James Bond spoof returns after 25 years Kean University's first student feature film shown at film festival BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer KATHY CHANG Garret Gega with one of the cast photographs from the movie "From This Spy On" that he produced and starred in as a television production student at Kean College, now Kean University, in 1981. WOODBRIDGE - It has been 25 years since Kean University's first full-length color video movie premiered at the school's auditorium. The movie "From This Spy On," which was student run, is a spoof of the James Bond films and features elements from the 1960s movie "The Pink Panther" and the 1960s sitcom "Get Smart." "The movie was a predecessor of the 'Austin Powers' movies," said Garret Gega, who played the leading character, Secret Agent 707. "When I watched the first movie ['Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'], it was amazing. The movie's humor was on the same wavelength as our movie. And some things in the movie, only a spy buff would know. It was hysterical." In October, Gega, who resides in Woodbridge with his wife and two children, saw the movie he wrote and starred in for the first time in full at a special screening during Kean's "Purple Violet Film Festival" when he and the film's talent director, Joe Bevilaqua, were invited back to their alma mater by Wendy Lee from the university's alumni office. KATHY CHANG staff The leading cast from the student-run movie "From This Spy On," which was made at Kean College, now Kean University, in 1981. The university will hold a 25th anniversary celebration for the movie this spring. From l-r, Stewart Brodian as Ears, Ann Brucato as Priscilla Goodbody, Garret Gega as Secret Agent 707, Seth Newfeld as Blohard, and Peter Ing as Wang. "I sat in the back of the theater and was nervous," said Gega. "After all, this time I wasn't sure how people would react to the movie, but it worked. They laughed at the parts that they were supposed to laugh at. It definitely brought back memories of good times." Gega hopes to have a 25th anniversary celebration for the film this spring. "Over 40 people worked on the movie," he said. "I talked to Joe for the first time in 25 years on the phone and then saw him for the first time when we went back to Kean in October. It would be nice to see everybody again and reminisce. We plan to have another showing of the movie during the celebration." The project was a joint effort between the student-run Kean College Television Club, which Gega re-established out of the cobwebs, and the college's Instructional Resource Center.