Big Trouble in Little Oregon

My Name Is Bruce (2006)
Directed by Bruce Campbell
Screenplay by Mark Verheiden

Bruce Campbell stars as Bruce Campbell in this Bruce Campbell directed picture from Campbell’s Oregon Period.
This film is not just for fans of Bruce Campbell and bean curd, but it doesn’t hurt to be a fan of one or the other to really get the most out of this adventure movie.

Bruce Campbell, a pathetic B movie actor who lives in a trailer....Bruce Campbell
Kelly Graham, a single mother....Grace Thorsen
Jeff, Kelly’s son, a big fan of Bruce Campbell.....Taylor Sharpe
Mills Todner, Bruce’s agent.....Ted Raimi (The great Ted Raimi. It wouldn’t be a Bruce Campbell movie without Ted Raimi.)
Wing, an old Chinese man....Ted Raimi (One of the best pigeon Chinese roles since Peter Sellers in Murder by Death.)
Luigi the Sign Painter....Ted Raimi
Mayor of Goldlick....Ben McCain (Lois and Clark, Black Scorpion)
Cheryl, ex-wife of the fictional Bruce Campbell....Ellen Sandweiss (Cheryl from The Evil Dead)
Frank....Tim Quill (Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except, the blacksmith from Army of Darkness, Spider Man 1, 2, 3 )
Dirt Farmer....Dan Hicks (Jake from Evil Dead II)
Little Debbie, a goth chick....Ali Akay
Big Debbie, a larger goth chick....Ariel Badenhop
Guan Di, the spirit of war and also the protector of bean-curd....James J. Peck
Petra....Jennifer Brown
Cinematographer....Kurt Rauf (who incidentally is the cinematographer of My Name Is Bruce. How’s that for streamlining?)
Hack Director/Annoyed Townie....Mike Kallio (Director of The Texas Chainsaw Manicure)
Tiny, a very large assistant....Adam Boyd
Fan #2....Mike Estes (Bruce Campbell’s assistant from Burn Notice)
Wheelchair Fan....Vincent Angelini
Kasey, the famous singing prostitute...Janelle Farber
Charlene.....Dana D. Turner
Soccer Mom....Elise Passante
Skippy....Tayves Pelletier
Liz.....Hallie Cameron
Hank...Steve Carlson
Edna...Catherine Rowe
Split Man....Robert Faulconer
Farmer....Butch McCain (Ben McCain’s brother)
Shot in the Chest Guy....Mike Campbell
Shot in the Shoulder Guy.....Colin Campbell
Shot in the Army Guy....Randy Granstrom
Shot in the Leg Guy....John Bach
Shot in the Ear Guy....Kenny Juttner
Bicycle Kid....Mason Faulconer
Old Lady...Flora R. Albano
Disinterested Townie....Jeff Hunter
Stripclub Dancer....Jennifer Diaz
Studio Shemp....Mike Richardson (the producer of this film)
Bowling Shemp...Craig ‘Kif’ Sanborn (an associate producer on this film)
Sam ‘n Rob, a dog clearly named after Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert....Loki, a dog named after the Norse trickster god.
The Milkman...Ronald P. Zwang
Gold Lick Citizen....Danielle Kelly
Gold Lick Townie....Jeffrey Scott Kindred
Producer Shemp...Gary Kout (Line producer on this film, also worked on Amy’s Orgasm and The Oh in Ohio)
1st AD Shemp....Kieran Henthorn
Sasquatch Shemp....Jackson Rowe
with Dan Daniella and Oregon Rain, as themselves

Director of Photography, Kurt Rauf

You can make fun of Bruce Campbell all you want, but the man has done well enough to own a ranch in Oregon large enough to build a small village on and make a movie in said village. There aren’t many actors who can do that. So, essentially My Name Is Bruce is something that was done in someone’s backyard or frontyard--a very spacious yard. This beats flying all the way to Bulgaria to make a movie. Now, someone with a perverse sense of humor would have then set his Oregon-made movie in Bulgaria, but that may have been one level of meta-irony too far for this film which revels in the meta-theatrical.

Welcome to Goldlick, Oregon. Population 339.
The film begins like any self-respecting horror movie with a pair of teenage boys on their way to hook up with a pair of teenage girls in a cemetery next to an abandoned mine shaft. The twist is that one of the boys, Jeff, is a big Bruce Campbell fan. You know this because he’s inexplicably carting around a stack of movies like Maniac Cop in his car, presumably in the belief that there’ll be a DVD player in the abandoned mine shaft. Jeff and his buddy Clayton meet up with their dates, Little Debbie and Big Debbie. Big Debbie is more like Medium Debbie if you ask me, but maybe the next size up is called Super Size Debbie. At any rate, Clayton and Big Debbie head off in one direction and Jeff is left to clumsily attempt to sound cool by quoting Bruce Campbell lines to Little Debbie, who will have none of it. She just wants to kick over the old wooden grave markers and break things. This will obviously end badly for her, and it does in spectacular fashion when Jeff picks up an amulet that was on the boarded up entrance to the mine shaft, thus breaking the first rule of attempting to make out with a girl in a cemetery: Don’t wander off and pick up shiny items.
Jeff has unwittingly unleashed Guan Di, a Chinese war spirit who guards the dead and who also looks out for bean-curd and people who sell bean-curd. (Guan Di here is based on the real Guan Di who really is among other things, the patron of bean-curd sellers and was a deified version of the Han-era general Guan Yu.)
Just in case you need a run-down about Guan Di the film includes a handy song called “The Legend of Guan Di.” If you leave the DVD menu running you can hear the whole song before you watch the movie, and thus can be prepared for what follows.
Guan Di may not have the special effects of Lo Pan, but he’s handy with a halberd and the glowing red eyes behind his mask are quite well done. I like the ritual effect of the mask, too.
So, Guan Di proceeds to cut Little Debbie and hurls her body into the air where it slams against the trunk of Jeff’s car.
Jeff tries to warn Big Debbie and Clayton but they won’t believe him and besides Clayton is about to get to second base. Sadly for Clayton, when he gets to second base he leaves his runner stranded when Guan Di cuts his hand off.
Big Debbie is understandably disturbed what with the severed hand that won’t let go of her breast, but her distress is alleviated when Guan Di cuts her head off. Clayton, sans hand, runs to Jeff, but before he can get in the car Guan Di chops his head off too. Obviously there’s only one thing to be done now: find Bruce Campbell. That’s what we like to call, humorous logic.

Bruce Campbell is the greatest actor of his generation.
Bruce Campbell, meanwhile is in a studio making Cavealien 2 and getting a faceful of yellow goop quite reminiscent of the green crap shot in his face in Alien Apocalypse. I hate to say it, but even though he’s hamming it up and supposed to be quite bad in Cavealien 2, he’s still quite amusing to watch. Knowingly or unknowingly I think Campbell manages to show just why anyone would want to watch something as terrible as Cavealien.
On the set, the fictional Campbell is a jerk, and an unsuccessful sleaze who ends up drinking warm urine that he can’t distinguish from “lemon water” and just to make clear how much of a jerk he is he kicks a fan in a wheelchair into traffic on a street. His agent meets him in a strip club (although this isn’t a detective movie, the strip club scene seems almost obligatory) and proceeds to ignore him while taking calls from Jean-Claude Vandamme. Again, Campbell manages to intentionally or unintentionally point out why he’s so much cooler than other actors of his generation. It’s hard to imagine Jean-Claude Vandamme in My Name Is Jean-Claude. Hell, it’s hard to imagine Harrison Ford as Elvis in Bubba Ho-Tep or Bruce Willis in Army of Darkness. Okay, maybe I can imagine that last one a little. The point is, you can laugh it up about the kind of movies that Bruce Campbell is often seen in, but he makes even a bad movie kind of good, which is something you can’t say about Jean-Claude Vandamme. On the other hand, I have to appreciate the fact that when characters in this movie want to insult him they make fun of movies like Serving Sara and McHale’s Navy.
The fictional Campbell’s pathos is highlighted by the fact that he has to push his broken down car back to the trailer he shares with his dog. The other thing he shares with his dog is a love of Shemp’s Olde Tyme Whiskey. And because it’s his birthday he goes on a bender and proceeds to drink all of the whiskey in the trailer, including the share in the dog bowl and then he calls his ex-wife at 3am. It’s his birthday after all.

Cheryl: You wanna know the truth about us, Bruce? It wasn’t the cheating, or the boozing, or even the endless whining that killed our marriage. You just couldn’t commit. To your career, to our relationship, or really to much of anything.
Bruce: So, the cheating, boozing and endless whining were okay?

At 4am Bruce gets a knock on the door from Jeff, imploring him to come help fight Guan Di. When simply asking doesn’t work, Jeff lures Bruce by leaving a quarter on the ground and when Bruce stoops to pick it up (because this is what it really means to be an actor) Jeff smacks him in the head with a baseball bat and puts him the trunk of his car. This is the point where this could have turned into an entirely different film. Bruce Campbell in the trunk of a car is even better than Weekend at Bernie’s.

Dirt Farmer: You know, they go to all the trouble to kidnap somebody, I’d have kidnapped that Jake character from Evil Dead 2.
Frank: My money’d have been on that blacksmith from Army of Darkness. Now that’s one stud.
Dirt Farmer: Damn straight.
Frank: I wish I could quit you.

So Bruce arrives at Goldlick and decides that this whole thing must be a fake set-up birthday present. Sort of like a murder-mystery bed and breakfast only with a Chinese bean-curd demon on the prowl. Meta-meta-meta.
Bruce decides to play along, especially since he takes a shine to Jeff’s young mom.
Consider yourself exempt from my wrath, sweetcakes.

Bruce is filled in on the situation with the help of a slide show including an old-timey newspaper headline which highlights the issues of race and ethnicity because the mine collapse that kills 100 Chinese laborers is in tiny type next to a big headline about the Spelling Bee and a horse giving birth to a two-headed foal. The funny thing is that there are serious movies about race relations that don’t make their point as effectively as this film does in a little subtle moment like that. But we’re not here to root for Guan Di avenging the disruption of the eternal rest of some long-dead workers, we’re here to see what out hero will end up doing.

Bruce: You want a disaster? Anyone here seen Assault on Dome 4?

As might be expected, the hero is full of bluster while he believes the scenario to be fake and instantly becomes an abject coward when faced with a real threat. He even kicks a kid off his bicycle and then throws an old lady and her cats out of a car as he makes his comic getaway back to his crappy actor-life. He is now lower than low, because he’s proven himself to be worse than pathetic. Back at his trailer he begins to realize how pathetic he is as he listens to a message from his ex-wife demanding more money and sees a package of scripts from his agent (who has been sleeping with his ex-wife) offering him back to back filming of Cavealien 3 and 4 in Bulgaria. Just when you think he can’t get much lower a singing prostitute in a nurse’s outfit shows up--with a bottle of Shemp’s Olde Tyme Whiskey. That’s his agent’s birthday gift. I’m not sure if this qualifies as a bad birthday yet. I mean, a hooker and some cheap booze and the promise of a trip to Bulgaria to shoot two terrible movies--I hate to say it, but there’s a lot of people who move to LA dreaming of such a day.

But this is a film about redemption. It’s a hero tale, after all. And our hero has to find something worthwhile. When Jeff calls him to tell him that he’s planning on taking on Guan Di himself instead of pawning off the duty on some out of town actor, it kindles some sort of honor in the shell of fake Bruce Campbell. So he promises Kasey the famous singing prostitute a hundred dollars for a ride to Goldlick where he’s going to do the right thing and hopefully redeem himself in the process. And because for all its eccentricities, this is that kind of hero film, that is exactly what he does. He saves Jeff and gets to hook up with Jeff’s mom as well. Nicely done, Bruce Campbell.

And, because this is also a meta-movie there are multiple meta-endings at the end too. And just where does that leave reality? Let’s just say its a playful experiment in reality without having any definite answers.

I know a lot of folks who were underwhelmed by My Name Is Bruce, in part because I think it’s the kind of film that is preceded by the very awesomeness of its concept and so in every person’s mind it has already been imagined in a way that is much cooler than anything that could ever actually be made. If this film suffers from that kind of expectation it is a testament to the love Bruce Campbell’s fans have for him and his characters. On the other hand, this isn’t a bad adventure film with some really nice elements of campy horror and a lot of jokes thrown in. It’s actually quite clever and the Guan Di song alone is a winner. Is it a perfect movie? No. But it’s a damn good movie and it’s more consistent than the Bulgarian Bruce Campbell movies. Also, when you remember that it was mostly shot in someone’s very large yard, well, then it’s one of the finest films of all time. It’s hard to imagine any other actor pulling off a similar project in his own yard and having it be worth watching. My Name Is Brad? My Name Is Vin? My Name Is Orlando? Nope, can’t see those being as good as this. And why is that? Because Bruce Campbell is the hero we always wanted, the one who doesn’t take himself so seriously, but still gets the job done, the one who can make fun of himself and us for liking him without leaving any of us feeling pathetic or lousy about the whole thing. He’s a real American hero, even when he’s in Bulgaria. Bruce Campbell is the kind of guy you really would call up if you had unleashed a Chinese bean-curd demon, not because you think he’s particularly competent to handle the situation, but because if you’re going to die you might as well die with Bruce Campbell.

Groovy Extras
1. Commentary w/Bruce Campbell and Mike Richardson
Another film school lesson with Bruce Campbell. I wonder if he can be sweet-talked into letting someone else shoot a film on his property? At any rate, this time he’s shooting in his own front and back yard so it’s a lot better than Bulgaria. Some portion of this commentary sounds like an ad for the Oregon Film Commission, but that may not be such a bad thing. Like Bruce and Mike, I’m also tired of seeing shots of Burbank.
2. Heart of Dorkness
If you could put together all of the behind the scenes and commentary from films like this you would have one of the best film school curricula of all time. Heart of Dorkness is a good addition to that library.
3. Bruce on...
Waxing Philosophical with Bruce 1: Wildlife
Man 1: If that cougar comes near me and wants to attack me I’m going to punch it in the face.
Bruce: You’d better punch it a thousand times because it’s going to bite your weenie as soon as it’s done snapping your head like a walnut.
That’s some serous cougar action.
2: Budgets
With the budget for Spiderman you could make 133 of these movies.
Bruce: You know what’s funny about that? A hundred of them would suck but thirty-three of them would be really hot, they’d be really good. So, Spiderman only gets one shot.
3: DVD Extras.
This one is just Bruce walking along and flipping off the camera.
4: Rap Music
I wish I could say this was a half hour discussion with Bruce Campbell about Public Enemy and NWA but it’s not.
4. Beyond Inside the Cave: The Making of Cavealien 2
This is almost as good as the rest of the film.
5. “Kif’s” Korner
Kif teaches you a bit about graphic art and creating fake posters.
6. Awkward Moments with “Kif”
In Part 1 Kif and a girl are waiting to kill actors who are an hour late and have an awkward discussion about how to pronounce “either.”
In Part 2 There is an awkward conversation about oxymorons like “New Classic” and “I have other options.”
7. Love Birds
A further exploration of the Brokeback Mountain subplot in the film as an offscreen romance.
8. The Hard Truth News from Hollywood: The Real Bruce Campbell
I don’t know...can I say ‘dead hooker’ on this?
If you can't say "dead hooker" on a DVD extra then why bother making one?
9. Cavealien 2 Trailer
A movie filled with so much terrible horribleness you’ll crap someone else’s pants.
Admit it, you actually want to see this movie.
Doctor: This thing isn’t human.
Assistant: What is it?
Doctor: It’s...unhuman.
10. My Name Is Bruce Trailer
It’s just you and me, Top Ramen
11. Poster Art Gallery
And here are some fake posters for fake movies. My favorites are Chinbilly & Dirtface and Death of the Dead.
12. Props Art Gallery
Extra Firm Bean Curd It’s Guan-di-licious!
Cavealien IV: Cavealian Crapocalypse
13. Photo Gallery
Make your own drinking game to go with the photo gallery.
14. Trailers
1. Keith (2008)
A teen movie about a girl who falls for a boy who is probably dying or something like that. With Jennifer Grey.
2. Palo Alto (2007)
Four college freshmen go home for Thanksgiving break and meaningful adventures ensue. With Ben Savage.