jeffie Lee. It has been adapted from the biography, JOEY, by Donald Goddard.

Donald Goddard was a Londoner who lived in New York for 10 years, 8 of them as an editor in the Sunday Department of the New York Times. Before he died several years ago of pancreatic cancer and left me the screen rights to his biography of Joey Gallo, I asked him who he would like to cast in the lead roles. He said, "Tom Cruise, if you could get him to play against type" as Joey, and "Jennifer Lopez" as Jeffie Lee.

Those choices blew me away because I could see the genius in his choices. That was almost ten years ago. If I couldn't get Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopez for the lead roles, my personal choices would be Colin Farrell and Michelle Rodriguez.

Below is the opening scene, which Donald Goddard helped me to rewrite, as he did the whole script. He coached me through two rewrites. He was adamant about how he wanted the story protrayed. Someday I'll share more of the story of how I came about writing the script, which took me four years on weekends and holidays, as I slaved away in the salt mines of the "real world." I originally adapted a portion of the book for the stage at the Swiss Avenue Theater center in Dallas in 1996, under the title, JOEY, as part of three, 20-minute shorts under the theme, 3 VIOLENT PLAYS.

The format of the opening scene below did not quite transfer right from Microsoft Word, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. (It is under copyright with the Library of Congress and the WGAw.)

FADE IN:

EXT. NEW YORK CITY – LOWER MANHATTAN – NIGHT

APRIL 7, 1972 – FOUR A.M.

A black Cadillac drives along a street downtown.

INSIDE THE CADILLAC

PETE THE GREEK is at the wheel. Next to him is his date, EDIE RUSSO, and on the passenger side is BOBBY DARROW.

In the back seat are SINA GALLO and her ten-year old daughter, LISA ESSARY, half-asleep against Sina’s shoulder, and JOEY (CRAZY JOE) GALLO and his sister, CARMELLA.

PETE THE GREEK
Some party, hey Joey?

Joey is morose and monosyllabic.

JOEY
Yeah.

BOBBY DARROW
Ten years since you been in the Copa and it’s like you never went away. Helluva place to celebrate your birthday.

SINA
Yes, I had a really good time, Joey. So did Lisa, didn’t you, honey?

Lisa nods sleepily at her mother.

EDIE RUSSO
Yeah, me too. They really rolled out the red carpet for us, didn’t they? Guess you don’t get to be forty-three every day. Right, Joey?

JOEY
Yeah.

CARMELLA
Joey, we need to take Lisa home.

JOEY
No, I’m hungry. She’ll be okay.

PETE THE GREEK
You know what time it is? It’s four a.m. There’s not going to be much open.

JOEY
Drive on down to Mulberry Street.

Pete looks nervous.

PETE THE GREEK
You kidding? Maybe that’s not such a good idea, Joey. Not with Colombo’s crew on the prod.

JOEY
Do like I tell you. I’m hungry. Drive on down to Mulberry Street.


EXT. MULBERRY STREET – UMBERTO’S CLAM HOUSE – NIGHT

Pete stops the Cadillac in front of the main entrance and turns off the engine.

Standing on the corner in front of Umberto’s are four men.

One of them is MATTY (THE HORSE) IANNIELLO. Matty the Horse recognizes Pete, walks up to the car and shakes Pete’s hand through the window.

MATTY THE HORSE
Hey, how are you, Pete? Been a long time.

PETE THE GREEK
Yeah, howya bin? Listen, I got Joey with me.

Matty steps back in shock, losing his tongue. Joey notices Matty’s reaction and is amused.

The other three men walk away and disappear around the corner as Joey and the others get out of the car.

INT. UMBERTO’S CLAM HOUSE – NIGHT

It is almost five a.m., but there are a few customers inside Umberto’s.

FOUR MEN IN WORK CLOTHES sit at one table, an ASIAN COUPLE at another, and a GIRL is seated at the counter.

The place is decorated with nets, floats and phony lifesavers. Joey chooses a table at the far end of the room, adjoining the side door onto Mulberry Street. Pete sits down on Joey’s left, and Carmella on his right.

Opposite them, with their backs to the wall, are Sina in the middle, Edie on her left, and Lisa on Sina’s other side by a coat stand. Joey thus has Pete between himself and the side door, and Carmella between himself and the main door.

JOEY
Jesus, what’s with these lights? It’s like Yankee fucking Stadium in here.

Matty the Horse comes in from the street and walks down the length of the counter and perches on a stool at the end and sits with his back to them.

A WAITER comes to take their order. Joey twists around in his chair, and jerks his thumb at Matty.

JOEY
Let him order for us. He knows what’s good. Right, Matty?

MATTY THE HORSE
(shrugging his shoulders)
Fix ‘em some boiled shrimp and scungilli salad.


INT. UMBERTO’S CLAM HOUSE – BASEMENT – JOEY

walks down the unusually extensive basement in search of the restroom. It is dimly lit and kind of scary. Joey walks down an angled stairwell to a dogleg corridor next to a huge dark cellar door. He passes a staff locker room, and a vaultlike door to a walk-in refrigerator. He finally sees the men’s & women’s rest rooms tucked away to the left. He hears WHISPERING but can’t tell where it is coming from. He goes into the men’s room and closes the door.

BACK AT JOEY’S TABLE

Carmella looks at the clock nervously.

CARMELLA
I wonder what happened to him?

SINA
(worried)
That’s what I’m wondering. What do you suppose he’s doing down there?

CARMELLA
Pete, why don’t you take a look? See if he’s okay.

PETE THE GREEK
Ah, come on ladies, leave him alone. Can’t a guy even go to the men’s room now, for Chrissake.

CARMELLA
But why would he take so long? I don’t like it, Pete. I think you should go down there.

PETE THE GREEK
Cam, I’m telling you, he’s okay. Leave him alone. I know what I’m doing.

At that moment Joey reappears, but it is a different Joey. No longer smiling, he appears taut and wary as an alley cat. It takes a moment or two before he seems to recognize them.

JOEY
Jesus, it’s spooky down there. Like a tomb. You could hide a whole lot of bodies down there. I heard noises down there that don’t make sense.

Pete stirs in his chair.

PETE
What kind of noises?

JOEY
I don’t know, Pops. Like rustling. And whispering.

There is an awkward silence. Carmella gives Joey a boisterous kiss on the cheek.

CARMELLA
Well, happy birthday, brother.

Suddenly, an ASSASSIN enters through the side door with gun in hand.

ASSASSIN
Motherfucker. You’re dead.

He begins firing at Joey.

Two ASSASSINS enter and fire at Joey also.

Joey is hit in the chest, but instantly rises and flinging out his arms, pushes Pete and Carmella out of the way. He then pushes the large table over onto Sina, Lisa and Edie in a tumbling avalanche of dishes, glassware, hot sauce, and condiments that carry them out of the line of fire.

Joey takes a few more bullets in the torso as he staggers forward. The ladies stay crouched on the floor, screaming.

Matty the Horse ducks into the kitchen.

The COOK and waiter dive behind the counter.

The other Patrons dive wildly for cover. The shooting stops and Joey staggers toward the front door.

Pete fumbles with his pistol which is caught in the lining of his coat. He accidentally shoots himself in the backside, but doesn’t even notice.

EXT. UMBERTO’S CLAM HOUSE – NIGHT

The Three Assassins run out of the side entrance of Umberto’s and head toward their car.

Pete the Greek appears at the door with gun drawn and begins firing at the fleeing assassins. They jump in their car unharmed, and speed off.

Joey stumbles out the front door, refusing to die. He lurches across the sidewalk and leans against Pete’s car for a moment, as if to gather his strength. Pushing himself off again, he stumbles around Pete’s car out into the middle of the intersection, folds gently at the knees, and rolls over onto his back.

BACK INSIDE UMBERTO’S – PETE THE GREEK

looks frantically for Joey, and finds Matty the Horse hiding in the kitchen.

He throws up the counter flap and storms in after him, stepping on the Cook’s hand in the process. Pete grabs Matty by the lapels and drags him out into the restaurant, slamming him against the counter.

PETE THE GREEK
I’ll blow your head off, you motherfucking son of a bitch. What do you know about this? I’ll kill you, goddamnit.

MATTY THE HORSE
(scared)
Nothing, Pete, honest. Jesus, in my own place? You gotta believe me.

Suddenly distracted by Carmella’s SCREAMING outside, Pete lets go of Matty and rushes outside.

OUTSIDE – INTERSECTION OF MULBERRY AND HESTER STREET

Joey lies dead in the very center of the intersection. He appears to be sleeping peacefully.

A phone RINGS.

INT. LOS ANGELES – NIGHT – JEFFIE’S APARTMENT

The same phone RINGS again.

JEFFIE GALLO is startled awake by the phone RINGING.

She is in bed where she has been sleeping, dreaming what we have just seen.
She is a Creole Marilyn Monroe, with wide eyes, the color of light jade, and a corn-crake voice from too much yelling and smoking.

She has Monroe’s luxurious figure, but near black hair, as glossy as molasses, and skin so dark that Sammy Davis, Jr. once accused her of passing.

She picks up the receiver by the bedside and places it to her ear.

JEFFIE
Hello?

GEORGE LLOYD (O.S.)
Jeffie, I’m sorry. Joey’s been killed.

Jeffie is speechless.

JEFFIE (V.O.)
George Lloyd called me from New York early one morning and woke me up to tell me my Joey had been killed. And as I lay there, hearing that, my life ended too.

TITLE SEQUENCE

My Gonzo Take on the Golden Globes

Okay, I watched the 2010 Golden Globes. I really enjoyed the show. I thought the host, Ricky Gervais, did a great job while drinking his beer at the podium, getting an obvious buzz in a much more informal environment than the Oscars. As usual, I was jealous of all the beautiful people enjoying the limelight at the Beverly Hilton while I sat in my trailer park, glued to the screen, green with envy, and guzzling Budweiser.

It was fun to see Mickey Rourke kiss Mike Tyson… nice to see such macho guys show a little love. Seeing Colin Farrell as a presenter reinforced once again how much I wish I could cast him in my mobster script, Joey & Jeffie, as Joey (Crazy Joe) Gallo beside Michelle Rodriguez as Las Vegas showgirl, Jeffie Lee… maybe someday if I don’t get whacked first or if Harvey Weinstein doesn’t beat me to the punch.

I thought it was only fitting that James Cameron won Best Director and Avatar won Best Motion Picture. I mean, really folks, who can beat the four and a half year project, Avatar? I know all you film purists hate it, but you have to give the devil his due: Avatar is what movies are all about, i.e., it is entertaining. So suck it up - better luck next time.

And how about Quentin Tarantino? Suave… goddamn, he’s suave! I mean, I thought his movie Inglourious Basterds was an overrated version of a Hogan’s Heroes episode from a script with way too much white space, but what do I know? I still love the guy. I miss the days of True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. I’d give my left nut to be able to write scripts like that. And I just know that the misspelling of bastards must have been unintentional, but when called on it he must have said, “Fuck it” and left it at that. I mean, didn’t the guy drop out of school in the Eighth grade? And let’s not forget, this is a guy who said Oliver Stone is “an overrated Stanley Kramer.” He had the balls to say that about Oliver fucking Stone, man!

The fact is, none of Tarantino’s movies come even close to Platoon or Born on the 4th of July. Inglourious Basterds nominated for Best Motion Picture? Knee grow, please. As one astute observer at the Cannes put it, Inglorious Basterds is “…an action movie with no action.” But Tarantino was a huge influence on me, and is one of the reasons I decided to write scripts. I fell for the whole million dollar ad campaign paid for by the Weinstein’s of the video store clerk turned movie auteur. And I always go see everyone one of his flicks when they come out. I’m just jealous! Okay?

And the rest of the show? I didn’t see most of the shows that were nominated or that won. My cable TV got cut off almost three years ago when I sold my soul and spent every extra penny I had to make my own shitty little movie. But I’m happy for everyone, okay?

I’m happy for Jeff Bridges. I always liked his dad, Lloyd Bridges, in the television show, Sea Hunt, which aired back when Methuselah was a baby. I will eventually see Crazy Heart.

Meryl Streep? You can’t go wrong with the greatest living female actress on the planet. Unless maybe with Jessica Lange as a serious contender for that slot?

Robert Downey, Jr.? He’s like the new Brando, right? Or he’s at least in contention with Christian Bale for that title, right?

I would love to see Precious, but jeez, what a downer of a movie it must be… after watching the trailer I was reaching for my hanky and felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I will say, however, that the best golden globes at the 2010 Golden Globes were on Mariah Carey. I will see Precious someday, too.

Maybe this year I’ll get my cable hooked back up and have some extra bread to see some cable TV and some flicks, man. Hell, I might even get to make another flick myself… who knows what the future holds?