my name is bruce Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Even the most die-hard Bruce Campbell fans often approach the actor's latest films with trepidation. You never know whether you're going to end up watching something sublime and smart like Bubba Ho-Tep, or something that is ... not, like Alien Apocalypse. My Name is Bruce may be selling out quickly on its tour where actor/director Campbell is traveling with the film to promote it, but that doesn't mean anything ... some people would watch him read the phone book. It was a relief to discover that My Name is Bruce is a bundle of good cheesy fun. The gags tend to work, the storyline is eye-rollingly ridiculous but rarely dull, and Campbell is at his lovably jerky best.

Campbell plays Bruce Campbell -- a less successful and more obnoxious version of himself. This Bruce lives in a trailer that has seen better days, yet acts like a numero-uno prima donna on the set of his latest Grade-Z movie, Cave Alien 2. He drunk-dials his ex-wife, he shares bottles of cheap booze with his dog, he hangs out in topless-dancing bars. Meanwhile, a small town is being tormented by an ancient Chinese ghost, and the teenager responsible for unleashing the spirit is the world's biggest Bruce Campbell fan. He convinces the townspeople that they should kidnap Bruce and bring him to their town to play the hero.

If you read my recent Cinematical Seven about my favorite Bruce Campbell moments, you know already how much I enjoy watching the actor/filmmaker onscreen. I was one of the people who refreshed her browser window continually in order to be able to score tickets to the Austin screening of My Name is Bruce, Campbell's latest film, which he directed and starred in. The first screening sold out in Austin in record time. (They added two more screenings as a result, which also sold out quickly.)

So you can well imagine my reaction when given the opportunity to interview Campbell while he was in Austin for the screening. I had fleeting nightmare visions of the interview sounding like Bridget Jones interviewing Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, or like one of those interviews Chris Farley used to do on Saturday Night Live ("You know that scene in Army of Darkness where you were fighting yourself? That was awesome."). Fortunately none of that happened, and the professional interviewer won out over the fangirl. After I saw My Name is Bruce and enjoyed a lively audience Q&A -- Alamo Drafthouse has posted video highlights on YouTube -- I met Campbell in a small office at the back of Alamo Ritz. We chatted about My Name is Bruce and the road tour Campbell's doing for the movie, other projects he's working on, and of course the whole Evil Dead 4 thing. Check it out after the jump.

The Halloween weekend scared up frighteningly weak numbers for bigger studio releases. How did independent films fare?

Winners:
1. My Name is Bruce (Image)
2. Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom (Logo)
3. Religulous (Lionsgate)

Let's hear it for Bruuuuce! (Not, not Springsteen.) Ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous Bruce Campbell debuted at the top of the heap among limited releases, with a per-screen average of $18,800, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Opening at one theater in New York, My Name is Bruce features Campbell as both star and director. Campbell's site lists upcoming screenings and appearances by The Man Himself.

Romantic comedy Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom fared well in its second week of release, making an estimated $14,820 per screen, representing a normal drop of 50%. Are there enough loyal fans of the Logo TV series out there to support a wider release? It will expand to Detroit, Houston, San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Ocean, New Jersey on Friday; the official site has complete theater information.

Now in its fifth week, Religulous continues to draw audiences eager to see Bill Maher's take on organized religion. Earning $1,358 per screen, the film has grossed $11,452,000 so far; it recently became the highest-grossing doc of the year and is among the top 10 highest-grossing docs of all time, according to Docsider.

Not Winners / Indie Horror Scorecard:
1. Dear Zachary (Oscilloscope)
2. Splinter (Magnolia)
3. Eden Lake (Third Rail)

Despite our editor-in-chief's highest recommendation, Dear Zachary only made $2,800 at its single engagement. Perhaps word-of-mouth will build? That's still better than highly-regarded horror pic, Splinter, which managed only $2,200 each at four theaters (per Leonard Klady), or well-reviewed Brit thriller Eden Lake, which got dumped by the Weinsteins onto their loss-leader distribution arm Third Rail Releasing and drew just $550 per screen at 10 theaters.

The wonderful Bubba Ho-Tep took forever to get on screens, and Bruce Campbell's My Name is Bruce is no different. As that poster on the right teases, the film was supposed to come out ages ago, but it's been sitting in the "Will it ever be seen?!" ether for a long, long time. But there's good news, Campbell fans! ShockTillYouDrop reports the film will hit theaters this October -- according to Dark Horse Comics' Mike Richardson.

He says: "Some people maybe thought the film fell out or that there was something wrong with it. ... We beefed it up so it could go into the theaters." That sounds perfect to me, what could make for a better Halloween than Bruce, Ash, and wonderfully funny horror?

Oh, but that's not all! The dude also says there's another pic in the works called My Name is STILL Bruce. That sounds awesome, but I'm going to try and not get excited about that since we haven't even seen the first. And who knows if it will ever get off the ground? It could fizzle like Bubba 2.

Have you ever seen Bruce Campbell as a heavenly angel? With all the work he's done, the above image is something I never dreamed I would see. They should axe mall santas and use him at Christmas time. Anyway...

It's about friggin' time -- My Name is Bruce is going to hit theaters this October, and then descend upon DVD shelves everywhere in January 2009. I was beginning to think this whole flick was made and then hidden away, serving as an endless taunt for those of us who adore Bruce Campbell. I posted about pictures all the way back in 2006. Scott shared the trailer last December.

Now HorrorMovies.ca has some new pics for our enjoyment, such as that absolutely wonderful one above. The gallery also includes a diner shot group meal, some monster fighting, a trio of musicians, and Bruce being a helpful pointer. In case you forgot -- the film focuses on a small town that gets taken over by demons, so they get Bruce to come and save the day. It also features lines like: "It's just you and me, Top Ramen."

Once again, order and logic have deserted me, left me behind like a half-eaten bag of movie theater popcorn (extra butter, of course). Try though I might, there's no common theme under which I can group five trailers, so for this week anarchy shall reign over the Trailer Park. And what better way to start out than with a movie called:

Chaos Theory
Ryan Reynolds plays a meticulously organized man. "A specific list is a happy list," he tells his wife. His life begins to slip into disarray and he finds himself embracing the madness, loving the chaos. This leads to him doing such previously out of character things as drinking too much, picking fights and streaking at a hockey game. Reynolds' best friend is played by Stuart Townsend, and considering his roles in Queen of the Damned, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Night Stalker, it's kind of jarring to see him not playing some kind of creature of the night. Martha Fischer's posting about this one from back in 2005 also mentions something about the friend being the father of Reynolds' character's son, but there's nothing about it in the trailer. This one left me with a good feeling.

My Name is Bruce
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who realize Bruce Campbell is a god, and those who have yet to learn of his greatness. We've been hearing about this one for awhile, and supposedly it will hit theaters some time in 2008. We have the trailer, though, and if you're a Bruce fan it's a little slice of awesome. Residents of a small town have unleashed an ancient Chinese demon and, mistaking Campbell for the character he played in the Evil Dead films, they enlist his aid in vanquishing the monster. As cool as Bruce is, he's far from infallible. The Evil Dead trilogy and his book If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-movie Actor veritably reek of awesomeness. On the other hand, The Man With the Screaming Brain and How to Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way just plain reek. Still, the trailer is really cool, so hopefully Bruce will be chainsawing his way into the hearts of moviegoers soon.

To know Bruce Campbell is to love him. Just ask the massive collection of movie nerds who just love the lantern-jawed cult hero. (Matter of fact, that'd probably work as a good test for a new friend: If they don't know who Bruce Campbell is, get rid of 'em!) Sure, sure, Bruce has popped up in more than his share of stinkers (what genre actor hasn't?), but it's tough to hold a grudge against the hero of Bubba Ho-tep and the Evil Dead trilogy. Plus he's hilarious in those Spider-Man cameos, and if you like I could rattle off a bunch more cool credits...

But we're here to focus on Mr. Campbell's latest exploit, a self-referential horror comedy called (logically enough) My Name is Bruce. We've been hearing about this flick for quite some time now, but things seem to be moving forward ... a little. Courtesy of Bloody-Disgusting.com we have a plot synopsis:

"A small town [is] set upon by demons after a group of teen-agers unwittingly unleash an ancient curse. Campbell, playing himself, is kidnapped off the set of a B horror movie and, despite his protestations that he's just an actor, is forced to play the role of his heroic movie character in order to save the town."

Heh. Clever. And hey, click here for the trailer! Aside from the one groaner (mocking Asian accents is so 1935), I'd call that trailer more entertaining than Man with the Screaming Brain and Alien Apocalypse combined. Directed by Campbell himself and penned by Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica, Timecop, The Mask), My Name is Bruce is a Dark Horse Entertainment production. According to the IMDb, the rights belong to either Image or Lionsgate. Either way, it should arrive on your DVD shelves relatively soon ... I hope.

[ Thanks to The Movie Blog for the poster image. ]

During Comic-Con, when I wasn't running from place to place or freezing my butt off in Hall H, I also managed to sit in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center and have a pretty lengthy conversation with Battlestar Galactica Co-Executive Producer Mark Verheiden. During our 45 minutes or so together, we talked about a lot of things not movie-related. However, we also managed to get around to discussing quite a bit of Battlestar Galactica related stuff - including a Battlestar movie -- as well as his other projects: an adaptation of the DC Comic Teen Titans for the big screen and his recent collaboration with actor/director Bruce Cambell.

Verheiden has been writing comic books, television shows and movies for almost twenty years. But when he first moved to Los Angeles from his native Portland, he didn't know anyone in the business or have any idea how he might "break in" and start writing for a living. His first paying screenplay , which he remembers fondly, was for a low-budget action film called Terror Squad starring Chuck Connors, who is best know for his role as The Rifleman on TV.

"A couple friends moved down with me and got jobs in town," said Verheiden. "One worked in sound and I begged him to let me come in and pitch the producer some movie ideas and he ended up making one. Then, he bought another and that was pretty much it. Later, I could point to those films when Hollywood people ask me if I've had anything produced and say "yes."

Bruce Campbell is one of those guys who won the hearts of many as Ash, and then embraced his quirky persona in a way that makes him as much of a hero as his fictional counterparts. I mean, could anyone else have been the only man to ever defeat Spider-Man? It is, therefore, a wonderful and logical step for him to star, direct and produce the upcoming My Name is Bruce, as Mark Beall and Scott Weinberg have previously told you about. In the film, Oregonians mistake Bruce for Ash and call on him to fight off the attacking monster. While I'm sure it will be camp to the nth degree, who wouldn't ask Bruce to be the hero, if he was around?

Now, after many months of waiting and with the film in post-production, Dark Horse Entertainment is beginning to publish pictures for the film. The first, with the site promising that more are coming, shows Bruce in a classic hero-fighting pose, and gives us a look at newcomer co-star, Grace Thorsen. I don't know if I'm more excited about Campbell's technique, or about the fighting fashions. We've got Bruce fired up in a Hawaiian shirt, and Thorsen bringing back plaid -- goodbye 80s, the 90s are a-coming! Why wear black special-ops clothes when you could be dressed in red? Really, this could be the silver-plated cinematic dish that some think Snakes on a Plane failed to become. Instead of communicating with fans to create a fan favorite, Campbell just knows.

[via horror-movies.ca]