Playing the Credits Card

Last night, prior to our first ever sleepfest in my son’s room - as opposed to his attempting to ruin my sex life by continually sleeping in my wife and I’s bed – the three of us watched The Hulk for the whatever time.  Not the Ang Lee version where The Hulk looks like a cross between a green Teletubby and a roided-out bodybuilder.  I’m talkin’ bout Ed Norton’s Hulk -  Ed!  You damn right.  In any event – meaning “let’s move on” as opposed to the discus, floor exercise or midget tossing – the movie isn’t all that bad.  It’s the classic story of boy meets girl, boy gets gamma poisoning and turns into a quasi-dangerous muscled up monster with anger issues, girl still loves boy, boy turns into big green monster to save a city, the chic he loves and her daddy by defeating a meaner monster, then boy runs off as the big misunderstood monster, and leaves the girl who still loves him pining for his return – you know, that old chestnut.  But the best part of the movie was the credits.  No, seriously.

You can learn a lot about what you have no clue about by watching movie credits.  If you ever found the credits online and printed them out, you’d learn that there were 41 pages of people who you’d probably like whether you were angry or not.  41 pages.  The Ten Commandments didn’t even have that many pages of credits, and it had to have two of every freakin’ animal for Noah’s Ark.  Hell, that flick didn’t have as many pages of credits even considering that “Mr. Heston’s Beard” and “Mr. Heston’s Beard’s Assistant” both got mentioned.  If E.T. had as many pages of credits, he would have had one helluva a phone bill after he called home to tell mom about it. 

If you had hung around the theater until the last sticky foot left, you’d have found out that Rolf Raven was one of the two “Key Greens” that made the Hulk tick.  Key Greens?  If this was a movie about Bruce Banner getting pissed when he wasn’t able to start his car or get into his house, I’d understand.  If we were talking about the Hulk’s refusal to eat healthy, I’m with ya.  Otherwise, I have this idea that good ole quoth the Rolf Raven was running around showing everybody pictures of golf courses he had played.  Maybe Rolfie’s job was to procure entry into eco-friendly spaces.  I’m absolutely at a loss as to what his job could have been.

Brad Brock was the “Foley Mixer (Sony)”, and Michael Broomberg was the “Foley Artist (Sony)”. You may remember them from such mixable and artistic things as that ballon on a tube shoved up your penis or vagina.  I guess you can both mix and make art in your foley catheter.  I always thought you could only do one or the other.  It’s like being able to pee and not having to get out of bed too. 

The “Ethnic Percussionist” was Pete Lockett, who always does good work.  If you’ve ever tried to beat a minority or person of a different culture/nationality to the tune of your favorite Beatles song, you’d know how impressive Pete’s work is.  In case you didn’t notice, there wasn’t a disclaimer saying ”No Scandinavians or Apaches were harmed during the making of this film” in the credits either. 

If you ever watched the Bulk’s credits, you would have also found out that Bhavik Bajpai was a “Look Development Lead”.  That sounds like something Robin would say to Batman when he stumbled upon the name of a suspect.  Not to be outdone in the weirdest name and job department, Venuprasath Dhanapal was a “Rotoscope/BG Prep Artist”.  Sounds like a fancy way of describing the guy who got the toilet all tuned up before the plumber shoved that turd snake down the hole.  Ben’s cousin, Steven Hur, was all over the “Pipeline Setup” too.  When I first saw this, I thought I had either stumbled onto the credits for a porno movie, or Exxon’s website.  Who nude that filming the Hulk required it’s own mainline of Texas Tea?

However, no diatribe on weird film jobs would be complete without talking about the best boy grips, grips and gaffers.  The first one is apparently tight with the newly married grip, the second just likes to be held, and the last one always screws up.  Why all this is necessary when filming a movie, I have no idea.  It’s almost like you need to know a little bit of Sanskrit, a touch of Ebonics, and three parts Farsi to figure this shit out.  Even then, you still aren’t sure why Canadian Wrangler was chosen for the role or job of “Animals”.  Is that like a pair of jeans you could only purchase after the passage of NAFTA?  If that’s true, I wonder if the Canadian version is still that “K-Mart cheap” color blue and has the leather assplate on it?  The American versions are usually worn so tight, you can tell if a guy is circumferenced, what his heart rate is, and whether or not his political views lean to the right or left.

Well, I’ve got to go.  I just received a call from Jake Gash “Rigging Gaffer” that I have to take.  I’m not sure, but I think he may be like that character Dan Akroyd used to play on SNL, “Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute.”