The Mother Brain Files Underrated Actors Special: Thomas Jane By Mother Brain In the 1970s, the heavy hitter movie stars… Read more The Mother Brain Files Underrated Actors Special: Thomas Jane

After picking up Karl from the gas station next to my hotel, we went over to John’s house to finally see the ‘dailies’ of yesterday’s shoot. While the picture quality of the cameras did not exactly match, most of what we needed was there. The performances felt natural, our costumes and makeup fit the period and the setting, etc. Even Don and Darrell looked like two racist hicks that the audience wants to see get shot dead. Every action was well covered by the four cameras. Of course there were flubs and some unnecessary camera shaking and zooming. But now most of the real work will have to be handled in editing.

Mother Brain gives his final tribute to comedy writer/director legend and Ghostbusters star, Harold Ramis, outside the Hook and Ladder 8 in New York City where Ghostbusters was filmed.

The real Florida weather had finally arrived and it was perfect. 73 degrees with low humidity. John’s neighbor, Ralph, and I were the first to arrive at the trail location where Civil Wrath was finally going into production. John arrived 20 minutes later along with Joseph, Karl, and Marc. While our production was not as high end as what I was used to in New York, we had a wide variety of tools necessary to make the location into a full blown Hollywood movie set.

The day began dreary and wet. Not the best time to scout the trail location 24 hours before production. John met up with me at the hotel and we went to the Cinnamon Swirl Restaurant next door for breakfast. His excitement level had not changed since yesterday. He was determined to not let anything stop production…except the alternator of his 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee failing on him…

I was recently watching the movie Escape Plan on DVD for the fun of seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone teaming up. Like the Expendables movies, the cast was full of familiar faces from film and television. Yet, I was most surprised to see Sam Neill appear in the film as a sympathetic prison doctor treating Stallone’s character. He’s a face I’ve rarely seen in recent memory and one who deserves to be highlighted in the Underrated Actors Special.

10 years ago, I met John Merenda at my father’s private dental practice on Staten Island. My father told me ahead of time that John used to make movies in Hollywood during the early 1970s and that he had a script about an American bounty hunter in the old west. It sounded different and ambitious which may have been the reason most major film producers were scared to make it. Although he held out hope for a major movie star like Wesley Snipes or a big time filmmaker like Ron Howard to give it a chance, he had faith in my growing talent to make films even though I was just a 20 year old college student…