THQ
If you thought I was pathetic yesterday, just wait until you see today's report.
Bruce Campbell, my all time favorite actor, made an appearance at E3 to promote Evil Dead: Hail to the King, a video game (oddly enough) based on the Evil Dead trilogy of films. Luckily I packed a change of shorts.
The first time I ever heard of Bruce Campbell was through a friend in my freshman art class in high school.
"Dude! I rented this movie, Evil Dead II, and it was so frickin' awesome! It has this guy in it, and he's all "Workshed. Chainsaw. Groovy," and he makes these frickin' hilarious faces."
As tempting as the movie sounded, it was almost another year before I finally dragged my sorry carcass to the local Blockbuster to rent it.
Before I was finished watching Evil Dead II, it was already my favorite movie. The blend of comedy, suspense, and gore was virtually perfect in every way. Nothing to be added, nothing to be subtracted. The guy was all "Workshed. Chainsaw. Groovy." indeed.
That pretty much says it all. Outside of a Bruce Campbell movie you're never going to see the square-jawed hero type beating the living shit out of himself and then lopping off his own hand with a chainsaw. And that's why we love him.
Evil Dead II remained my favorite movie until it was supplanted by its own sequel Army of Darkness. Army has been my favorite movie since then, and probably will be until Satan warms up the snowblower and the impossibly improbable Evil Dead IV comes out.
When I found out that I was actually going to get to interview my all time idol of small and large screen alike, you can imagine the drooling fanboy that I became. What should I have him autograph? My widescreen edition of The Evil Dead? My Chinese bootleg Army of Darkness with subtitles and alternate ending? The full sized British quad style poster of Evil Dead II that hangs over the mantel?
Luckily for me, my girlfriend was there to smack my dumb ass back into line.
"Look you nimrod, every single pathetic, hairless, McFarlane toy buying loser in the place is going to be bringing him Evil Dead stuff. Why don't you try to stand out? Be different, bring him your copy of Running Time."
Oh yeah. Running Time. I had almost totally forgotten that I even had this brilliant little indie film in my collection. I mean, of course the only reason I had bought it in the first place is because it starred Bruce Campbell, but I was totally surprised by what a really well done, suspenseful, and technically fascinating film it turned out to be. Yes. This was to be the one.
I must honestly say, Bruce Campbell was the most cordial and genuinely personable celebrity that I've ever had the pleasure of speaking to. Unlike the time I met a certain ex-Spice Girl, Bruce came off as genuinely happy to meet his fans. It wasn't a "Hi, now get out of my face" experience. And he always replies to my fan emails, which I'm sure on some scale means he loves me more than my mom does.
Much later, after all was said and done, and I was sitting glassy eyed next to a giant illuminated Pikachu with my autographed video and a big fat endorphin charged smile on my big fat stupid face, I realized that under his signature, Bruce had written "Ray."
Ray? I was pretty sure that the character he played in that movie's name was "Carl," but there was no way I was going to get to talk to him again to ask.
Sure enough, a quick review of IMDB.com shows that he was in fact "Carl" in Running Time, but he did star as "Ray" in a (thankfully) never-picked-up pilot for a TV show based on Kevin Costner's Tin Cup.
Eeeewww! I mean, I try my best to support Bruce Campbell. I sat through all of Congo AND From Dusk Till Dawn II, even though he dies in the first five minutes of BOTH of them. I even tried to watch Ellen when he was a regular cast member. But a TV show based on a Kevin Costner golf movie? I think it's best for everyone involved that it never came to be.
Yay us. We stumped Bruce Campbell.
Anyhoo, before we get to the interview, here's another painful batch of reader mail.
misinformer - Hello M..M...Mr. Campbell, sir.
