I was chilling in my hacienda yesterday when who should show up but My Sensei. Mr. Quentin Tarantino himself visited my little shack in [REDACTED]. I’m not back in Massachusetts with my cousin and his bitch wife, I’m chilling elsewhere for now. Remember, I’ll be handling projection duties for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth in Maryland and Washington, DC, so I’m going monk mode until November when the movie will screen in an exclusive engagement in 350 theaters. I think I told you the world might have to wait until 2027 to see the movie, depending on my mood, but I’ve been informed, by my very own conscience, that delaying the film for my own selfish need to control and manipulate everyone and everything around me is not bad necessarily, but not good for the film. I want the film to do well, and I want My Sensei to not be mad at me anymore.
Turns out I didn’t have to wait—he walked up like nothing happened. I wasn’t even sure he remembered me at first, because he was calling me “Beltran” like a Spanish rent boy, but then he asked about Rooster and we started chopping it up. Cerveza and FourLoko (the OG formula) are our go-to’s, and while My Sensei has both on tap in his compound in Israel (which I’ve visited and it’s nice), I have no such luxury in my hacienda somewhere in the DMV.
We went old-school and bought some nitrous oxide at a headshop and paired it with some dirt weed we dumpster dived out behind a dispensary. You can’t even find mids anymore, it’s crazy. Everything is “wax” or “glue” or “budder.” The fuck? Does the dispensary assume I’m fat and low-class? Look, nothing against poor people, but they’re gross. And I’m saying that as a worker—a film worker.
My Sensei was informed about my projection responsibilities. We spent this past weekend chopping it up about the superior qualities of 35mm and 70mm production and projection, and talking shit on some of our peers. I won’t say who, but My Sensei isn’t a fan of most new movies. We know he hates the cuckold Paul Dano, but did you know he also isn’t a fan of Tom Sizemore, or Wes Craven? Well, who cares anyway, they’re dead, while Paul Dano still walks among us. Concerning. No, I wish him well. Little Miss Sunshine was a good movie.
“But that pissant was terrible as the Joker. You know I love Joaq”—he pronounces it “wok”—“But I can’t deny Heath Ledger, and even Jack Nicholson. They were good, alright? But Joaq, man, Joaq… when he goes on that talk show, in the first movie yeah, he’s just… you’re pinned to your fucking seat. Goddamn. I mean, that to me is like the last movie. When did it come out, October 2019? November?” I told him it was October. “October, right. So it’s really the last movie. We were really lucky to get in there under the wire. Chris and Paul got screwed.” My Sensei believes movie history ended in 2019—conveniently, the year he released his most recent film—and he says he “feels” for his friends Chris (Nolan) and Paul (Thomas Anderson), but is nevertheless glad he made it to nine movies before the pandemic hit.
Now that the Cliff Booth sequel is done, and he’s busy helping me prepare the projection, I figured it was time to ask about number 10, the final film. “When are you going to show the world?” I felt like Billy Zane asking Derek Zoolander when he was “going to drop Magnum on us.” I’m sure My Sensei’s final film will come out just in time, right before another global catastrophe… or, maybe it won’t be any good at all, maybe he’s really lost it, and maybe it’ll inaugurate a new Age of Aquarius (a new Age of Aquarius—not that fat hairy hippy Joy of Sex shit). But I wouldn’t count on My Sensei delivering a stinker. He’s never been deracinated or removed from the source of his inspiration: namely, the world, from flowing cerveza to talking roosters with Napoleon complexes. That’s not me though that’s my cousin Rooster. He has the Napoleon complex. Not me. Also his wife’s a bitch. My Sensei’s wife is, well, she’s a lovely lady. Did you expect anything less?
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