Gleaming the Cube
| Gleaming the Cube | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Graeme Clifford |
| Produced by | Lawrence Turman and David Foster |
| Written by | Michael Tolkin |
| Starring | Christian Slater Steven Bauer Richard Herd Le Tuan Min Luong Art Chudabala Peter Kwong Max Perlich Tony Hawk Rodney Mullen Ed Lauter Micole Mercurio |
| Cinematography | Reed Smoot |
| Editing by | John Wright |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | January 13, 1989 |
| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Gleaming the Cube (also known as A Brother's Justice and Skate or Die) is an American movie released in 1989. It featured Christian Slater as Brian Kelly, a 16-year-old skateboarder investigating the death of his adopted Vietnamese brother.
The Skating Technical Advisor for the film was original Z-Boy, Stacy Peralta. Among the endless list of famous skateboarders who appear in the film as Stunt Skaters include Mike McGill, "Gator" Mark Rogowski, Rodney Mullen, Rich Dunlop, Eric Dressen, Lance Mountain, Mike Vallely, Chris Black, Ted Ehr, Natas Kaupas, Chris Borst, and Steve Saiz. Tony Hawk (Buddy), and Tommy Guerrero (Sam) then members of the Bones Brigade appear in the film as members of Brian's skate crew. Future lead singer of The Aquabats and creator of Yo Gabba Gabba!, Christian Jacobs, also appears in the film as Gremic.
The film received only a moderate release in the United States from 20th Century Fox (in 469 theaters). Although the film had a relatively low box office turnout, Gleaming the Cube garnered a significant cult following[1] after its theatrical release, through basic cable replays on networks such as USA and the burgeoning VHS (and later DVD) market, as well as notoriety among skateboarders.
The title of the film refers to the gibberish question, "Have you ever gleemed inside a cube?" Garry Davis (GSD) asked Neil Blender in an interview in the December 1983 issue of Thrasher magazine.
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[edit] Synopsis
Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) is a slacker at heart. The only thing he really cares about is skateboarding; trivial things like doing his homework and making the grade in school have little meaning to him. But when his adopted Vietnamese brother turns up dead after discovering an error in the shipping records at his place of work, Brian begins to suspect something more. Refusing to accept the police's theory of suicide, Brian launches his own investigation, determined to uncover the truth of what really happened to his brother.
[edit] Locations
- The Anaheim motel in the movie, the "Atomic Age Lodge," was in reality the Stovall's Cosmic Age Lodge on Harbor Bl., across the street from the then-Disneyland parking lot. It was one of a group of Stovall's hotels in the area with a space age theme (the others being Stovall's Apollo Inn and Stovall's Space Age Lodge and the Inn Of Tomorrow). The Cosmic Age was demolished in the late '90s to make room for the California Adventure expansion. The others have been remodeled and no longer have the space theme.
- Most of the School Scenes were filmed at Woodbridge High in Irvine, California.
- Some introductory scenes were filmed at John Wayne Airport (Orange County, California) before major renovation work on the terminal.
[edit] Cultural references
In the Simpsons episode "Lemon of Troy", Bart and a young Shelbyville boy skate past a female doppelganger of Groundskeeper Willy, who screams after them, "Slow down, ya sidewalk surfin, cube gleamers!" The movie is referenced again in the episode "To Surveil with Love" when Ned Flanders tells Bart to "Stop gleaming that cube!" as he is watching Bart skateboard down the sidewalk.
In the Season 2 premiere of Robot Chicken, Christian Slater plays a skater named Skater McGee, who gets kids to try an incredibly hard trick called the "Monster Cookie Pinwheel". When asked by the skaters what a Monster Cookie Pinwheel is, Skater McGee replies with, "A monster cookie pinwheel is when you skate up to a locomotives cow catch, you 360 punk buster to the second car, do a lemonade hand stand on the third car, a whipping-post ollie to the fourth car, a demon stomper on the fifth car, and a gleaming the cube off the sixth car, before dismounting the train."
In the episode of the podcast, Stuff You Should Know called "How Mummies Work", Josh Clark mistakenly claims that the title was changed to Brotherhood of the Tiger. The movie was renamed as Brotherhood of the Tiger by some cable outlets in the mid to late 1990s.
