When the first smatterings of this site were dancing little sugarplums, cavorting in our heads, I had two things in mind for ourselves, and the other writers we would tap:

a) They must be the type of person who would be hesitant to slap their name on anything less than their A Game. (read: Better be a damned good writer. I don't want to be reading a bunch of junk. Nor writing it, for that matter.)

b) They need to trust me... and do what I say.

At that second decree, Zombie Boy let out a snort, and said, "Right," -- with the sort of tenor that led me to think he would not do what I said, and made me question my ability to get anyone to do what I say. (I remain hopeful, however.)

Flash forward a couple of months (give or take...), and the site is up (...mostly) -- time to introduce our motley crew to the world!

World... take cover.

Zombie Boy as Zombie Boy

Zombie Boy is not a man who cares to be pigeon-holed. Just because the mark of the beast is tattooed on the back of his neck, and he goes by the nickname of Zombie Boy, doesn't mean Paul is exclusively a horror-hound. I'd wager to say what, exactly, he is, is up for definition. Crass, yes. Flippant, foul-mouthed, and rilesome? You betcha. ... but he's also the fella who not only custom ordered, but DESIGNED a Valentine-themed box of Fruit Roll-Ups for his girl. (So focused were his thoughts in romance, in fact, he completely neglected to recall that Fruit Roll-Ups make a mean edible underwear.)

So, though he may bark, and though he may grit his teeth and punch through farmhouse walls to better get a claw at your brain, there's a sturdy heart a-beat in that blued and rotten chest. It is the heart that throbs when he pours over every scrap of content wedged into a DVD (unless it's his Holy Trinity of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost appearing... then it might not be the heart throbbing).

A champion of the cinematic underdog, it is the more under-appreciated genres of film which get the business end of his flashlight. When eagerly sharing the most minute details of a film's backstory, that throbbing becomes a legible war drum. When he writes of whispered of film-makers, such as Nathan Schiff... well, it makes you want to get your geek on, and fall in love with a hitherto unknown avenue of film, all over again.

Bobby B as Midnight Butterfly

A self-proclaimed African-American/Mexican, Bobby is one of those fellows who inspires use of the term, "Cat". "Bobby B's the sort of cat who..." or "Great goggly-moogly -- that cat can write!" He's also the sort of person who offhandedly mentions being an actor, and having lived in Seattle, leaving you to imagine a long history of rainy days and backstage indiscretions -- only to have the story of origin come crashing down when he tosses in a tidbit such as, "... yeah, I saw that movie while I was living in England." Or Spain. Or Alaska. Or even a pleasant, breezy isle off the coast of Greece.

Perhaps all that exploring of the physical gives a clue to his interest in the cerebral. There's a pattern that comes to light in Midnight Butterfly's film-intensive prose: being "baked to the gills" while watching a movie. And always with a girl he "was dating at the time" -- prompting me to wonder, "Dude. Do you ever go to a movie alone?"

Fact is, though, he does. His appetite for film, books, plays, music -- anything from which a ponderous thought might be gleaned -- is voracious. Drawing connections between the inhabitants of this world, their successes, futures, inspirations, and even failings, is a steadfast, morphing puzzle in Bobby's mind. There's a well of undiluted enthusiasm contained within Bobby B which overflows in his writings, conversations, and presumably, his very life. It is nothing short of infectious.

And then, there's me. The inspiration for this page was culled entirely by the difficulty I have in writing my own bio (see, everyone was supposed to write everyone else's). Yet, somehow, here we are. Sooo... hmm... first off, I can be a bit verbose (case in point: the above mini-bios were supposed to each be only a paragraph in length). Though not a whore in practice, sometimes my mind refuses to be lodged from the gutter. An Irish, red-headed Leo, I can rage with the best of them. But I try not to. No. Really, I do. Just maybe not all of the time.

Conspiracy theories, dark comedies, cheesy horror, foreign films, British television, gory horror and musicals make me smile. I preferred Snatch to Lock, Stock, and I feel zero remorse. Fond of amazing feats accomplished with simple machines (... but aren't they all...), and fixing things. Neither of which has anything to do with the movies. Unless, of course, I rig up a pulley and lever-based system for blacking out the windows and serving up popcorn instantaneously to pressing the DVD player's play button. Actually, that's not a bad idea.

My point though, was that we're a good group.

We're small, and broken, but good. (And yes -- that WAS a Disney reference!)

... we also have an addition:

Marcel Leroux as Mr. Majestyk

What Mr Majestyk had to say of himself: "Mr. Majestyk is a sophisticated individual with lowbrow tastes. He likes car chases, rubber monsters, flying debris, torso vivisection, shotgun duels, helicopter crashes, and scenes set in strip clubs for no discernible reason. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have his standards. He’s the type of dude who can tell the difference between a satisfying roundhouse kick upside the head and a mediocre roundhouse kick upside the head. And really, isn’t that what it’s all about? Shit flying through the air? Movement? Cinema? They’re called motion pictures for a reason. But what he’s really looking for is that elusive moment of transcendence when a movie goes beyond the mundane and reaches for the sublime. It’s that moment when a movie straddles the molecule-wide line between the magnificent and the ridiculous. Like that scene in Conan the Barbarian where Arnold gets drunk and punches a camel in the face.

 That’s the shit that Mr. Majestyk fucking lives for. He realizes that 90% of what movies do has always been totally retarded,, so if you claim to love movies, you better learn to appreciate some totally retarded shit. Otherwise, you’re gonna be one of those angry assholes on the message boards, screaming out in rage over the “Noooooo!” scene in Episode III when really all you want is someone (preferably wearing a gilded bikini and rocking dual hair buns) to hug you and tell you everything’s going to be alright. Mr. Majestyk is an enlightened type of dude who knows that movies are supposed to be fun. No matter how bad a movie is, it’s still 90 minutes or more when you don’t have to go to work, fight with your girlfriend, or deal with the crippling regret over the many, many mistakes you’ve made over the course of your wasted life. So if movies make you mad more than they make you happy, Mr. Majestyk feels maybe it’s time you found a less stressful hobby, like sitting in the corner and shutting the fuck up. A movie isn’t your childhood. It isn’t your life. It’s just the gravy that goes on top of it. So if you ever start taking movies a bit too seriously and forgetting that there are motherfuckers in this world with bigger problems than CGI gophers and nuke-resistant Frigidaires, Mr. Majestyk is here to give you some fucking perspective."

( If his reviews are anything like his third-person, we should be in for a treat!)

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment

Name: Email:   Title: UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge     Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."