Morris “Fromage” Michaels…
I have a great friend, Mark, who I have been friends with for almost 20 years now. I met Mark when I was the manager of a video store in 1997 and Mark was one of my key holders. Mark was an instructor in English at a local community college with a masters degree in popular culture and worked at the video store just for the free movie rentals. Mark and I instantly became friends because Mark smokes cigars, so we would often take smoke breaks behind the store, sometimes even taking the smoke breaks with our district manager, Ken. Mark is the biggest overgrown 5 year old that you will ever meet, and I say that in the most complimentary way possible. He has an enormous movie collection, comic book collection and a collection of expensive Japanese Godzilla toys that would make any young boy drool. He also has an amazing knack for finding amazing cigars that will not break your bank account. Needless to say, Mark is one cool cat.
Last year while I was in Las Vegas, Mark messaged me to tell me about his third movie which he was planning. His first two movies “Monster of Party Beach” and “Sorority Sisters vs. Sasquatch” were wonderfully done tributes to old b-grade science fiction movies so I was very excited to hear about this most recent addition: “The Quest for Uranus”. Marks movies, which he makes under the name “Cyclops Movies” are very low budget, fun, takes on 50s sci-fi movies. I was actually supposed to have a cameo role in Sorority Sisters vs. Sasquatch but the timing of the filming did not work out with the divorce that I was going through. I inquired about a cameo role in the current movie and Mark asked me what role I would like to play, to which I replied that I would like to be myself. I told him that I wanted my role to be as a photographer and that I wanted my role to be cheesy. Mark said that he couldn’t promise anything since the script had not yet been written and he only had a rough outline of the movie drawn up, but that he would see what he could come up with. The result was pure brilliance: Morris “Fromage” Michaels.
I have the opening scene of the film. I play the role of an astronaut who also happens to be a photographer, who finds out that he is not going to space in spite of training for it. I will not give the outcome of my role or how it works into the film, you will need to see the movie yourself to see that. What I will say is that it was a very fun experience filming my short scene at the beginning of the movie and a great honor to be involved in my friends movie! My model friend Dana, who has one of the lead roles as the “Queen of the Uranusians”, drove over to Cleveland for the day to shoot our scenes and then had dinner and cigars with Mark afterwards. Not a bad way to spend a day, I must say!The premier of the movie is in 2 weeks in Cleveland, and I am so excited to be going to Cleveland along with my model friend Dana for the initial viewing!!! Once the movie has premiered it will be available on DVD from Cyclops Movies. I highly recommend you check it out!
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