Gleaming the Cube

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Gleaming the Cube
Theatrical release poster
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
Cinematography	Reed Smoot
Editing by	John Wright
Release date(s)	January 13, 1989
Running time	105 min
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

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. Though set in contemporary Orange County, the movie includes story methods common to westerns and film noir.

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, 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^{[citation needed]} 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.

[edit] Locations

The Anaheim motel in the movie, the "Atomic Age Lodge," was in reality the Stovall's Cosmic Age Lodge on Katella Avenue, 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. Today, the hotel is simply called Best Western Stovall's Inn, and, like the other Stovall's motels, no longer has any of the space age theming.