The Monster Squad Aura is No More

I watch The Goonies at least once a month and that isn't because I have kids. (My kids aren't quite old enough for Data, Chunk and the boys.) I watch it because I love it and it was a huge part of my life when I was younger and one of the movies along with Raiders that churned my imagination every which way leading me down the path I am at today. Epic, the huge fantasy script I wrote had many 'Goonie' and other movies of that time elements to it. My friend Chip, was a Monster Squad guy. I loved The Monster Squad too. It was a couple years past "The Goonies," but at that age, movies like that just rocked and I have/had always been a big fan of the Hammer Studio/Universal Studio Monster Pictures and anything remotely similar to those characters I would line up for any day. Well, "The Goonies" throughout the next 20 years never really went away. You could find it on TNT, Superstation, VHS, and finally in a Deluxe Edition DVD. I owned both and had The Goonies whenever I wanted them at least for the last seven to eight years.



The Monster Squad wasn't that way. It had come out in the theater and then disappeared into thin air, maybe surfacing back in the day of Russ Russell's basement on HBO... I can't remember. Well, I had occasionally seen little reminders online, TV, books of that campy film, "The Monster Squad." In fact, I had been excited for quite awhile for a DVD release of it.

Finally, what, two years ago, I got my wish in a Deluxe Edition DVD. With the release of the DVD came lots of articles and press on the film where I found out 20 years later that the film had bombed miserably at the Box Office and Critics/Audiences had torn it apart. I don't remember it being that way. I loved that fraggin' movie. Yeah, I was 14 but so what?

Even looking at The Goonies, yes there are some real fake, cheesy parts, dialogue and the whole premise is rather ridiculous. Do I still watch it? Hell yes! The same went for Monster Squad. The only difference is I had not seen MS in maybe twenty years.

In the past year and a half, everytime I'd walk by it at Wal-Nuts, Best Buy, Circuit City, I'd check the price, pick it up, yearn to have it, but I had promised my wife only 8 films a year, (I could purchase,) and I guess subconsciously I found $17.00 for this film not caliber enough to be put on the 'Big Eight' list especially when I had not bought "There Will Be Blood" yet. I thought, Christmas Time would be right around the corner and I'd get to relive some more memories of my childhood while being inspired like I once was with Goonies and the other Imaginative Movies of that time.

Well, a week and a half ago, I got a break. I had succumbed to an acute kidney infection and was sentenced to bed rest. My DVD player shit the bed a week before and my loving, sympathetic mother gave me some money to go replace it since I had just blown $400 on a Doctor visit and could not do so myself. Well, the DVD Player ended up being on sale so of course I was like, "Well, let's find a movie to watch on it as well." I hate giving Wal Nuts a red cent of my money but today it just so happened I was there at their pharmacy cause it was close to home. They have something called Roll Back Pricing, (whatever that means,) but anyway Monster Squad had been victim of the Roll Back and was only nine dollars. I thought, "Today was my day.... I was buying Monster Squad."

That night after the kids went to sleep I watched the film for the first time since before puberty, (don't quote me on that,) and well.... I'm not sure it was the same movie. I mean maybe, back in the day I was suffering from no Goonie Sequelitis or something and this Monster Squad at the time was enough antibiotic to keep me pushing on. Like I said earlier, I watch Goonies and see the cheese that I never saw back in the day, yet I'm OK with it because I get it.
Well, Monster Squad's cheesiness and ridiculousness was inexcusable and the effects were awful and it just wasn't the same movie I remembered. That's heart breaking considering the patience and anxiety I had toward finely owning and watching that film again.

Yes I know now why it bombed. Nice try but I'll keep wearing out my Goonie, Dirty Dancing, Ferris Bueller DVD's out.

My Big Eight List Thus Far I've Bought:

1. Planet Terror-- *Doesn't really count as list of eight. (Christmas gift card)
2. Heat Deluxe Edition
3. Midnight Cowboy DE
4. There Will Be Blood
5. Monster Squad-- *Gift
6. Juno

*The Eight are actual movies I buy out of my bank account with MY money.

The Original Kick Ass Poster



The Not so Kick Ass DVD

Political Cartoons Removed from my Bucket List

Back in the days where drawing was more important than making films I thought the political cartoons were something else. I thought what a great job. Get paid once a week to draw a small little funny comic. Some are really funny, some are not. Knowing I was going to get away with making the back page of the Metro Post nothing but full page ads on both sides, I've been presently racking my brain on what to put on the inside front page, (faces opposite of front page.) It had to have content on it. Finally, I said, the heck with it. I am going to fill half the page with "Letters to the Editor" and "Newspaper Staff Credits." Then put the rest of the front page story at the bottom and I will sandwich two of those cool customized comics in between the two columns.

I've picked my friend, Manish to be a Vigilante in jail for life for killing Al Qaeda Operatives linked to 9/11 back in 2002 that is basically tied to the "Strangler Story" now because it was the last "serial killer" threat to the city. Well I combined that element with the sarcasm of the police still not having any leads and made one of my cartoons.

The other I was lazy on because I'm honestly over doing all of this, but I spoofed my other "fake headline story" about Sharks being in the Harbor and the fact that the harbor, (just like all the other ones in America,) is terribly polluted. BOOM! I can take "Making Political Satire Comics" off the Bucket List.

The Diablo aka Manish comic is just the rough sketch. I have to take it into Illustrator and work the magic. The shark one looked like the Manish one before I got the Wacom out and let the wonderful Illustrator software loose on it. (Just sketched on paper, scanned and then traced.)

The Police Visit Diablo




On The Bright Side

The Light at the End of a Very Long Tunnel

I am 2 Magazines and 1 Newspaper away from finishing what I thought would be the most time consuming part of Pre Production on Jeopardy. With an Acute Kidney Infection putting me out of work last Thursday and Friday and then a week off following I managed to knock out the rendering of the Metro Post Newspaper and 20 Original Magazine Covers.

Phil Vaglia who will be playing the lead in the film has also managed to do a fantastic "Fake Trade Paper" that spoofs the Variety Trade Paper. I'll get it up in the next couple of days. I want say I'm completely satisfied with my progress, but with the newstand nearly completed and the periodicals to fill it PDF'd and ready to go to print, I'll rest easy tonight. I spent some quality time with Payton and River in between and now have 60 days plus to work on the job I had in mind for my self all along.... Directing.

Here is the Newsstand as of yesterday.









My Tribute to my favorite kid movie of all time, The Wizard of Oz


The City Story Magazine Week 2


The City Story Magazine Week 3

A Long Week of Burning Eyes and Draining the Creative Lemon

So again, I've spent every waking second I've had this week doing the notorious and MOST METICULOUS part of pre production for Jeopardy: The Fake Magazines. As I got draw closer to my quota of 20 covers and 2 papers, I feel the anxiety of the real creative part of my job getting closer: Telling the story.

I haven't talked to anybody lately and that's only because once I'm over this hump, the real race begins. This is the final stages of what I thought I'd never ever get to, much less get through... I feel the pressure lifting. Now... If $400 could fall in my lap, I'd get real excited.

Here is the final with copy revision of the centerpiece of all these periodicals, The Metro Post. The back page is pretty cool. Took me all fuckin' day. I'm really starting to understand Adobe Illustrator. Can't wait to start my cartoon.




Back Page





Another Manish Idea... He's not only the fictional Diablo Killer in the newspapers, but he's designed the Hotel Mag and one I'm doing tomorrow called, 'EOTW'. I'll tell you when I make it what it stands for.






Here's Mark Collin's finished design. He came up with The Morning Cereal Tabloid. Here's the finished product.





Metro's Harbor somehow got adopted through.... I don't know. It sounded cool. I've always wanted to live in a city with a Harbor. (I never saw LA's. It was too hard to get down there.) And hey, if you know me, you know I'm a Shark Week MoFo. I love um.





And here's a shortcut cheat I came up with. You know when you go in stores, all the porn mags have bags and sleeves on them to keep "the goods" from showing to all? Well, why not make a crap load of these and take some LL Bean Catalogs of my mothers and slip these covers on them to convey Nudey Mags. Talk about saving me some time.





One more slew and this job and tumor will be in recession.

Lane Publications Open for Business Part 2

Still no time talk, but publications keep getting made which is huge in the grand scheme of things. Notice I'm using alot of old school fonts and looks on the mags...? I loved the old noir style way too much.

Lane Publications Open for Business

No time to talk, (if you can believe that one,) but dropping by some more magazine art and the sunuvabitch newspaper prop. This is not even done and I'm looking at 15 hours thus far. I got three more facing pages to do of it. AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Look at Doug and Manish.... Bet they had no idea they'd make the cover of the newspaper. HA HA!







Look at my wife. Bet she didn't think she'd make the cover of a mag. Angel is a Centerfold, la, la, la,la, la....

After Two Years on the Bench...

I know it seems like a winded email, but it is a good story if you got 3 minutes



Everybody knows my deal at work and how I've always complained that my boss and higher powers have left me sitting on the sidelines for almost two years of employment there. It has been very frustrating to see a gazillion ideas for marketing gimmicks and campaigns get completely ignored for so long. It had/has made my employment with Legacy Furniture quite stale. Well, about 3 months ago, Todd hired a MARKETING MANAGER. An older semi retired marketing guru named Tom Freeman who is a brilliant guy and is a dictionary of knowledge when it comes to how to sell a product. Todd basically made Tom the man I answer to unlike before where everything had to go by Todd which of course was always a dead end for me. Well, it just so happens that Tom also had a past in TV so him and I despite the 25 year age difference hit it off.



As the big trade show, (market for commercial furniture,) NEO CON approached, Todd had designed a new frame that was interchangeable meaning you could change the arms and leg's finishes of wood, or metal or whatever and with a lifetime warranty added, this was basically going to be the coolest thing in commercial furniture since the invention of the "corporation". It was basically a chair that could chameleon to any room's color, theme whatever without ever having to be removed from the facility. They called it (against my wishes,) The Transformer Collection. Tom started talking to Steve, (the other Marketing guy,) about making a quick flash or power point presentation doing like a dissolve between the different styles the chair could change into to project on the wall of our booth at NEO CON. Steve being the loyal coworker who was probably the only one in the office that knew Todd was making a mistake with me like the Atlanta Falcons did with Brett Favre, (Not to that caliber though,) passed the project to me "claiming he was just too slammed to do something SO expendable." Tom came to me and told me what he wanted to do. I said that the dissolves and fades were "Sissy TV" and said with this product, the name, the options, we needed something much bigger. I kind of storyboarded it out and Tom was reluctant, but again, thanks to Steve briefing him on my past history sometime during his 3 months here, he took a chance with me. I told him it would take 2 days and if it took more, I'd work from home. Todd hit the roof about it, but Tom stuck to his guns and made Todd put me in the game. Todd bit his tongue and steered clear of my office for two days because I don't think he could take seeing me doing this animation on his dime for 16 hours.



Well, the animation got finished. I rushed it of course like I have to do all my work and there were some things I really wanted to do and couldn't but that's the story of my life. And in perfect Todd fashion, he waited 3 days after I had finished to finally give me a minute of his time. That meant if he had changes, AND TRUST ME, Todd always had changes it would leave me 24 hours to have it finished for them to go to Chicago.



Note: Nothing from the marketing department went out without at least five passes. Heck, the product we were doing a piece on sometimes would be discontinued by the time Todd signed off on the brochure for it.



Anyway, so Tom puts me in the fire and invites the whole office in to give their input on this 1 minute animation. I always lived under the theory that it is much easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. (Dad, I'm sure you know this,) so I had put up my entire 2 years of the proverbial employment benchings on a presentation that was not even close to anything Legacy Furniture had done before. Unlike the past, nobody had seen a frame of this. I had not run any of my ideas by Todd or Tom. I had just said, "it needed to be bigger." My presentation was in your face with surround sound, lighting effects, and modern day grunge animation that was pushing the envelope something fierce. I cranked the speakers in the conference room and cut the lights to hear Todd say, "Is all this really necessary?" I ignored him and started the video. I was in the back and saw only the backs of my boss and coworkers' heads. A minute later the presentation faded off and it was silent. I was doomed I thought. I walked to the front to turn the lights on to see Todd with this crap eating grin on his face. He snapped out of it and without taking his eyes off the screen said, "Run it again." I ran it again but this time I stayed in the back. When it went off everybody just turned around to me. By the looks on their faces I knew I had scored. After a beat I said with confidence, "And that my friends is what I DO."



Todd had one wording change that took seconds to fix and not to me of course, was caught stating, "Garrick may just be on the verge of greatness in this company." Todd and Tom immediately ordered 4 more animations like this for other lines AND EVEN bought me the After Effects software so that I wouldn't have to bring my computer to work to do them. What's amazing to me is, as carelessly as I had thrown it together with no plan, no prep and no time, I couldn't help but think how good it could have been with a week to work on it. Makes me wonder how good my work, whether it be weddings, animations, films would be if I was allotted the time to do it right.



Anyway, at the Chicago show one of the reps came up to Tom and said that the presentation was amazing and inquired that we must have spent in upwards of ten grand for that 1 minute spot. Tom turned to her and said, "No Garrick did it…. And we didn't pay enough."



I'm not trying to be arrogant or cocky with this. I just had to share a little piece of happiness as you will all know the struggle I've had trying to do this thing that I do. From the Charter Debacle to having to give up side jobs because of the 40 hour, it's been a frustrating ride but little moments like that one breathe hope to a future that I've spent the last 5 months doubting.



Here's the video. (Looks much better in HD format but this will give you the jest anyway.) ***Turn your speakers up. It's not cool without the sound.

Good, but the Worst of the Four

WARNING: Indiana Jones 4 Spoilers in this post. If you plan on seeing it, and haven't, don't read!!!!!


When I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. I may just have been real wrong here. The last time this sort of thing happened it was like 1999, I believe. I went to the theater and watched 'The English Patient.' I walked out of there hating-- scratch that-- loathing that movie. I don't know whether it caught me on a bad day, or I was expecting more than I got, I don't know. The two weeks following, I began to think about the movie. (This one had already won Best Picture and gotten the rave reviews by the time I took my turn so I had high hopes and when it didn't deliver, I couldn't help but think what went wrong.) Well the more I thought about the story, the film, the characters, the more I realized maybe the film was OK and I had just experienced it during two bad hours of one bad day. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally, I snuck out of work and went back to the cheap matinee to watch again. I loved every minute of it the second time around. In fact it still rests on my Top 20 of all time and I own the Deluxe Edition DVD that gets watched at least once a year. (I also watched it 5 times in the theatre total. Sorry, I was a film geek and with a Student ID we went to films for $3.00 and $5.00 anytime in LA.)

There has only been three times in my life that this little belch in perspective of a film has occurred. Pulp Fiction, The English Patient and now…. YES, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

To refresh you, Raiders rests at the 1 movie of all time in my book and was the film that started all this ridiculousness for me. So best believe, twenty years in waiting from 'Crusade' to this one…. My hopes were high. I watched the film with my buddy Doug, and I could tell half way through he was miserable. I on the other hand, felt that there were massively cheesy excerpts, but I kept an open mind and didn't let the cheesy one liners and transparent plot twists deter me from enjoying the film. But as the film creeped into its final act some shananigans happened that made it hard for me to keep a positive perspective. First, Shia swinging from the vines with his monkey cousins following him, coincidentally helping wreck the bad guys? C'mon man. And then, freaking Lucas you asshole…. You just had to do it didn't you? Isn't there enough starships and freaking space pods in your other franchise? You had to go ahead do it here and Speilberg, don't think you are in the clear here with your 'Close Encounters Ship' replica showing up to offer a "corridor" at the end of a INDIANA JONES MOVIE!!!!!

OK, so with that crap said, I left the theatre hurt, broken, and betrayed from what I had seen. I was so hurt in fact that I vowed to never speak of Indy 4 again. Well, two weeks has gone by and I haven't been able to take my mind off that film. The more I think about the film the more I feel I gave it a spiteful impulsive review, because honestly, cheesy one liners and stale references of Indy adventures past, I had a good time and that honestly is what Indiana was all about. I had originally predicted that this film would be good, but the worst of the four and that to me was a dead on take of Indy 4. If I completely block out Jones Junior swinging from the vines with the monkeys and the Close Encounters mother ship barreling out of the Amazon Jungle out of my head, I can actually retort my original review and say, "It was Indiana and that's all that matters." It will not get a spot in my Top 20 nor will say it's gonna' be a movie I'll make time to see again in the theater. I will own the Deluxe Edition DVD and I may just go buy the Barnes & Noble Graphic Novel, (I own the previous three films comics as well.) I will just stop reading after the big Jungle Chase and I'll make sure for the DVD that my player's remote is fixed by then so I can hit stop about the time Shia is sprung up in the tree after fighting off Cate Blanchett's Russian Antagonist character on the back of a Jeep.

A Note to George: Dude, a spaceship does not belong in an Indiana Jones movie. Get off your high horse. That stunt nearly crushed a young kids' dream and aura of the Fedora and whip…… NOTICE I SAY, 'NEARLY.'

The Best Film of All Time

16th of All Time (Mostly because it's Indy)

In the low 30s... Until now was the worst of the three.

Fun. Good. But like I said, the worst of the 4 and not planted on SSG's list.

I Finally Own a Keypad Time Teller

Henry to me was a guy who has been cut off from the world for a very long time and has been so deep into his job that he kind of just woke up one day twenty years later and he’s still completely oblivious that twenty years has past. I mean like the last date this guy went on was Dirty Dancing… In the theater. I remember back in my Dirty Dancing days of hanging in my friend Russ Russell’s basement, scaring the shit out of myself watching Jason movies. Back then there was a very cool watch going around that had a calculator on it. I had always wanted one. They were the coolest thing ever back in the day BUT were expensive and I had always been real tough on watches, necklaces and stuff like that so my parents had always shunned the idea of me “macking” a calculator watch. No where in the story does it incenuate that Henry sports or even WOULD sport a Casio Key Pad Time Teller. This was completely my addition. I just felt it was one way to show just how out of touch with current he is and obviously show his lack of care for whatever that means. It also pays tribute to the Dirty Dancing/Horror Movie days where I longed to multiply percents on my Casio.

What’s amazing to me is that, I went to Wal Mart to buy one of those banded computers and they were still twenty bucks!!! I bought it of course without hesitation and actually wore it all that day. When I walked in the house at the end of the day, I don’t even think I got out, “Hey honey,” before my wife had me remove it from my wrist. Guess like Henry, I hadn’t realized things had changed that much.