The Back Row is a damn fun place to be, and serves as an outlet for the collective minds of its many brilliant contributers to share all the great stuff that they produce! From movies to games (board, card, video) to comics to TV, and everything in between, TBR has it all! Follow The Back Row on Twitter @the_back_row
Gill (Editor-in-chief) is a tall Canadian dude from Ottawa who has seen more movies than should be legally allowed. Always on the lookout for the newest celluloid masterpiece, Gill also enjoys games of all kinds, performing magic tricks, reading, wasting time on the internet, and cracking wise. He has been known to play pranks on people, usually his girlfriend. He is currently not dead.
Robin (Editor/Head Writer) is also a reasonably tall Canadian dude who lives in Ottawa, but was originally born and raised in the biggest breeding ground for pro wrestlers in Ontario: Orangeville. Robin is a devout film fanatic with the patience to sit through the movies he likes over and over again and sit through anything else at least once. He also religiously follows the worlds of baseball, hockey and pro wrestling, and is a budding screenwriter who’s completed nearly twenty feature-length screenplays over the past fifteen years (about 60-70 % of which are awful, but the rest have achieved success in various competitions). He is currently not dead, but if he were to calculate the total number of hours in his life that he’s wasted watching horrible movies, the shock would probably kill him.
TK (Contributor) is yet another tall Canadian dude from Ottawa who’s pastimes include playing video games over and over, watching movies over and over, and watching porn over and over. Hey, at least he’s honest about it. TK was formerly the grand overseer of The Velvet Rope, and due to his erratic sleep cycle, it is reasonably assumed that he is undead.
Curtis (Contributor) is a relatively short Canadian dude and lover of all that is adventurous. He enjoys reading, writing poetry and prose, music, film, investigating visual art and being chivalrous. He has a strange obsession with the films of Werner Herzog and delights in everything medieval. He is alive and well in Ottawa, with his pet dinosaur and didgeridoo to keep him company.
Spencer Blohm (Contributor) Spencer Blohm is a film, television and entertainment blogger who covers everything from new releases and reviews to the worlds of fashion and music. He particularly enjoys exploring the stories behind the biggest names in Hollywood, from actors to directors to writers, and everything in between. He lives and works in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter at @bspencerblohm!
Castor Durden (Contributor) aka Cory Taylor emerged from the primordial ooze in the mid-80’s. He is an avid cinephile and Howard Stern fan. In his free time, we writes scripts, free-associates and exercises obsessively. His interests include film, autobiographies, sketching and vigilantism. He currently resides in suburban Pennsylvania.
Rob (The Reviewinator, a.k.a. dexterity83) (Contributor) is not a couch cushion, per se, but you can usually find him next to other couch cushions. He likes long walks to the fridge, romantic dinners by the Firefox, and texting while driving in Grand Theft Auto. Also, he loves when it’s dark and rainy outside because that means he gets to watch horror movies in the dark during the daytime. If you love movies, video games, and all things indoorsy, Rob may just be the reclusive, text-based friend you’ve been looking for.
Vince Nitro (Contributor) is yet another Canadian dude who is not only a frequent contributor to the site, but is also Gill’s attorney. Please direct all legal matters his way. In addition to providing the Editor-in-Chief with legal counsel, Vince also specializes in finding the most bizarre and brain-bending stuff that the web has to offer. A truly strange creature is he, but he purports to hold a doctorate in journalism, which gives him serious credibility. No one dares question the legitimacy of this claim…
PAST CONTRIBUTORS
Mat (Contributor) Mat Kelly is a professional playwright and puppeteer. He grew up on a small organic farm in Eastern Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. He is a graduate of the University of Windsor Drama Program and the Algonquin College Scriptwriting Program. He is writer, producer and puppet builder for Shadow Puppet Theatre. As a playwright Mat specializes in writing mystery/comedies for community theatres and has his own website, www.matsmysteries.com.
Tom Lando (Contributor) Tom Lando is a dude of sorts. He works on a number of creative ventures, including The Tom Lando Files and Oathbreakers here on The Back Row! He’s generally regarded as a guy you hear about.
The Mike (Contributor) is (yes, you guessed it) another tall Canadian dude, only not from Ottawa. He, like Robin, is from a small town near Toronto called Orangeville. The Mike is a film fan who is known for giving any movie the benefit of the doubt. He takes pride in not disregarding a movie based on a trailer, no matter how utterly stupid it may look (the exception being White Chicks). He wastes his days watching movies, reading about movies, thinking about movies, and being married on the side.
F.J. (Contributor) is an Iraqi-Canadian creature of some sort, who grew up in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. and decided to join the league of avid cinema geeks in Ottawa. He (or it) hopes to break into the film industry in the fields of directing, screenwriting, producing and, if possible, acting. While F.J. has many ideas on what to do to achieve that dream, he has a few weaknesses, which include over-thinking, procrastination and a severe case of indecisiveness. Aside from watching films, he likes to read books and comic books (though he’s not quite the geek he was years ago), and to keep up with world events in the hopes that he may one day write some very witty satire. He is open to almost any kinds of music and loves to play assorted games (not just video games, for you kids of the new millennium).
Chris (Contributor) is a short Canadian dude when he’s not standing up, but does meet the height requirements for this site most days when he’s not drinking. When he’s pretending to be a professional he is a writer from Ottawa who lives in a haunted attic that his friends call a club house for deranged librarians with bottles, candles, a cat, a girl and forty three thousand books and stacks of paper that, when read in order, will grant him world domination. Tragically, the proper order was lost during that last little earthquake Ottawa had so rest easy, children…
Felan (Contributor) is a PhD student studying film and video games. When he’s not reading for school, he reads comics. Gill and Felan have a long history of collaboration, including several short film projects and a webcomic.
Awnyer (Contributor) is an epic Canadian dudette, complete with a European background, who’s happiest when surrounded by collectible figures, graphic novels, and games of both the board and video kind. By day, and sometimes by night, she epically comes to the aid of both comic book and anime fans in need of epic collectibles. To fuel her epicness she delves into various projects including artwork and acting, and she also reviews video games as part of the editorial staff for the epic Canadian gaming website GamingExcellence.com. She can only be described as an epic contributor of epic epicness.
TECHNICAL WIZARDS
Michael (Webmaster) is a similarly tall Canadian dude from Ottawa who loves to play games and guitar. When he’s not the acting webmaster for TBR, he can be found huddled in a small shack kicking a lawn mower and cursing Gill’s name. It is unknown whether Michael is alive, dead, or undead.
Phil Jones (Host) is a Canadian dude of average height who lives in Montreal and creates all manner of awesome things. His specialty is graphic design, and he and Gill (as well as Felan and a bunch of other guys) once ran a webcomic together! Now Phil is the webhost for the Back Row, and a damn good one at that! Check out his website here.