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In the sleepy Oregon town of Goldlick, a group of teenagers partying in a cemetery filled with the Chinese victims of a decades old mine implosion inadvertently release Guan-Di, the Chinese god of war. He takes immediate, and hilarious, vengeance on them, and the sole survivor is Jeff…who just happens to be the world’s largest Bruce Campbell fan. So he sets out to wrangle his hero into saving his home town before virtually everyone in it is beheaded by the pissed off entity he has unleashed.
The problem?
| Well, as it turns out, this Bruce Campbell character is an odious b-movie actor, the very essence of slovenliness. He is a messy, alcoholic, would be womanizer, who, quite frankly, is not very smart. On the precipice of a career crisis, he just wrapped the sequel to the worst movie he ever made, and is facing the horrible possibility of parts three and four. His divorce is final, and his ex is jacking him up for even more alimony that he can’t afford. In the midst of all of this, he is beaned on the bean and abducted to Goldlick and enlisted to fight their monster. He goes along at first, thinking it is all a gag put on by his duplicitous agent, and runs like a pussy when the all too real carnage begins. But, since this is a hero picture, he must face his inner demons and man up to the challenge, save the town, and win the girl. | |
My Name is Bruce is the ultimate Bruce Campbell fanboy (and girl) geekfest. I would hasten to say that while I found it to be possibly the best movie I have ever seen, because I fall into the fanboy category, if you do not, you will spend the 86 minute runtime scratching your head, trying to figure out why the fuck everyone is laughing. The gags run fast and loose, like a frat boy’s bowels after too much tequila, and I am hoping that the next screening I catch will allow me to catch even more of them. So, in lieu of stroking off for another few paragraphs about how vital a role the works of Bruce Campbell have played in my life, and what a treat this movie is because of that, I will instead offer a little primer for the uninitiated: 1. The movie that BC is filming in the film, Cave Alien, is a joke referencing the shitty Sci-Fi channel snoozefests he has been a part of, but it is not an actual film. Every other film mentioned is real, though. Neophytes should pay attention to the exchange between Jeff and his friend at the beginning of the film: watch all the movies they mention. (Side note: on my second viewing, I noticed that Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn was referenced to as Death of the Dead for some reason. Probably a rights issue) 2. When BC jokes that since he made a film in Bulgaria, that he is ready for anything, he is referencing two films that he did back to back there, Alien Apocalypse and The Man with the Screaming Brain (the former an admittedly shitty film that he had to agree to in order to be allowed to direct the latter, far superior effort). 3. Ted Raimi, who is the younger brother of director Sam Raimi, does his typical triple duty in this film. For those counting, he is BC’s agent, Luigi the Italian Painter (who incongruously has “Ted” stitched onto his work shirt) and Wing, the ancient Chinese wiseass. As Bruce says in the commentary on Screaming Brain, when all else fails, cut to Ted.
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