"Now she's gonna think I'm a complete idiot." - John Leguizamo as Luigi, Super Mario Brothers

The Boy is on the lookout for Leguizamo. This is what happens when you let 'em choose their own duds.

So on Sunday night we went back to the Ice Festival. Tonight was different, though. Normally I’m as difficult to move out of the house on a Sunday night as it is to convince a PETA member that wolves aren’t fuzzy little people in wolf suits, but tonight was different. The Ice Festival was going to have a celebrity guest. John Leguizamo was going to be in town.

The Ice Festival hooked up with Disney Fox and had poor Mr. Leguizamo show up in Fairbanks. In winter. To plug his movie, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. Why you’d want to invoke melting at an ice sculpture competition is beyond me, but that was the idea.

Some background. A few weeks back I talked about Land of the Dead. I’m a hopeless junkie for flesh-eating zombie flicks, which dates back to when I saw the uncut Night of the Living Dead at the tender age of five on Creepy Creature Feature. As a side note, I’ve loved that stuff since I was four. I don’t think I’ve changed much since then. I’m essentially a big twelve-year-old with a penchant for bad humor and B-horror movies.

Well, The Mrs. and I sat down to watch Land of the Dead. I was jonesing to watch it since I knew it existed, but yet cheap enough to wait until it moved to five-day rental status at Blockbuster. I brought the movie home. We put the kiddies to bed, and The Mrs. and I snuggled up on the couch to watch it. She’s screwed up enough that she likes flesh-eating zombie movies, too. (A further note: I went though our DVD collection the other day and discovered a disturbing trend that many of my favorite DVDs include cannibalism. Maybe it’s just a coincidence?)

So, The Mrs. and I are snuggled on the couch, and the opening credits roll. John Leguizamo’s name flashes on screen.

The Mrs.: “Oh, Hell.”

Me: “What?” I pause the movie.

The Mrs.: “It’s got friggin’ John Leguizamo in it.”

Me: “So? He was in the Super Mario Brothers movie. He was good in that.”

The Mrs.: “I hate him.”

Me: “Why?”

The Mrs.: “No reason. I just do. Why do you hate Andie MacDowell?”

She had me there. I hate many people for a reason. I hate Kim Bassinger because she’s as stupid as a bag of marbles, and Angelina Jolie because she’s a home wrecking strumpet. Andie MacDowell, well, I just hate her. I liked her in Groundhog Day and in Hudson Hawk (one of the ways that The Mrs. and I knew we were made for each other was that we were the only two people in North America who liked Hudson Hawk). But, somehow, I just get the feeling that she wouldn’t fit in at the Wilder household. The Mrs. picked the best possible chink in my armor: someone I hated for no good reason.

So, we watched the movie. John Leguizamo was awesome in it. The Mrs. grudgingly agreed that he was, “not bad.”

So, tonight was the night. John Leguizamo was going to be carried to the stage in a dog sled. Governor Murkowski would likewise be brought to the stage. Together, they would cut a ribbon made of ice to officially open a kids’ play area made of ice.

Would Leguizamo turn zombie? Would our Governor? Would The Mrs. eat Leguizamo in a hate inspired cannibal frenzy? The answer Saturday in: Dawn of the Living Leguizamo.