inmate profile: Gary Stretch

In order to properly preface the year's most hotly-anticipated sequel - Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, of course - I'm going to be posting more profiles than normal over the next few weeks to help get us all up to date on the creative forces behind this impending classic. Already in the virtual pages of this blog I've profiled actress Sarah Lieving and director Christopher Ray; if you don't know who the uber-talented Jaleel White is, I pity you, and I figure there are enough Trekkies in my readership that Robert Picardo of "Voyager"-fame needs no introduction, as well. But there's a dark horse in the cast I think bears closer examination, one Gary Stretch.

Bear with me a moment and consider something: Jason Statham. British, classically handsome, fit, fierce and simultaneously debonair, a dapper gangster with a steely attitude to match his fists, a grace in persona comparable only to his fluid mayhem. What could be cooler than Jason Statham? How about Gary fucking Stretch, who's all those things, plus, instead of being just an unfairly handsome British model, he also happens to be the glamour boy of early 90's British boxing. Yup, a for-real boxer.

A one-time light-middleweight champ, Stretch's one-two punch of personality and good lucks made him a staple in the British tabloids in his heyday, a popularity that helped pave the way for the inevitable transition into acting.

But before you start drawing comparisons to Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena or other muscular athletes who have tread the boards, Stretch is the real deal, often turning in impassioned, gritty performances that have earned him acclaim and accolades aplenty, including a British Independent Film Award nomination for his role alongside Paddy Considine in the 2004 thriller Dead Man's Shoes. It's performances such as that one which have kept Stretch's career on a steady ascent over the last few years, catching the eye of major Hollywood players including writer/director/firestarter Oliver Stone, who has used Mr. Stretch in two of his films, Alexander and World Trade Center.

In MSvC, Stretch plays a character named Nigel Putnam, who, based on what little I can deduce from the trailer, is some sort of giant crocodile expert, or at the least some sort of outdoorsy foreigner who first encounters Crocosaurus. Whatever he is, you can bet Stretch brings some smoldering intensity to the screen, and a bitchin' beard that kind of makes him look like a younger Lapidus from "Lost," or a scarier Pierce Brosnan in Seraphim Falls. 

So there you have it, the second-billed star in MSvC now revealed. Check out Gary's chops this December 21st when the films is released on DVD. Add it to your Netflix cues now!

Oh, and Mr Stretch? Consider yourself saluted.

Birthday Wishes/ inmate profile: Paul Logan

In Paul Logan, The Asylum got more than a pretty face and a chiseled physique, they got their first bona-fide action star. A veteran of six Asylum films (plus some uncredited stunt work, according to IMDB, on Titanic II), Logan possesses, as I think I've alluded to before, the stern charm of a pre-Over The Top Sylvester Stallone, teamed with the husky confidence of Jason Statham, and just a dash of the bulky fighting style of Governor Schwarzenegger. So imagine those three having a baby somehow, and Paul Logan is pretty much what you end up with. Good guy, bad guys, good guys with some bad tendencies or bad guys with good leanings, PL has totally owned every role he's taken for The Asylum, and as it stands, along with Kim Little, he is the longest-active Asylum actor, having worked with the gang from their very first film - Killers - all the way up to three releases this year. So he's thoroughly committed. And, as I know I've alluded to before, he has the best run in The Asylum. Really, watching this guy run, it's like stumbling upon a wild Clydesdale. Such command. Anyway, I digress; below please find Paul Logan's filmography with The Asylum. He can next be seen in Ballistica, a Bourne-looking action/spy thriller, releasing on November 16th.

• Killers...Nicky
• The Terminators...TR-4
• MegaFault...Major Boyd Grayson
• Ballistica...Damian
• Mega Piranha...Jason Fitch
• #1 Cheerleader Camp...Tom

It is also no coincidence that Mr. Logan's profile is posted today, because today is Mr. Logan's 38th birthday. Many happy returns of the day, Mr. Logan!

Consider yourself saluted.

observation notes: Mega Piranha

"They were created to save mankind. Something went wrong."

Something always does.

The Asylum's answer to Alexandre Aja's mega-hit Piranha 3D, released months in advance of the big-budget gore-fest, ups the ante infinitely by making the hungry little Amazonian buggers not so little at all.

The film opens with the genre-tested maxim that you can let a hot chick lead you to water, but it's only going to get you eaten, in this case by a school of enraged and rapidly-growing Venezuelan piranha. From these horny bathers the school moves on to topless party-boaters and a pair of sleazy politicians, one of whom is the ridiculously corpulent ambassador to the United States. Well, you know we don't play that shit, so cue special forces operative and The Asylum's #1 badass, Paul Logan. While he's amassing weapons of massive-piranha annihilation, former pop sensation and COMMITTED-favorite Tiffany, starring here as some sort of fish scientist, along with her team of other fish scientists - the same team, as fate would have it, whose DNA tampering is responsible for this mega-problem - is discovering the danger for themselves. Tiffany, ever the moralist, breaks protocol to alert PL to the danger and enlist his help against both the Mega Piranha and the local, typically-stubborn and lazily-tyrannical military honchos. PL, at the behest of CIA director Greg Brady, decides to trust Tiff and go rogue, and it isn't long before this decision proves fruitful: they have to admit the piranha are getting mega, getting mega all the time, and, naturally, heading for every river system in the western hemisphere.

What ensues from here is a two-way struggle for our heroes, against both the mega piranha and the egotistical lieutenant seemingly hellbent on making a bad situation worse for no reason whatsoever. It's all spoilers from here on in, so I'll back off but to say it also becomes a struggle against time, because there's no ceiling to just how mega these piranha can get; by the end of the day, they'll be the size of whales - fucking whales - with no sign of cellular stabilization in sight. Meaning they could grow to the size of what? The Queen Mary? A skyscraper? Cleveland? That's fucking Mega, folks.

As for the FX, Tiny Juggernaut once again brings home the bacon, making the piranha equally fearsome and ferocious, no matter what their size, though things get proportionally more awesome the bigger they get, especially once they start stampeding and going all kamikaze and shit on coastal communities. Writer/Director and Asylum-staple Eric Forsberg (Sex Pot, Alien Abduction) shoots this one a little differently than other Asylum films, choosing a style slightly reminiscent of Crank or Smokin' Aces with ample title cards and McG-esque color schemes and quick cuts, and even motion-tampering. The fight scenes - that is the fights between PL and the MP - are especially cool, with an extra tip of the hat to the kick-fighting scene, and there are a few death scenes a la Deep Blue Sea that nearly made me spill my SoCo and Sprite (I'm amidst a no-beer bet with my wife).

As for performances, you guys know how I feel about Tiffany. I think she's the greatest thing to happen to the genre since Roy Scheider, I honestly do, and I think she's got a lot of room to grow the more and more films of this ilk she makes (re: Necrosis, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid ((fingers x-ed))), but here, well, how to say...let's just leave it at, I knew I was watching a pop star act.

Paul Logan, on the other hand, never plays an Asylum role he wasn't built for, and here is no exception. PL commands the screen with the prowess of a young Stallone and the steely gaze of Jason Statham. Charming, aggressive and snarky, and - I know I've said it before - but he's still got the best run of anyone in The Asylum's stable.

Rounding out the cast, as mentioned, is Greg "my name is Barry Williams, dammit" Brady as the CIA director. More often than not Greg's on screen by himself talking into a Blackberry, shot beneath blue or green lights, making him more than reminiscent of Howie Mandel in Little Monsters. But I didn't disbelieve him in the role, so that's something.

All in all, Mega Piranha isn't the best film The Asylum's made that starts with "Mega," but if you look away from some stilted dialogue and wordy scientific exposition, what you end up with is a fun, frightening Saturday night, and there ain't a damn thing wrong with that.

observation notes: Death Racers

The Asylum takes on Jason Statham taking on Roger Corman in this film set in a typically nihilistic American future where crime and death are commerce, and virtue is for the pathetically weak.

Four, two-person teams of cons are racing and killing for their freedom, vying to be the last team standing. By now you're probably thinking, "Okay, well, that sounds interesting, I guess. I mean, it's been done, but this could be special, though he's not really selling it, he's not giving me a reason to see it. Maybe I'll scroll down a little, see if..." Let me stop you right there. You want a hook? You want a little something extra to wet your whistle, leave you thirsty for more of what Death Racers is pouring? Okay, all right, well how about you try this on for size:

One of the teams is made up of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, the motherfucking Insane Clown Posse. Playing themselves.

Now I'm no Juggalo - I have very sensitive skin and a detectable IQ - but I do appreciate ridiculous assholes who somehow manage to burrow themselves into our culture like chiggers. And man are these guys ridiculous assholes! They got a tricked-out ice cream truck, a couple of hatchets and a cunning knack for linguistics that produces such memorable lines as, "When was that ever in a million-rim-job-years a good idea?" (as though "rim-job-years" are longer? shorter?) and, "That's what I said about your mama last night when I plowed her, except you might not recognize her: I shaved her back" (as though shaving the gentleman's mother's back is somehow a part of the seduction process, a kind of preening foreplay. genius)

The clowns are astoundingly capable within the violent context - gory even by Asylum standards - bringing a very believable psychosis to their roles as thrill-killing speed (the motion kind) freaks. As for the rest of the cast, there's some mohawked cyborgs, fake-ass cholos, an acting wrestler and an all-female team that goes by the name Vaginamyte. I'm going to put that out in the open so you can better absorb it.

Vaginamyte.

This one's got class written all over it. In shit. A delightful gangbang of a movie.