Tonight, Balazs and I checked out the appearance of Bruce Campbell at the Bridge Theater on Geary. Bruce was there to promote his new meta-flick “They Call Me Bruce“. The show was completely sold out.
I found Bruce to be a funny speaker, laid back, and easy going guy. He not a mainstream movie star, yet his fans are loyal. He knows it. So, in a lot of ways, he plays up as type of drinking buddy who keeps you entertained throughout the night. His new flick was the typical slapstick and horror stuff that involved an evil Chinese ghosts that comes back from the dead. One curiosity is to why the film was titled as it was, I guess the Chinese angle (although, I found to be stereotypical at times) was a Bruce Lee homage. You watch a Bruce Campbell movie to see him doing the silly stuff, as he makes fun of himself being a “loser of a movie star”, which he jokes about in real life too. Otherwise, the movie itself doesn’t have much of a plot (but neither did the Evil Dead movies). He gave a goofy, impromptu answer about “Where’s Evil Dead 4?”. He said,”Well… who really wanted to see Indiana Jones 4?” Then he got up and imitated an old Harrison Ford accidentally hitting himself with a whip.
After the movie, we hung out at Mel’s on Geary to grab something to eat. Balazs was commenting on how Bruce Campbell was a great, and hilarious speaker. Then I talked about how it was too bad we didn’t get close enough to meet him, and right at that moment, I looked over and saw Bruce Campbell nonchalantly walking past us to join his wife and family & friends at a table next to us! We were speechless. You literally saw everyone in the restaurant staring and thinking “Isn’t that…?” Balazs and I were contemplating… should we ask for an autograph? Get a picture? Kidnap Bruce when he goes to the bathroom? Unfortunately, they quickly left about 15 min. later. They didn’t order any food, but left their menus and a tip on the table.
And that is the story of Bruce Campbell vs. Mel’s Diner.
A bit fuzzy of a pic, but that’s him