Michael Easton (9/06 They're Just My Friends)
Excerpt from Slant Magazine 9/13/06: Michael Easton | They're Just My Friends
They're Just My Friends
Nick Schager
Director(s): Attika J. Torrence. Screenplay: Patrick Nwamu Jr. and Charles Messina. Cast: Patrick Nwamu, Jr., Malik Yoba, Bruce Altman, Thom Christopher, Al Snow, Louis Vanaria, Taimak, Lord Jamar, Rue Debona, Michael Easton, Jas Anderson, John "Cha Cha" Ciarcia, Tommy Gallagher and Phil Cabasino. Distributor: Punchin' Pat Productions. Runtime: 120 min. Rating: NR. Year: 2006.
So incompetent it should be used by film schools as a manual on how not to make a movie, and so terrible that it requires almost a complete rethinking of current cinema-critiquing paradigms, Attika Torrence's They're Just My Friends is the type of disastrous creation even a mother would have trouble loving.
© slant magazine
They're Just My Friends
Synopsis
Based on a true story, They're Just My Friends revolves around the life and times of Pat Black, Cruiserweight boxing champion Patrick Nwamu, in a smashing star performance. A boxer in his late twenties, Punchin' Pat the New York City Kid is a product of the mean streets of the Bronx. After the death of his father, Pat attempts to find a sense of community in all the wrong places, aligning himself with local Italian-American gangsters. While training to turn pro, Pat begins a romance with neighborhood girl Gina (Rue Debona) that inflames the racist, Howard Beach neighborhood street gang, the Guido Boys. It isn't until Pat lands in jail that he finally realizes the mistakes he's made. Fortunately, Pat's physical talents and the connections he's made on the outside-including father figure and member of the Lodge, Mr. Frank Gibbs (Bruce Altman)-deliver him from prison and give him the chance to reevaluate his life. A gritty urban drama co-starring The Last Dragon's Taimak, WWE champion Al Snow, Oz's Lord Jamar, and noted character actor Bruce Altman (Running Scared, Matchstick Men), They're Just My Friends was filmed on location throughout the five boroughs, in New York City institutions from Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn to the Queens Correctional Facility. Weaving together themes from mafia movies, prison dramas, and interracial romances, They're Just My Friends is at once a classic rags-to-riches boxing tale and a winning biopic about the price of loyalty, and the value of brotherhood, trust, and friendship. They're Just My Friends will be distributed by Punchin' Pat Productions in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Philadelphia in fall 2006.
About the Cast
MICHAEL EASTON (Detective McCarthy)
Currently the star of the venerable television soap One Life To Live, Michael Easton's first screenplay, Monty, a biopic detailing the tragic life of actor Montgomery Clift, was bought by Newman Tooley Films in 2001 and is currently in development with James Foley signed to direct. Later that same year Easton was hired to write The Ella Fitzgerald Story for Norman Lear and ACT 111 productions. Besides writing several episodes of the Stephen J. Cannell series TWO in which he also played the lead character, Easton has written and directed two award-winning short films: Untitled 37 and Daedalus is Dead, the later purchased by The Sundance Channel.
When not appearing on such shows as VR5, 413 Hope Street, Total Recall 2070 and Ally McBeal, Easton is working on a follow-up to his critically acclaimed volume of poetry, Eighteen Straight Whiskeys. Soul Stealer, an original comic book Easton has spent several years developing debuted in the fall of 2005. He lives in New York City.
© They're Just My Friends