JUNKFILM

It’s early for a birthday present but it’s just what I wanted. For my birthday this year my girlfriend, Andy, got me tickets to the touring film, My Name Is Bruce, for last Saturday. After watching the trailer a few months back, I was, needless to say, extremely stoked.

Bruce Campbell became world famous with Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead Trilogy (Evil Dead 1 & 2, and Army of Darkness) and Bruce has only grown to leaps and bounds from there. His autobiograhy, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor is on my top favorite books, his cable show, Burn Notice, had one of the best pilots I have seen from a show (even though I can’t stand the on going episodes, but that is not Bruce’s fault), and some of the cheesiest movies I’ve seen that the only reason the movies get made, seen, or looked at by me, is because Mr Campbell is in them.

The My Name Is Bruce Trailer was amazing:

When we found out the film was touring America we quickly jumped on Bruce Campbell’s website and ordered tickets. Not only were we going to see the movie but there was going to be a Q&A session after the film with the man himself.

We arrived at the theater, what we thought was early, and found only seats in the eye bleed section in the first two rows were still available. We scouffed it up and sat down and watched some of the most abysmal trailers I’ve seen in quite a while. I was beginning to think we were in the wrong theater. But all was well when the film finally launched and we sat back and viewed the new Bruce Campbell film, My Name is Bruce.

The movie started off with two old men singing and playing guitars, folk style serenading the camera. After a quick song and a head nod, the story jumps in to two young teenagers in “the classic” (Sam Raimi has included a 1973 yellow Oldsmobile Delta 88 automobile (nicknamed “The Classic”) in every film except The Quick and the Dead) on their way to meets some girls in the local cometary. At first I was skeptical and put off by the bad acting and dialogue, but quickly it hit me that it was all supposed to be like this. And once it hit me, the movie was pure gold.

The stories moves along, paced well, with the boys inadvertently resurrecting an ancient evil buried in the mine shaft of the town decades prior. When the young teen realizes what has happened, mostly by the heads being slashed off of his friends’ shoulders, he decides it is best for the plot to go and hire his film hero, Bruce Campbell, to come and stop the evil, just like in all of his movies.

The movie is fucking hilarious! It’s the perfect B Movie from the perfect B Movie Actor. The script, acting and homages are so cheesy they work as a perfect mold in which the film is finally produced. With awesome scene-chewing, hamming-it-up acting from Ted Raimi, in 3 different roles, inside jokes about the stunt men from early Sam Raimi films (Shemps), Bruce making fun of himself, and even prior movies that Bruce had acted in, the movie is a hilarious ride from start to finish.

I’m not sure if certain things were on purpose or not, but it behooves me to think that it was done purposely when the young boy calls Bruce at night and tells him he is running away at that moment to go fight the evil Chinese demon, Bruce getting to the town in mid day, telling the boy’s mother about the phone call, and then getting to the graveyard at night and having the young boy just getting to the yard. If not, hooray, cheese factor +1.

And any film that an audience is seeing for the first time that gets said audience to sing along with the reoccurring folk song gets a huge “woot” from me.

After the film Bruce came out and did a great Q & A with the audience. As is the case with any large group of random fans, stupid fucking questions were raised and much to my pleasure shot down by Bruce in a cordial and back handed way. Never was he rude or angry at the stupid questions and comments (like, “you’re like the Scottish King. Your last name is Campbell and Bruce means kingly and blah blah blah…” somebody slap this chick with a wiffle ball bat), but his retorts were spot on. He was funny and timeless, much like his characters, making me see why Sam Raimi always worked with him and puts him in almost everything he does.

My only complaint is that he didn’t stick around to do autographs. I had my copy of his book (If Chins) and a very rare collector’s version of Evil Dead II (the film that was pretty much the entire reason I got into film in the first place) in hopes to get a personalized signature.

But all was well. Great company, great film, great evening. If you get the chance to go see this movie, GO! Not only is it great and B-filled wonderful, but it needs to be promoted and supported, both voice and wallet-wise.