We have judges, we have Chris Gore, and we have the region of...West Coast Region! Will we have anyone not from California?

Jason Alexander (no, not THAT Jason Alexander - San Francisco, CA) - Jason - 'I'm on a mission from G-d'. Simon Cowell - 'G-d doesn't want you to win this competition.'

Denea Mason (San Francisco, CA) - She's short, she has shoulder length dark hair, and she says she is a Big Bad Mama.

Ben Putman (Berkeley, CA) - He's got that leather jacket Quentin Tarantino thing going on as he's seen Mad Max 47 times - in the theater.

David Leavitt (Sebasticole, CA) - He's African American with a full beard, a belly, and he went to MIT - and he says he's 3 geeks in one. I like him.

Dean Backus (San Jose, CA) - He can name Madonna movies that she was good in. Scary.

Joseph Frank (San Francisco, CA) - He can appreciate 'Showgirls'. Now THAT scares me.

Oh look. They are all from California. What a shock.

We start the First Cut with Joseph, Dean and the following categories -
Comics, Film Junkies and Da Lynch Mob. Comics and Film Junkies, so we get trivia questions on David Lynch.

Joseph - What movie did a deformed John Hurt cry 'I am not an Animal'?
Correct - Elephant Man
Joseph - Elephant Man

Dean - Who played the lounge singer in Blue Velvet?
Correct - Isabella Rossellini
Dean - Isabella Rossellini

Joseph - What rock star played Feyd in Dune?
Correct - Sting
Joseph - Sting

Dean - Who was Alvin in The Straight Story and what vehicle did he drive?
Correct - Richard Farnsworth and a Tractor
Dean - Richard Farnsworth and a Tractor

Joseph - In Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me - who played Donna Hayward in the movie?
Correct - Laura Kelly
Joseph - No Guess

Dean advances, and we have one less scary person remaining in the competition.

David and Ben are next to play - and they don't want Film Junkies or Comics. They go after the new category - Kubrick films.

David - What Tom Cruise movie was Kubrick's last film?
Correct - Eyes Wide Shut
David - Eyes Wide Shut

Ben - In what 1987 movie did a Vietnamese prostitute tell Matthew Modine 'Me so horny'
Correct - Full Metal Jacket
Ben - Full Metal Jacket

David - Name both movies that Kirk Douglas starred in.
Correct - Paths of Glory and Spartacus
David - Paths of Glory and Spartacus

Ben - What was the name of the haunted hotel in The Shining?
Correct - The Overlook
Ben - The Overlook

David - In 'Lolita', who played her mother and how does she die in the film?
Correct - Shelley Winters and Suicide
David - Shelley Winters and...was hit by a car

Well my favorite goes out the window, a victim of too much geekdom. Jason or Denae will be the final victim of round 1. The new category is Pigskin Flicks, but that's not the category that is selected - Comics is.

Denea - Who played Superman in Superman The Movie?
Correct - Christopher Reeve
Denea - Christopher Reeve

Jason - What euphemism for marijuana is also Kirsten Dunst's character's first name in Spider Man?
Correct - Mary Jane
Jason - Mary Jane

Denea - Who directed Batman Forever?
Correct - Joel Schumacher
Denea - Christopher Columbus

Denea leaves us, and once again, we are down to three mawgs (though at least one of them looks like Tarantino).

It's debate time, and Keith David, Tatum O'Neal and Henry Rollins are the
judges again. We start with who the best director is. Jason goes for Quentin Tarantino for Reservoir Dogs, while Ben, who looks like Quentin, goes for the Coen Brothers, saying that they rely on non-flashy actors with real values. Jason says that Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen aren't flashy, while Ben says that the Coen Brothers have life pictures. Judges?

Keith - Jason
Tatum - Ben
Henry - Jason

Jason advances to the final two. Ben now has to deal with Dean as they talk about the single greatest performance ever. Ben goes with Peter Sellers with Dr. Strangelove with all of his characters. Dean goes with Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind and her 4 hour performance as her British accent is clouded by a Southern one. Ben attributes Sellers to his movies, and Dean attributes Sellers to The Pink Panther. That could be the difference.

Henry - Dean
Tatum - Ben
Keith - Dean

Ben loses to both Dean and Jason, and the Quentin look-alike is gone. Now we REALLY have 2 mawgs left for the Obsession Round. Who has the better obsessive collection? We start with...Round 1.

Jason - A collection of stage productions of films, including Quentin
Tarantino's works - and a letter from 20th Century Fox to cease and desist.
Dean - The three Back to the Future Standees, which took him 6 years to collect.

This is tough, as it has different levels of obsessionism. Movies = Plays = Bad, as Henry says that they should have made movies instead. Dean waited 6 years, so he gets the first star.

Round 2 -

Dean - The preview reel of 'Return to Oz', the 1989 movie that sunk like a stone.
Jason - A game called 'Tinseltown', which is a simulated game of casting 3,000 actors (including the judges) in different films.

The panel decides that Jason took more time out of his life to create such an extensive game, so he wins the round and ties up the match.

Round 3 -

Jason - He is the member of the Church of the Heavenly Wood - A religious church dedicated to the movies of Ed Wood. OK - maybe he's scarier than Dean
Dean - 20 years worth of E.T. paraphernalia, including the laser disc, the
vinyl record from Michael Jackson and the entire E.T. character collection - he got set #1. That's scary too.

This is a very tough call, but the judges decide (as they have done for most of the series consistently) that the length of time to get something done is more important than the wackiness of something done. Scary Dean wins the competition and moves on, and he dedicates the win to his parents, his 'partner', and to aspiring film makers that want films that people will obsess over.

We'll obsess over the next region in 7 days.