Monday, September 08, 2008

Blood Drips on Newsies Square


You're a young actor in a supporting role in a movie called Newsies. You've got a lot of time on your hands. What do you do? Well, if you're Michael Goorjian, you make a film of your own, called Blood Drips Heavily On Newsies Square.

In it, "washed up" actor Don Knotts (Mark David) comes to the movie lot in hopes of getting cast in the movie Newsies, but director Danny Ortega (himself, in a cameo) has him tossed off the lot. So Knotts proceeds to start killing all the Newsies actors...ending finally with Michael Goorjian, who gets run over, hung, and finally burned to death.

It's a lot of fun, but I confess Michael did miss a chance at the end with his extended death scenes. He should be in pain and trying to escape, sort of like Will Farrell's Mustafa in the Austin Powers movies, but instead he's asking his would-be killer for bandaids, etc. Still, a minor detail in what is an amusing little film (and I suspect people who have actually seen Newsies will find it even more amusing.)



What I find most impressive about this little film is the amount of "names" Goorjian got to work with him on it - albeit in cameos, from his fellow castmates to the director of Newsies, Michael Ortega, various crew members, and even Bill Pullman. He must have been quite a well-liked guy on the set to pull this off...and of course it was the first in what has become a long line of his independent film projects.

There's an official website for this independent, 25-minute production, at http://www.blooddripsonnewsiessquare.com/Blood_drips.html, where you can purchase a DVD of this for $25, including postage.

Newsies fans have made independent websites of the movie, as for example here:

http://mushsgoil.tripod.com/id41.html
and here:

http://www.geocities.com/newsiesquiz/bloodrips-script.html

and

http://newsiesfreak.com/newsiesnow.html

And here's Michael at the end of the movie, showing off his dance moves.

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