Tag: Jonathan London

What Went Wrong?

by Jonathan

Despite the shoe-in of a spectacular box office performance, the reviews have spoken loud and clear. This is not a review. This is an analysis.

The long in development Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull delivers more misses than hits. A lot more misses. The film has three things that work strongly in its favor: Harrison Ford’s performance, Stephen Spielberg’s camera and the story’s pacing. Cate Blanchett’s performance as the Soviet villain Irina Spalko is a plus, but the treatment of her character in the film’s script is so unfair and flaccid that we are left with is one of the top acting talents on the planet swinging for the fences with the equivalent of a rubber hose. In the instance of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I do not hate the players. I completely loathe the game.

WARNING! SPOILERS FOLLOW FROM HERE ON OUT! AND NOT JUST REGULAR SPOILERS, BUT HARDCORE SPOILERS THAT WILL GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES! READ ON ONLY IF YOU’VE SEEN THIS FILM!

The lethal problems in this movie might be numerous, but they all stem from one place: the script. Below I’m going to work through what I believe to be the most dead end problems with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But let’s be very clear on two things first:

Monday Morning Quarterbacking is always easier than committing the act itself. During the course of a film’s production, the shooting script is worked and reworked countless times and for countless reasons, none of which we will ever be privy to. Budget, acting, physical complications, the list is endless. Add to that the constant reworking and adjustments that happen during the post process and who knows where this script could have gone. The only thing we are left with is what is on the screen. Knowing that, I’ve limited my criticisms and solutions to the larger aspects of the story instead of nitpicking things that could easily have been production or editing decisions.

Second thing: out of the four of us, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, screenwriter David Koepp and me, THREE have made some of the greatest films of the past four decades. ONE is a fledgling video director who does a podcast from his couch. I am not saying that I am a better storyteller than any of these three. Put me in the shoes of any of them and the pressure on my head would be the equivalent of standing at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Stephen Spielberg is… I’m not even going to quantify him. It’s a ridiculous gesture. George Lucas is a storyteller so powerful that he gave us all our childhoods… and then took it all away. He once was quoted as saying that making an audience emote was easy. You give a little girl a pet and then you take it away. He did this to us over the course of thirty years! And David Koepp brought us the scripts to Jurassic Park, Spider-Man (and my personal favorite Toy Soldiers) among so many others in his incredible career that listing them would be like listing a lot of people’s favorite blockbusters list.

So now that we have our perspective on the players and the game, let’s begin. This is not a review of the movie. This is an analysis. And because I don’t run a website where we throw stones at other filmmakers from behind the defense of keyboards, I have provided what I think are solutions to some of the story’s biggest problems. Please, use the comment section below to agree or disagree with my points. They may or may not be any more valid than the opinions voiced during the production of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull aka The Most Heartbreaking Film I’ve Seen Since The English Patient For Reasons Other Than Those In The English Patient… Frustrating Reasons That Leave Me Cold At Night Wondering “What Could Have Been?”.

First things first: The Three Biggest Problems

The Diluting of Our Hero – Harrison Ford owns the role. Always has. Always will. That being said, the presence of several “side-kicks” in this movie takes attention, time and, more importantly, work, away from our hero. As in the past three films, we want to see our main guy earn his victory. The more you give screen time and attention to other characters (who provide varying degrees of anything) the less Indiana has to do on his own. Everyone loves the shots of Indiana Jones standing alone in silhouette. This is why. It’s one man against an army. Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s very first shot provided this and in one shot an icon was born. The Paramount Pictures logo dissolved to the looming sight of a tall mountain peak… but it was soon dwarfed in the frame by the sight of our hero… and he was headed towards it with determination. In one shot, Raiders gave us more information about our protagonist than is provided in the opening sequences of Crystal Skull. Already, things are not looking good.

The Flaccidity of Our Villains – This has nothing to do with Cate Blanchett being a woman. It has to do with the fact that Crystal Skull gives us zero context or urgency to our villains. There is an end goal in sight (to deliver the crystal skull to its rightful place and inherit vast powers) but we never learn what a Soviet victory will really cost. We get a few lines about mind controlling the populace of the United States but we never see these powers ever materialize or on display. The threat is never literalized for us in order to give us that “holy shit, that’s bad” moment. No hearts are ripped out. No armies march. And even worse, Spalko spends the entire movie bluffing. Several times she threatens characters with her rapier skills and supposed psychic powers. We never see her deliver on either and the more she cries wolf, the less we believe she’s capable of anything. By the end of the film, she delivers no tension whatsoever. Giving us the equivalent of Keystone Cops as villains works even further in diluting Indiana in our eyes. Of course he’s going to win! They’re not as ruthless as the other villains were!

The Lack of Stakes – This is the ticking time bomb that drives the story. And the bomb is diffused in the very first scene. The villains are chasing the crystal skull… but they need our hero to use it. In Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones does something he has never done in any of the previous three films: he pursues the wrong goals for the wrong reasons. In Raiders he wants to keep the ark from the Nazis. But not keep its power for himself. In Temple of Doom, Indy wants to recover the stones for the villagers. In Last Crusade, Indiana finds the Holy Grail but makes the choice to leave it and not benefit from its powers. In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Jones retrieves the all powerful skull… and then does exactly what the villains would do: he takes it to see what happens when the power bestowing legend is fulfilled. Literally, all Indiana Jones needs to do is tell the Soviets to get lost and the threat is gone! For the majority of the film, he’s in possession of the skull! Why does he lead the bad guys towards their ultimate goal? What is really driving him? If the goal is to stop the villains, once the good guys are safe… why don’t they just take the skull on vacation? I would take pictures in exotic locales with the crystal skull and mail then to Stalin with the words “you snooze you lose” written across them. There’s a brief moment where Indiana and his son need to rescue Professor Oxley and this is a sufficient driving force… but once we get there the guy is jumping and dancing around! He’s not tied up! He’s not tortured! He’s on a scout retreat in the Amazon! Come on! Where are the stakes!?! These are the Reds we’re dealing with! Give the action in the film a larger context and then set the bomb ticking! This problem really leads back to the diluting of our hero and our villain.

So let’s set things right. Let’s make the version of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that we want to see! So where do we start? Well… at the beginning of course:

The Nevada Desert Compound Sequence – Up to this point, things can still be made good. We’ve had our villains kill some army soldiers (good so far!) and a gag with a prairie dog that alludes to the first three films’ intros. This gag works great at first but it never gets paid off so it becomes more infuriating over time than it is satisfying. No, the biggest problem with this opening sequence is that two things happen that are huge: our villains ask Indiana Jones for help and Irina Spalko bluffs for the first time. Already our villains are put at the mercy of our hero and we’re starting to see that our main baddie is full of shit when it comes to delivering on the pain. What we need is something that will establish them immediately as people not to be fucked with and that they will find what they are looking for whether Jones helps them or not (the difference being that they’ll let him live… like anyone would ever believe that!).

Solution – Irina Spalko runs Mac through with her rapier once Indy protests helping.

Bam! Now we’re not fucking around. In one move, the story has established how far the villains are willing to take things (at the very least) and we’ve eliminated a superfluous character. I love Ray Winstone, but Mac really hurts the overall story with his character’s moral fence sitting. Over the course of the film, he forces the audience to like him, then hate him, then be confused by him, then frustrated and ultimately apathetic towards him. By the time he dies in the closing scene, Mac means nothing to us or, more importantly, Indiana. Even worse, Jones’ inability to put his foot down and take a stance against his former friend distances us from our protagonist. Does anyone feel anything for Indiana when we watch Mac die in the end? No. By making this one change, we have given Indiana’s choices emotional weight (the loss of a friend) and something more valuable… a kickass villain. From here, Indiana can begrudgingly help the Soviets while he (and the audience) ponder ‘damn… how am I going to get out of this one?’ This starts our clock ticking. At the end of the sequence, when we finally see Indy escape and standing victoriously against the expanding mushroom cloud (in a throwback to and escalation of the Raiders mountain shot) we won’t be able to avoid thinking ‘okay, this is going to be harder than anything he’s faced up to this point’. Plus, the villains have what they wanted and they’re ruthless! He’d better get around to stopping them.

The FBI, University Sequence – The story stops and we lose sight of the bigger picture: the bad guys just got what they were after! Where’s the urgency? He’s teaching classes! Oh no. He lost his job! Come on! Am I in Crazy Town?!? THE BAD GUYS GOT WHAT THEY WANTED! WHY!?! Indy’s apathy towards this fact stops the story in its tracks. What’s this guy doing?

Solution – He’s a scholar. They’re not. Indy returns to the University for either help or answers. Dean Charles Stanforth has already dealt with the feds and breaks Indy the sad news of his resignation. Wow. Whatever this is about… it’s pretty big. In a much better exposition than in the film, Indy would naturally turn to his father… but now we learn that he’s no longer with us. Maybe he can find them elsewhere.

The Introduction of Mutt Williams – Funny that this sequence takes place on a train because this is where the movie starts to really derail. Shia’s Mutt Williams never stood a chance. He comes off less like The Wild One and more like The Mild One. He rides in with a blasé attitude and keeps it up for the first half of the film. This is an adventure movie. No one should be introduced sitting down unless they’re total wimps (and poor Mutt comes off as exactly that)! The following scene… it’s contagious! He AND Indiana are now sitting down! Come on! Spit it out! There’s some rescuing to be done! Some Soviets to be stopped!

Solution – “Mutt” (shudder) races onto the train in search of Indiana. He’s desperately looking for him. His avoidance of the train conductor and staff show us that he’s smart and resourceful. He knows what Indiana looks like. He finds him on the train but not without causing a commotion with the ticket taker. You want a throw back to the original films? Why not have Indiana save “Mutt” (shudder) from a ticket taker claiming that “Mutt” (shudder) broke onto the train and has “no ticket”? At that point, the Soviet heavies in pursuit of Indiana further complicate the altercation and lead into the motorcycle chase. You can bet Indiana, who just got swept into someone else’s problem, would be wondering “what this is all about”. Cue exposition from Shia! But now you are getting it during our chase scene! So it works in service to the action and story rather than at the expense of it. The story isn’t put on hold while he spills the beans. It’s unfolding around them. On top of that, throw in some disagreements about “Mutt”s conducting of the escape (Indy’s done this a few times) and you start to establish the character’s disapproval of each other while getting some better laughs.

All in all, Mutt’s arch was written away from Shia Lebouf’s strengths. He’s a much better actor than this arch gives him room for. And the solution is also easy: start him out as a loser. The first time we see him he looks like a guy who doesn’t think his shit stinks. He ends as a guy who doesn’t think his shit stinks. It’s just not believable unless we see the transformation for ourselves and see it proven for us. This is what Lebouf does, people!

Disturbia – starts out as a loser and then saves the day.
Transformers – starts out as a loser and saves the planet.
The upcoming Eagle Eye (from what I can tell from the trailer) – starts out as a broke loser and then needs to figure it out quick (I’m guessing in order to save the day)!

We love seeing Shia do this time and time again in movies. Why not give him that kind of arch here? Why not start him off as “Mutt” (shudder) and end him as the TRUE heir of the hat and whip (with an actual name)? Is he even the right actor for this? The way Crystal Skull unfolds, we’ll never know. Here he comes off as completely inadequate. Does he save anyone during the course of the film? Uh… no.

Wait. Rubber snake. Never mind.

I’m going to pause for a second to ask: WHY WAS THE MOTORCYCLE BROUGHT ON THE PLANE!?! DID ANYONE THINK THIS WAS NOT ONLY POINTLESS BUT RIDICULOUS?

Okay. I’m good.

Graveyard Sequence – These warriors have protected the burial site of their ancestors for hundreds of years! But hit them with a shovel and make one swallow a poison dart and they go away for good. Whatever.

Solution – They chase Mutt and Indy into the tomb… but are stopped by something unseen. We actually see them refuse to take one step further out of fear for something terrible happening to them. They are religious protectors of the tomb! And they fear something even greater within the tomb. But our heroes will go for it! Will they ever!

Here’s a big missed opportunity. Especially in continuing to develop Mutt and Indy’s relationship. It’s obvious that Oxley didn’t remove the crystal skull from the tomb… but why? There’s a lot of importance given to the concept of “return” in this part of the script… and the audience is never told why. There should absolutely be a price paid for Indy and Mutt removing the skull… and we know just the price don’t we?

A GIANT TRAP!!!

How awesome would it be if removing the skull, like removing the idol in Raiders, set off a sequence of traps that Indy and Mutt needed to escape together? What a completely missed opportunity to build on themes from the first film without all of the nostalgia gags that already dragged down this script? How great would it be if Mutt asked Indy to throw him the whip, and then DIDN’T betray him? How much would Indy learn from this one moment? How much emotional weight would we have gained on both their parts? Oh man. A guy can dream. This one really hurts.

The Soviet Camp and the Powers of the Crystal Skull – This scene should be called “Liar Liar Pants on Fire”. Everyone is lying to each other. Mac. Spalko. Indy. The lying is out of control. Spalko has the chance to do something terrible here and doesn’t. Oxley is introduced… but we feel nothing.

Solution – Indiana is forced by Spalko’s psychic power of the crystal skull to kill Oxley.

But it doesn’t fully work! How great would this scene have been? Spalko’s not bluffing! She has powers! The skull has powers! Oh crap! Now we see JUST HOW BAD THE SOVIETS WINNING CAN BE! On top of that… we see that Indy is even STRONGER! He fights Spalko’s control but his nose starts to bleed and he begins to choke Oxley. Then he hears Miriam scream in the background and his willpower doubles. He breaks the psychic control and gets to work escaping with the skull, Miriam, Oxley and Mutt. Lots of punches get thrown. Alright. Now we’re rocking.

The Quicksand Sequence – Okay. The Soviets officially suck. While they are Keystone Copping around the jungle, Indy, Miriam and Mutt are YELLING at each other just on the other side of a bush. The exposition is painful and the scene’s lack of action or urgency is even worse. I think this is another missed opportunity for not only laughs, but some action.

Solution – The Soviets are in hot pursuit and Miriam saves Indiana. Oxley and Mutt work to buy them more time. Now you can get just as much exposition if not more between Miriam and Indiana. Plus, you get even more history. You give Oxley and Mutt something to do with possibly comedic results. And of course, the Soviets get to them and capture them. These aren’t the losers we saw in the actual film. They mean business.

The Chase Sequence – One problem: monkeys.

Solution – No monkeys. This sequence wasn’t just bad. It was insulting.

The Fire Ant Fight – Here’s where some story problems really get worse. The crystal skull becomes a cure all problem solver. The heroes can use it to as a cure all without any need to devise a solution themselves. There’s a major difference between Indiana fighting a physically superior opponent against the threat of an exploding plane and a dangerous propeller and Indy fighting a stronger opponent and simply having to sumo with him. First one out of the circle loses… badly.

Solution – King of the hill! How great would it be if the ants were racing Indiana and his opponent up a tree, in a tree or up a small hill? Now the ants work as your ticking clock, adding the same urgency to the fight as the exploding plane in Raiders. On top of that, light the other end of the tree or hill on fire and you’ve got a rock, a hard place and a solution to the ants… if only Indy lives long enough to get to it. As the two ends start to converge on each other… Indy had really better in this fight quick.

The Waterfalls – Really?!? Okay. We can believe them surviving two. But that third one? Uh uh. You just told the audience that your main characters were invincible (and amazing swimmers). If that third waterfall doesn’t kill them, what’s a Ruskie going to do?

Solution – Jump ship! Indy is always jumping out of things that are going over cliffs or headed towards disaster. This boat should be no different. By having he characters work together to avoid being killed, you’ve got yourself a pretty good action sequence. It’s not major, but it’s similar to the mine car and airplane raft landing scenes in Temple of Doom. Add to this, the Soviets in pursuit in their own motor vehicles, firing away at them and things get really stressful for our main characters. Stress = good.

The Race to the Golden Temple – Here’s another creepy and cool sequence completely neutered by the cure-all of the crystal skull. All Oxley does is wave the skull around and the natives WHO HAVE DEFENDED THE TEMPLE FOR CENTURIES start stammering and hanging out in the background like the bad guys in kung fu movies. Well, that was easy! Oh yeah: easy = bad.

On top of this, all of them are killed OFF SCREEN by Spalko’s troops. Wait! You mean this lady actually does something ruthless!?! FINALLY!?! AND WE DON’T EVEN SEE IT!?! Oh man. That’s not good.

Solution – Run faster. And then add Russians. And give the Russians the skull.

Here’s a lesson I learned from Jean Claude Van Damme (among many lessons that I learned from Jean Claude Van Damme). His enemies always had an easier time at achieving their goals than he did. Why? Because they cheated! And he didn’t! He just kicked ass harder! This always made the stakes and tension go way up.

The crystal skull is a giant cheat. I hated how much it was used to solve problems in this movie. But guess what? In my version, Mutt loses it in the first temple. It gets rocked out of his hands by a sling. And they can’t turn back for it. All they can do is race to the golden temple. The Russians though, strolling in after the action and hard work has been done, retrieve the crystal skull. Spalko uses it to manipulate the natives and gain entry into the temple that our heroes have found refuge in (after racing their asses off and doing some puzzle solving to get into).

So now you have the set up for the final act. Spalko has the skull and obvious psychic powers. Our heroes? Well, they’re kind of between her and her goal. And somehow they need to stop her from getting it.

You can put in whatever finale you want. But keep the aliens. I like the aliens. They work for me.

I would also use the final action sequence to resolve the Indiana/Mutt storyline and provide the real passing of the torch. Mutt should come off as a hero and redeem all of his screw-ups in the film. He should also say goodbye to Oxley. Yup. In one final act, poor Oxley eats it. Use your imagination. But make it good, make it heavy and make it meaningful. Like Bruce Willis in Armageddon meaningful. And make sure it buys the three remaining heroes the time needed to get away before the temple buries them and the spaceship “returns” (is that what they were talking about the whole time?).

In the end, Mutt gets a real name and decides to finish school (anyone else wonder where that story thread went?)… but only if Indy makes an honest woman of his mom and stops “running off”. This sets up the wedding and resolves the story completely… or at least until the next adventure looms.

Ollie Johnston: 1912-2008

by Jonathan

 

This morning I was thrown into a bit of reflection when Harry Knowles over at AICN ran a story about the passing of Ollie Johston. As of my last checking, IMDB has yet to pick up on this news. Harry says that he has known about Ollie Johnston almost his entire life. And it’s not hard to believe. Ollie Johnston was one of the Nine Old Men who, with Walt Disney, animated the classic Disney films and cartoons that we all grew up with.

We have ALL known Ollie Johnston our entire lives. We just didn’t know him by name. You’ve seen his animated characters countless times and you’ve even seen his face. Ollie Johnston, along with his best friend Frank Thomas, cameod in both of Brad Bird’s movies The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Bird credits the pair as both his friends and his teachers. I was sitting in a press screening for The Forbidden Kingdom (expect a review tomorrow) and I overhead a conversation in the row behind me in which a woman was going on and on about how perfect the Pixar films are. They are perfect because John Lassetter and Brad Bird and all of the animation directors at Pixar worshipped in the church of the Nine Old Men!

My story about Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas is a bit different than Harry’s. During the summer of 2005 I was broke. Flat broke. In March, I had finished my work as a runner PA on the Kirstie Alley show Fat Actress and was looking for work. Up to this point, in two years in Hollywood, every job that I had was either as a runner or as a PA. Some of these stories are so rage-inducingly horrible that to share them with you now would be to invite the shattering of your own souls and your abandonment of cinema forever. Okay, it was bad and I was broke, but it wasn’t THAT bad. The consistency of my blood was mainly top ramen at that point.

Anyhow, in early May I received a phone call from an Austin friend who was leaving a job and wanted to know if I could take over. I didn’t care what it was. I had to take it. I asked what it entailed. “Being an office assistant.” For who? “A documentary filmmaker and his wife.” Oh man… I was getting further and further away from the box office Hollywood dreams with every word! What’s he done? “His name is Ted and he made a movie called Frank and Ollie. His dad animated the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp.” Huh?!? What?!? My mind flashed back to being 8 and learning to read Spanish from a Donald Duck comic book on the steps of a pharmacy in Ajijic, Mexico while visiting my grandparents. My entire childhood was in worship of Mickey Mouse. Financial needs aside, I had to take this job!

Theodore and Kuniko lived 5 minutes away. Their office was local and they needed help with phones and transcriptions on some older projects plus a new documentary that they had in production. They were laid back and incredible to work with. I’ll tell you all about the new documentary as soon as Ted says it’s ready for festivals or exhibition but it is Disney history related. And for those few months that I worked for Theodore Thomas Productions, I felt as though I was showing up every morning to step into a time machine to my childhood.

For weeks I transcribed interviews that had been done with original Imagineers, animators, John Lassetter, Roy Disney, Brad Bird, you name it. This was footage that would end up mostly on the editing room floor in lieu of snippets and sound bites. But I got the lucky job of seeing and hearing how these people related to each other and worked with each other on a daily basis! After two years of seeing how I didn’t want Hollywood to work… I was finally seeing how Hollywood should! I was seeing how the magic that you and I joke about, actually was created by every day people doing their jobs!

Ted’s resemblance to his father Frank is incredible. Like Frank, Ted is a jazz musician. He sported a cool beatnick goatee and was excited about my beginning music video work. He and Kuniko acted like my biggest fans whenever I would show them my latest project or relay to them the latest news. Frank showed me photos of his dad and Ollie Johnston working alongside Walt Disney in the new Burbank offices after the company left the studio in Silver Lake. I watched interview footage of Ollie Johnston talking about how he got Walt into trains or the jokes they would tell or pranks they would pull.

In a few months, Hollywood suddenly became closer and working within it became more attainable. Watching films today or reading gossip rags or overhearing rumors you can quickly assume that the system does not work. You can become very cynical of anything and everything around you. Thousands and thousands of young filmmakers and aspiring creatives move out here every year but turn right back around when they are met with the intense negative climate associated with the industry. It’s a rat race with more rats than cheese.

But that summer with Ted and Kuniko taught me that you can’t focus on the rats. You have to focus on the mice. You have to celebrate the mice and you have to celebrate being a mouse. You have to do good and you have to do good work. You have to love to do it. Frank and Ollie loved what they did. I transcribed the love and saw photos of the love. We all sat in front of a television or in a theater as kids and RECEIVED that love through our eyes and ears. Frank and Ollie and the original Disney animators had talent in spades. But the inkwell that they dipped their talented pens into was the love for what they did. Magic was just the byproduct.

I love working. I loved working for Ted and Kuniko. I loved listening to the old stories and watching the footage of how the love of storytelling can overpower any myopic studio decision or cut-throat firing. Those months in the summer of 2005 recalibrated completely and refueled my creative engines. I haven’t looked back since. Hell! The main character in my project Singledom is a fledgling animator! I am SO thankful for this short period in my life!

The world of entertainment lost one of their biggest grandfathers in Ollie Johnston. But be thankful for all of the people that he has inspired in his time here. We will feel their magic but we may not yet know them all by name.

Frank and Ollie (Special Edition) and Walt – The Man Behind the Myth are both available for purchase or Netflixing. I highly recommend both of them for a better picture of Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas and this incredible period in storytelling.


 

Let the Tournament Begin!

by Jonathan

Some movies are crowd pleasers that make you laugh and cheer. Some movies are cute and cuddly and warm the cockles of your heart like hot cocoa. Some are well-crafted, exquisite works of art.

GAUNTLET movies are none of the above.

GAUNTLET movies are watched in bulk. TWO, THREE, even FOUR in a sitting. They are an endurance contest for only the strong of will and weak of taste. Lesser men have clawed out their eyes rather than finish, and then crawl away to die alone in shame. We call those people Cinema Studies majors. Even when they’re bad, we love them the way a pervert loves a vacuum cleaner.

BUT BE WARNED: only those with the most effulgently brassy of mighty brass testes (or ovaries, we’re not prejudiced here) can make it through a GAUNTLET. Those who do are a rare breed. We don’t just laugh at bad taste, we EMBRACE it. We don’t just appreciate schlock, we REVEL in it. And we don’t just watch these movies, we CONSUME them! And then we tell you about it because we wish to inflict our madness on others!

The GAUNTLET has been thrown down. But don’t just pick it up. Smell its fingers. Then put it on and pick your nose with it!

 

Back in the 80s, you could apparently sell a karate movie that didn’t come from Hong Kong, or Japan, or Thailand. Or star performers with acting skills as well as intensive martial arts training. You could cast anyone, and go to someplace equally exotic like the former Yugoslavia. Or South Africa. Or, er…Phoenix, Arizona. A good martial arts movie could come from any of these places.

In theory, anyway.

My friend Quinton and I did this gauntlet about six months ago. For the purposes of journalistic research I recently subjected myself to it again. When I told him of my plan and invited him to join me, Quinton suddenly remembered an appointment he had in Sri Lanka to have himself trepanned using a heavy rock and a wooden stake.

Title: Gymkata
Genre: Your average Olympic gymnast is recruited by the CIA to become a human weapon in order to preserve democracy.
Tag Line: The skill of gymnastics…the kill of karate!
Filmed In: The former Yugoslavia…and perhaps letting it film there was a more heinous crime than anything else Milosevic ever committed. Including the manufacture of the Yugo.
Year of Release: 1985
Cast: Kurt Thomas, Tectchie Agbayani, Richard Norton, Edward Bell
Director: Robert Clouse
Writer: Charles Robert Carner
Running Time: 90 minutes

 
Plot: Parmistan is a crappy little backwater country that has yet to appear in any Frommer’s guide. Mainly because any foreigner who enters is forced to play ‘The Game,’ which is kind of like a boot camp obstacle course, only with ninjas trying to kill you and a town full of mentally ill folk who have a lot of pointy objects. Unfortunately Parmistan is geographically located so it would be a great place to have a Star Wars defense installation. After his father is killed playing the game, Olympic gymnastics champion Jonathan Cabot goes in to win the game and convince the ruler, the Kahn (no relation to Shao Kahn) to let the defense department set up shop. Seems kind of selfish, since he could use his one request from winning the game to, I don’t know, let the people of Parmistan have things like cars, telephones, indoor plumbing or maybe modern dentistry. But hey, in ’85 we still had the cold war.

Breaking Point: About twenty minutes in. After she tied him up, strangled him and kicked him in the balls in their first training session, the Princess Ruballi of Parmistan seems to be Cabot’s kind of girl: mute AND paranoid. In order to seduce her, Jonathan performs both sides of their conversation. He says good morning, then does a neat back flip and answers as Ruballi in a girlish falsetto. I once seduced a girlfriend using this exact technique. Well, I used a sock puppet. OK, I seduced the sock puppet.

Similar Films: Mean Guns, The Warriors, Rat Race
Pain Equivalency: Being forced to wear Kurt Thomas’ jock strap like a surgical mask after he’s been doing floor exercises for 90 minutes.

Number of Asian Actors: 2
Review: After showing off his half-mullet haircut and gymanstical prowess in a nice slow-mo opening, Jonathan Cabot gets recruited to play the aforementioned game which resulted in his father getting killed. To prepare, he runs a lot of miles behind a guy on horseback, learns to walk up a flight of stairs on his hands (letting us get too many close looks at his package…fucking short shorts) and beaten up by a mute Thai girl.

Then Cabot and Princess Ruballi travel to Karabal, on the Caspian Sea. We know this because the title card tells us that they’re in Karabal, on the Caspian Sea. Their local contact is named the Stork and has cool hatchets and spring loaded knives for them to use, which are never seen after their Q division style introduction. While enjoying the Karabal nightlife, a guy in a turban spits in Jonathan’s face, and tells him ‘Yankee go home.’ Apparently Karabal has more Mets fans. Their CIA handlers get killed, Ruballi gets kidnapped, and Jonathan decides to rescue her by stealthily breaking into a mansion in a bright red sweater. He tries the front door, but finds it locked and gets chased away. After finding a convenient highbar (look closely and you can see the chalk on his hands) Jonathan kicks several of his pursuers in the chin and goes back and rescues Ruballi.

Then they sneak into Parmistan, where Cabot meets the Kahn, a sweet old guy in a big ass fur hat whose job consists of denying the 20th century’s existence and getting the crowds of citizens to yell ‘Yak Mallah!’ which is a phrase probably best left untranslated. He also meets the Kahn’s chief aide Zamir, who possesses bad ass feathered hair, a fearsome rat-tail braid, and big-ass pectorals that he displays proudly under his goat-fur vest. Hey, if my man boobs were that toned, supple and hairless I would too. Zamir has also been plotting to fix the games, so that he can take over the country and sell it out to the Commies. It goes to show you can’t trust a dude with a modern haircut in a back-assward country. Zamir also has it out for Jonathan because of the princess; Zamir’s supposed ot marry her for the good of the country or something, and after all, she’s the only chick with straight teeth in the whole place, probably because her mother was a Thai hooker they brought in for the Kahn. The last person worth mentioning is Thorg, a big slab of beef on two legs who looks like he could barely run, but is set to compete. Jonathan has some bizarre hero worship of the guy, but you know he’s a douche because he refuses to shake hands when Jonathan tries to kiss his ass.

So of course the game starts, and both Zamir and this Thorg douche are cheating like hell, trying to kill Jonathan. Tripping him up and kicking hi in the face right at the start? Check. Set fire to his climbing rope when he scales a cliff? Check. Cut his climbing rope above a deep gorge? Check. But Jonathan makes it through all this shit to the best set piece in the whole movie, the ‘Village of the Damned.’

While Parmistan may lag behind in every other field, they are progressive in the field of mental health. Rather than confine people or shock them with electricity (especially since the entire country doesn’t have so much as a flashlight battery) they let their mentally ill roam free in a walled city with access to all the pitchforks, sickles and machetes they could ever possibly want. And boy are they happy! They giggle, they chortle, they make random animal noises, they hack off their own limbs only when extremely upset, and there’s even one dude with an extra face on the back of his head for some reason. Not sure if it’s a mask or a deformity, but Jonathan kicks him in the head several times regardless. So when they all begin to realize that Jonathan could report them to the UN World Health Organization and get them all hooked on prozac, they collectively decide to skewer his mulleted ass. Unfortunately for them they short-sightedly put a pommel horse in their village square. Oh you silly crazy folk, your capriciousness is always your own undoing…putting that pommel horse there just results in a whole lot of you getting kicked in the face the next time a gymkata master comes through, didn’t you see that coming?

So after he escapes there’s a fairly lame 11th hour twist, Jonathan fights Zamir (here’s a hint to the outcome-when it’s feathered hair vs. mullet – ALWAYS bet on the mullet) and the world is safe for Reaganism until Red Dawn gets released. Oh and for some reason Ruballi runs in around in some lycra spandex.

Title: Kill And Kill Again
Genre: Your average martial arts champion/mercenary is hired by the government to prevent a madman from conquering the world.
Tag Line: He’s not one of the best, he is the best!
Filmed In: South Africa, apartheid still clearly VERY much in effect, see below
Year of Release: 1980
Cast: James Ryan, Anneline Kriel, Michael Mayer, Marloe Scott-Wilson, Bill Flynn, Ken Gampu
Director: Ivan Hall
Writer: John Crowther
Running Time: approx. 100 minutes…the DVD case has no time…it may feel like longer, though


Plot: While concocting a formula to make superfuel from potatoes, Dr. Horatio Kane stumbled on a mind control drug as a byproduct. So naturally an evil billionaire kidnaps the doctor, renames himself Marduk (pronounced like Marmaduke, just without the –ma- in the middle) and uses the drug to take over a small town as a precursor to world domination. Of course the government, rather than carpet bombing the place or sending in soldiers with lots of guns, instead recruits world champion martial artist Steve Chase to pull together his team of trusty yet unarmed mercenaries to liberate the town. Ok, Chase does have a pair of nunchucks, but he mostly uses them to show off how he can blow out candles.

Breaking Point: About 40 minutes in. Apparently in 1980 it was still acceptable to have an African character nicknamed Gorilla. Gorilla is the team strong man, banned from pro-wrestling because after every time he wins, he has to ‘…bite the other guy’s ear off. I just can’t help it!’ Apparently Mike Tyson saw this movie and took it to heart. Anyway, while the team is flying by jet, Gorilla experiences an urgent call of nature, but the lavatory is occupied. He hurriedly breaks down the door, forcibly removes the occupant and does his business. Steve Chase apologizes to the stewardess, saying, ‘Please excuse him ma’am. He’s never flown before.’ To that the stew replies, ‘I thought he’d never been let out of the zoo before.’ Steve answers, ‘Actually we bribed his keeper.’ Apartheid clearly was far from over when they produced this one. Later on one of Gorilla’s teammates calls him ‘Captain Midnight’ and complains he should be made to sit at the back of their wagoneer.

Similar Films: The Magnificent Seven, The A Team (ok, not a film)
Pain Equivalency: Like getting hit in the jaw with a two by four…then realizing the reason it’s stuck to your face is because it had nails in it.

Number of Asian Actors: 1

Review: The opening says it all about this movie. Lead James Ryan strikes poses in silhouette to imitation porno music in desperate attempt to remind the audience of the James Bond franchise.

In the opening scene, instead of receiving yet another trophy for his ability to backflip and face kick, we are introduced to our hero, Steve Chase as he defends the very blonde Candy Kane from a group of unidentified assailants, by deftly knocking them (and six attendees of the presentation) into the swimming pool. After foiling a bombing attempt in her hotel room (never trust the bellhop with sideburns, particularly if your room service was already delivered), Steve is recruited by Candy to rescue her ‘father’ (read: convenient excuse to have her tag along for eye candy) Dr. Horatio Kane from the evil Marduk and his insidious fake beard. Marduk is assisted by the obnoxious Minerva, a sultry lass with a penchant for bubblegum pink hair, lycra spandex and calling Marduk pet nicknames like ‘pumpkin pie,’ ‘chuckles,’ and ‘dimples.’ For a rich guy, Marduk acts an AWFUL lot like a commie pinko, right down to huge-ass pictures of his face on every building, which just makes clear how fake his beard really is. So maybe he isn’t such a good red-they all could grow their own facial hair.

You may think I’m making too much of how fake Marduk’s beard is. But if ever you see it for yourself you’ll probably spend an hour wondering just how long it took to glue together all the pubes required to make it.

Steve spends the next half hour recruiting his teammates. First there’s the Fly, who has some extra cool special skills, including lighting incense with his feet, short term levitation, climbing down sheer walls and being the whitest character alive to have dialogue that could be found in a fortune cookie. Observe his inscrutable bullshit for yourself:

‘Your outer eye sees clearly. Your inner eye is equally aware.’
‘For this mission feet alone are insufficient. The mind that leads the feet needs to be wise.’
‘House of merriment usually breeds trouble.’
‘Question: why are eagles wearing umbrellas?’
‘The animal trap lies quietly before it springs.’

Next is Gorilla, the most un-PC character ever concocted outside of Disney’s Song of the South. We first see Gorilla in a tug of war with an entire construction crew. When Steve knocks him into the mud, he remarks that ‘that color looks good on you.’ Before you can say Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gorilla has joined the mission. Next is Gypsy, a redneck living in a trailer park that would need a few grand in repairs to qualify as condemned. Even though Steve is going to pay him a small fortune for coming on the mission, Gypsy insists on fighting half the trailer park for his $5 security deposit before he leaves. Last is Hot Dog, a cigar smoking slob whose combat skills consist of throwing thumbtacks under peoples’ feet and a shitty Bogart impression. Before they recruit him, Hot Dog whiles away his days playing a bastardized form of Russian roulette where someone throws a gun on the ground to make it go off and see if anybody gets shot; the winner is the last one crazy enough to keep playing. And Hot Dog is supposed to be the clever/conniving one on the team.

The team then races to foil Marduk’s plot. Actually, the team wanders through the countryside in an SUV, with Steve Chase hitting on Candy at every opportunity. And Marduk, rather than say, buying a bunch of guns and shooting them all, sends his own martial artists out to fight them, even dropping in a squad of them by parachute. After unsuccessfully infiltrating the town, the gang is captured and made to fight in a one-on-one tournament, culminating in Steve Chase battling a big doof with a bad moustache named the Optimus. Sadly this Optimus can’t transform into a semi, and doesn’t come close to hitting like one. After winning his fight by performing a gratuitous number of backflips, Steve forces Marduk to free the town. Marduk then attempts to flee in the world’s smallest two-seater helicopter, but Gorilla holds it down bare-handed long enough for Marduk’s own men to blow it up (so hard to find good help that aren’t brainwashed). Steve then rushes to Dr. Kane’s lab to deflect the slowest bullet in the world and save his life from one of the guards. The gang then goes off into the sunset with Gorilla behind the wheel, and Hot Dog and his newly adopted parrot screaming in terror that Captain Midnight might kill them all with his primitive driving skills.


Title: Ninja III – Domination


Genre: Your average aerobics instructor/telephone linewoman is possessed by a ninja seeking to avenge his own death.
Tag Line: He’s the ultimate killer. She’s the perfect weapon.
Filmed In: Phoenix, Arizona
Year of Release: 1985
Cast: Sho Kosugi, Lucinda Dickey, Jordan Bennett, David Chung, James Hong
Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writer: James R. Silke
Running Time: 92 minutes


Plot: Shooting a ninja 50 times isn’t enough to kill him, at least not permanently. When Phoenix’s finest try to apprehend a ninja, they make that mistake, one pissed off ninja takes over the body of one hot-assed aerobics instructor to exact his revenge. A good ninja tries to save her and put the evil ninja to rest for good.

Breaking Point: About 40 minutes in, during the most baffling seduction scene EVER-worse than the above mentioned Gymkata scene, even! After repeatedly rejecting the advances of hunky Travolta-esque Phoenix P.D. Officer Secord, feisty 80s gal Christie randomly decides to invite him over to her apartment for some V8 juice. Apparently she’s a health nut. Anyway, after coming out of the shower nearly naked, she lays back on the couch, and dribbles V8 juice down her neck and chest for him to lick off. It’s about as erotic as Rosie O’Donnell in Exit to Eden.

Similar Films: The Exorcist, The Manchurian Candidate, Flashdance

Pain Equivalency: Being forced to fellate a revving chainsaw.

Number of Asian Actors: 15 or so…including superninja Sho Kosugi and Lo Pan himself, James Hong!

Review: First of all, this one doesn’t exist on DVD, so I get to see it in the full glory of VHS. No widescreen here, baby!

First off, some fun facts about Ninjas I learned from this film:

1) Ninjas, good or evil, ALWAYS wear eyeliner. No exceptions. Even when they’re possessing another person, that person will suddenly be wearing eyeliner. If they have only one eye, that eye will have eyeliner. The socket under the patch? Probably has eyeliner.
2) When they want to show how badass they are, ninjas will crush balls. Doesn’t matter what kind, whatever’s handy. Golf balls, billiard balls, scrotal balls-and they will typically look you in the eye and growl at you when they do. The most likely reason is to get you to mess your pants, making it harder for you to run.
3) A golf cart is NOT a reliable conveyance to use when fleeing a ninja. And a police bike or police cruiser isn’t a reliable vehicle with which to catch one.
4) Bad moustache = bad ninja Eyepatch = good ninja
5) A ninja will possess a hidden lair in a cave where they store all their implements of death. Said cave will be out in the boonies not convenient to any public transportation.
6) When possessing a woman’s body, a ninja is not above acting like a big hobag in order to get close to a target.
7) Only a ninja can kill a ninja. So kiss your ass goodbye if you’re white.

The opening of this movie is priceless. Our evil ninja, complete with grey pajamas and enough pointy bits of metal to kill the cast of The Last Samurai, assassinates a VIP on a golf course. This sequence has it all.. Ninja demonstrating superhuman strength, speed and stamina? Check. Swordplay? Check. Blocking a gun barrel? Check. Blowgun? Check. Flash powder? Check. Climbing trees? Check. Shurikens going into gun hands? Check. Shurikens going into faces? Check. Shurikens going into faces thrown using the ninja’s foot? To bring down a police helicopter after he jumped into it from a tree top? BIG CHECK, MOTHERFUCKER!

Unfortunately, when you kill a white guy on a golf course in Phoenix, the cops drop their donuts and come running from miles around. Now, a few bullets only piss off this ninja. But 50 or so and he’s hurting. So when he finds a telephone repair girl in the middle of the desert, he gives her his sword before he croaks-which of course means she’s going to be an unwitting tool in his revenge on the cops who shot him.

So our heroine is a typical 80s girl. Which means she works out constantly, has big hair, never wears a bra and dances around her apartment half naked, pretending to be Jennifer Beals. She resists the sexual attentions of the cop who talks to her after her ninja encounter, but his wily charm and extremely hairy back win her over. But not even his wooly shoulders can protect her from the spirit of a pissed off ninja and the wrath of a special effects department armed with lasers, smoke machines, wind machines, and enough monofilament to dangle a sword in front of her. And whenever she sees her new boyfriends’ co-workers, the ninja spirit will take her over. We know this because the lighting changes, a fan blows her hair back and the camera zooms in on her eyes looking all enraged. Then faster than you can say ‘Niagara Falls,’ she drives out to the cave containing his arsenal, which she then uses to go apeshit on the cops that brought him down. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Cop boyfriend is full of good ideas on how to help her, including taking her to see James Hong, who ‘all the Asians in this town swear by.’ But not even Lo Pan can exorcise the ninja, even with his mystic gangja smoke, colored lights and assorted bondage gear. The ninja then goes seriously Linda Blair, only without the head spinning or being even remotely scary.

Nope, only Sho Kosugi (who apparently was a real ninja, or something) is badass enough to tame this evil spirit. So he comes to town, draws the ninja out, fights her, then gets the ninja back into his own body and fights him there. Which is good, because hairy cops usually don’t tap an aerobics instructor’s ass all that often, even in an era when men weren’t obligated to shave that shit off like girls or swim team members.

Welcome to the Geekscape!

by Jonathan

Let’s face it. People like us don’t have many places we can go. I know I don’t. And I never really have.

Take a look at me. Age 11. Yup. Big Pimpin’. That’s what I look like when I’m up to my ears in all of the granny pinches and “you’re so cute” comments I can take over a holiday at Grandma’s. But I wasn’t cute. I was a geek. I’m standing in the back row to hide my painted wolf Christmas sweater behind a relative’s beehive. I’ve got glasses that could scorch bugs under the proper sunlight. My mullet is a mix of Lou Diamond Philips’ in Young Guns and a rat’s greasy tail and if I was smiling in this photo you’d see a metal picket fence worth of braces stretched across my forced smile (which is why I NEVER smiled).

I know I’m not much better looking now… if at all. But you have to admit the physical changes are there. The internal ones? Not so much. The face you see in this photo is of a kid that couldn’t wait to take Holiday pictures so he could slink off to the guest bedroom to finish reading a copy of Avengers Annual #17. I HAD to see if the High Evolutionary actually succeeded in setting off his mutation bomb on the living island of Krakatoa (he didn’t)!

Today I experience a similar problem. I’ll find myself at a social event (why do I even leave the house, right?) and within the first five minutes of a conversation with a newfound stranger will hear myself contributing to it in one of the following ways:

a) “Yeah, it’s like that one movie…”

b) “Did you ever play that old game…”

c) “What’s more magical? The magestic Pegasus or the mystical Unicorn?”

And that’s all I’ll have to say! I know! What is wrong with me!?! Well, what is RIGHT with me is a shorter list…

Almost without fail, I fail.

It’s okay. The outside world isn’t always for people like you and me. And it’s not because it’s a bad place. It’s not because it doesn’t understand us. It’s not because it thinks that we’re weird.

It’s us! The problem is us! It’s always been us!

From an early age, we discovered that these stories and games and worlds of escapism were so cool and so great and so stimulating that the REAL world never stood a chance! At every chance we sidestepped our responsibilities as members of society to partake in worlds of adventure and feats of heroism beyond compare!

And this is where we find ourselves today… standing with a blank look on our faces in the middle of a cocktail party with nothing to add to a conversation about subprime mortgages than “It was a trick question… the Griffin is actually more magical than both the Unicorn AND the Pegasus because the Griffin is THREE animals in ONE! And the female ones have titties! Yeah! Titties!”

So now that we’re all socially retarded (and if you’re getting defensive reading that… you’re insecure enough to be pretty socially retarded) what do we do? Where do we go? Who do we talk to?

I would say it. But it’s obvious. And if it’s not, we are all here for you regardless.

Welcome to the new Geekscape website. I’d love to outline all of the features of the site but I think it’d be more fun for you all to click around and discover them for yourself. I have a lot of far reaching plans and ideas for Geekscape (the show, the site, the theme park) but this website is the starting point. Our little flag in the ground. If I was a serpent-themed leader of an international terror group made up from the DNA of the greatest war leaders of days gone past, this would be our terrordrome! Cobra-lalalalalalala-

BUT I’M NOT! So let’s just get to it…

This website would not be here if not for the help, advice and contributions of the following people:

Jarrett Gossett – Jarrett coded this site based on a pretty crappy Word document I had written up back during the Geekdrome days based on what my perfect Geekdrome website would be. We now have something better! A Geekscape site! Jarrett has taken the little ideas I wrote down and run with them. This site is full of ideas and opinions that Jarrett put in after a lot of time (as you all know!) and care. We could have slapped together another quick fix site just to get something here but Jarrett and I decided on making sure that all of the features should be present and functional from the beginning, if only in an initial state. We got it down. We’re putting it up. And we’ll grow from here. For the past month he’s been sending me IMs and e-mails stating “I already have some cool ideas for the next phase of the website… let me bounce them off of you real quick.” Yeah. The guy gets ahead of himself. But now that we’re launched… let’s hear those ideas, buddy! His enthusiam is contagious and his patience with my tech-retarded questions is massive. If something breaks… let him know. It’s my fault but I have no idea how to fix it…

Georg Kallert – My old friend, producer and business partner. Georg’s first impression of me came while watching our college
television network. El Phantasmo Blanco had just made a crash introduction on the closed circuit TV network and was in the middle of hitting The Golden Comet across the head with a phone book. Whoever this masked moron was, Georg knew he wanted to work with him. My first impression of Georg was probably “you thought that was funny? Cool! I have this script…” Now I owe Georg money, patience and friendship until the end of time. Yeah. Bum deal on his end! I made out like a masked bandit on the other hand… Can’t say he didn’t know what he was getting into from the very start!

Brian Gilmore – Yeah. He makes me crazy. He makes you crazy. He doesn’t know this (but by now he should at least be getting the sense that) every time I see the guy, about 10 seconds before I see him, I’m still deciding on whether to hug the guy or push him into oncoming traffic. Regardless of how the coin lands (he’s had an incredible run of good luck so far), Gilmore put a lot of work into this site. You won’t be shocked to know that he had plenty of opinions about its inception but he also put in a lot of hours and nights in the content of the features site. From the start, Brian volunteered to make sure that the content on the site was up to par with our peers and that the writing was fun and in on time. He’s also been a good guy to bounce ideas off of and for midnight pep talks when I “just want to walk away from the whole thing and move to Montana”. Now I think that he has so much invested in seeing Geekscape continue out of fear that he’ll have nothing else to do if it disappears! Regardless, he’s here and his contributions have been substantial.

Martin Scherer – It’s true. Canadians are the nicest people in the world. Martin and I met in Toronto last year and we shared a bed together in a hotel room for one night (but it’s cool… I bought him breakfast the next day which is more than I got Gilmore at Comic Con ’07 and we spent FOUR nights sharing a bed). Martin is always quick to help us out with a technical, server or community problem and his advice is without fail. The one draw back may be one of his greatest strengths. He’s in Canada. If he moved to the States would he still be this nice to us? Martin is our resident work horse and without him we’d just be a bunch of studs eyeing each other with no real example to lead us. I work hard because Martin works harder. Read this paragraph again quickly and you’ll read: “Martin and I met in Toronto… shared a bed… bought him breakfast… quick… back… strength… studs… hard… harder…” Yeah. Total man crush. Guilty as charged.

Jeff “Thundercat” Wilkerson – This polarizing listener and forum member is the reason we have all these snazzy banners at the top of our articles. The man is a graphics wizard and his proficiency with Photoshop is only second to his biting (but incredibly hilarious) comments on the forums. The man is a master of observing, deconstucting and then making the subject wish they’d never been born. And those banners look f’ing awesome.

Matt Kelly – Matt IMs me on average every 20 minutes. Keep in mind that I am pretty strict about getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night. So I think that moves the average time of his IMs to every 7 minutes during the waking hours. Most people would be annoyed by this behavior. I see it as invigorating. Either Pennsylvania is REALLY that boring or the guy is EXTREMELY excited about writing and contributing to the Geekscape website! You’ll read more from Matt… especially if he starts posting his relentless IM conversations.

Noel Nocciolo – This girl is as proficient as she is lovely. Noel is our resident music writer and her articles are to be trusted. I’ve never been steered wrong or dissapointed in a recommendation from Noel and my parents adore her. Not in a “we want Jonathan to marry Noel” sort of way either. They like her too much. So it’s more of a “we want to build a time machine, go back to his infancy and replace Jonathan with Noel” sort of thing. She definitely would have done better in sports than I did.

Jim Pelligrinelli – Jim’s a buddy from film school and the one man who I trust the most when it comes to running a gauntlet. If The Gauntlet was The Bermuda Triangle or The Amazon, Jim’s the guy I would hire to take me in… because I know at least some of us would make it back. Almost from the moment Jim said “wait… you’re telling me you’ve never seen Deep Rising with Treat Williams?” it’s been a match made in the deepest, darkest depths of cinematic hell.

And of course I have to thank you guys. As much as we collectively shun society in lieu of movies, comics, videogames and anything else we choose to geek out on… it’s not much fun doing it alone or to four blank walls. Some of you have been here from the start and the rest of you are here to keep things getting started. Thanks for giving me an outlet and a mission.