Gleaming the Cube

Gleaming the Cube
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Graeme Clifford
Written by	Michael Tolkin
Produced by	Lawrence Turman David Foster
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 Kieu Chinh
Cinematography	Reed Smoot
Edited by	John Wright
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	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 film 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 skateboarders who appear in the film as stunt skaters are 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, it garnered a significant cult following after its theatrical release, through basic cable replays on networks such as USA and the burgeoning VHS (and later DVD) market, as well as among skateboarders.

The title of the film refers to the gibberish question, "Have you ever gleemed inside a cube?", that Garry Davis (GSD) asked Neil Blender in an interview in the December 1983 issue of Thrasher magazine. In the film, Christian Slater’s character defines “gleaming the cube” as “pushing your limits to the edge.” The DVD contains an easter egg; by highlighting the skateboard on the main menu, you can watch a short featurette entitled “What Does Gleaming the Cube Mean?”.

Plot

Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) is an underachieving high school student living in Orange County, California. An avid skateboarder along with many of his friends, Brian is frequently at odds with his parents for his increasingly reckless behavior, which has landed him in jail on more than one occasion. The only person in the family Brian can relate to is his adopted Vietnamese brother Vinh (Art Chudabala), who works as a shipping clerk for the Vietnamese Anti-Communist Relief Fund (VACRF), an organization whose stated purpose is to send medical supplies to Vietnam.

When Vinh discovers a suspicious error in VACRF's shipping records, he brings it to his boss Colonel Trac (Le Tuan), who dismisses the matter as a clerical error. But when Vinh tries to investigate further, Colonel Trac abruptly fires him. Determined to find out the truth, Vinh sneaks into Westpac Medical Supplies (WMS), the warehouse responsible for VACRF's shipping, but unwittingly trips the security system and is apprehended by the warehouse's owner, Ed Lawndale (Richard Herd). He is then taken to a local motel and tortured by Lawndale and Bobby Nguyen (Peter Kwong), another of Colonel Trac's employees. When Colonel Trac himself arrives at the motel, it is revealed that he and Lawndale are conspirators in a scheme to smuggle military weapons and ammunition to Vietnam. Convinced that Vinh poses no threat to their operation, Trac intends to set him free, but unfortunately Vinh dies from being strangled by Nguyen. The next morning, a housekeeper enters the room and finds Vinh's body hanging from a noose, the apparent result of a suicide.

After the funeral, Brian finds a list of medical supplies in Vinh's room written in Vietnamese. While looking for someone to translate it, he encounters Bobby Nguyen who immediately begins to follow him, but Brian manages to escape. When Nguyen stops to make a call at a pay phone, Brian slips unnoticed into the backseat of his car. In a secluded area, Nguyen meets with Trac and Lawndale and attempts to extort money from them in exchange for information on Brian. A struggle ensues, and Nguyen is inadvertently shot to death by Lawndale. After stashing Nguyen's body in the trunk of his own car, Trac and Lawndale depart, and Brian flees to notify the police. However, when they arrive at the scene, the authorities find no trace of the crime. A distraught Brian confides in Detective Al Lucero (Steven Bauer), expressing his belief that his brother did not commit suicide. While skeptical, Lucero offers to do what he can to help. But with Lawndale and Trac covering their tracks at every turn, the investigation soon goes cold, and with little evidence to support it, Lucero starts to reject Brian's theory of homicide.

Nevertheless, Brian's suspicion of Colonel Trac continues to grow, and he decides to reach out to Trac's daughter Tina (Min Luong), a fellow high school student and Vinh's ex-girlfriend. After an image makeover, Brian asks her out on a date and the two become closer. He accompanies Tina to one of VACRF's social functions, where he encounters Lawndale and learns of his connection to Trac and WMS. Following in his brother's footsteps, Brian sneaks into Lawndale's warehouse and successfully uncovers a cache of weapons in a shipping crate, prompting Lawndale to move all the weapons to another location.

Determined to rejuvenate interest in the case, Brian causes an explosion at the warehouse and plants evidence to incriminate Trac, but Lucero, aware of Brian's criminal history, sees through the facade. However, the incident causes Trac to panic and send his wife and daughter away to his brother's house, for their own safety. A distressed Tina spends the night with Brian and discovers a lighter belonging to her father in Brian's room, leading Brian to explain all his suspicions to her. Tina angrily confronts her father about the conspiracy, who is shamed by his involvement and contacts Lawndale to remove himself from the operation. In response, Lawndale begins to target Brian directly, sending a group of Vietnamese motorcyclists to run him down on the street. The police manage to apprehend two of the three bikers and, with the aid of an interpreter, Lucero is able to confirm Lawndale's role in the attack.

Meanwhile, Brian meets with his friend Yabbo (Max Perlich), who builds a new skateboard for Brian and rallies the rest of the skateboarding clique. Brian and the police both converge upon Colonel Trac's house, where Lawndale confronts Trac and takes Tina hostage at gunpoint. When Trac tries to wrestle the gun away from him, Brian crashes into the room through the window, but Lawndale shoots and kills Trac before making his escape in a stolen police car. A frantic chase ensues, with Brian, Lucero, and the entire skateboarding crew eventually cornering Lawndale. As Lawndale prepares to shoot him, Brian soars into the air on his skateboard and knocks him out, injuring himself in the process. At the hospital, Brian tries to comfort Tina in the wake of her father's death and suggests that they go back to school together, implying that their relationship will continue. The film ends with Brian and Lucero visiting Vinh's grave before driving away.

Cast

• Christian Slater as Brian Kelly
• Steven Bauer as Al Lucero
• Richard Herd as Ed Lawndale
• Le Tuan as Colonel Trac
• Min Luong as Tina Trac
• Art Chudabala as Vinh Kelly
• Ed Lauter as Mr. Kelly
• Micole Mercurio as Mrs. Kelly
• Peter Kwong as Bobby Nguyen
• Max Perlich as Yabbo
• Tony Hawk as Sam
• Christian Jacobs as Gremic

Locations

• The Anaheim motel in the movie, the "Atomic Age Lodge," was in reality the Stovall's Cosmic Age Lodge on Harbor Boulevard, 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 1990s to make room for Disney California Adventure. 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.
• The hill scene was filmed on 17th Street between Patton and Leland in San Pedro, California.
• The car chase scene near the end of the movie was filmed on West Seaside Way between the 500 to 700 block in Long Beach, California.

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."

Legacy

Professional skateboarder Stevie Williams has stated in an online interview that Slater's character in the film was his first skateboarding influence.

Skateboarding figure Tony Hawk, in a 2008 interview with Slater, revealed that he is continually asked if Slater actually skated in the film. Hawk has remained in contact with Slater well beyond the production of the film.

External links

• Gleaming the Cube at IMDb
• Origin of Gleaming the Cube film title in the December 1983 issue of Thrasher