12 Dec 26th, 2024-Jan 1st, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | view the full list here We can’t live without in 2024 again,” Bob tells her. Indeed, true love will not be thwarted. Not even by Avery’s mom’s grizzled boyfriend, Ray, who gets handsy with Avery in a classic rom-com set-up. Bob shows up on her doorstep and saves her, threatening Ray with a fanny pack that supposedly holds an unseen 9 mm pistol. “Avery, go on, get your stuff,” Bob says. “We’ll keep ol’ Leroy here company.” “The name is Ray,” Ray says. “You look like a Leroy.” “The name is Ray.” Bob taps his fanny pack. “Mr. Nine says Leroy.” Spoiler alert: Bob asks Avery to marry him at Lake Lavon, and the film ends with them getting hitched at a nearby justice of the peace. Fans of Christian filmmaking may encounter “Mr. Nine” again. Thomas also has a Substack column and podcast dubbed “Resurgence,” wherein he promises that a second film is on the way. In fact, Summerbrook Studios has had subsequent casting calls for other films on the platform Backstage.com, the online version of the venerable trade mag. “A Texas Family” is described as the story of a wealthy father and the family drama that ensues as he writes his will. Another, “Teaching Life,” is the tale of a teacher “who teaches a class of rebellious high- school students a lesson they’ll never forget.” The more things change … Christian filmmaking seems to be good for Thomas, who in Facebook photos with “Lake Lavon” cast members looks a lot more relaxed than in his days as a prose- cutor. What hasn’t changed, to judge by the columns in “Resurgence,” is Thomas’ Manichean view of politics or his aggrievement over his 2012 disbarment. On his Substack, Thomas remains a paleoconservative at heart — anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant and deeply paternalistic. The world is subdivided into evil liberals, righteous right-wingers and traitorous RINOs. In his first column for “Resurgence” in February 2023, more than a decade after his disbarment, he claims he “stopped illegal immigration into Arizona,” which would be news to the U.S. Border Patrol. Granted, Thomas supported a host of anti- immigration policies, including the infa- mous Senate Bill 1070 and Arpaio’s sweeps of Hispanic communities. Thomas even prosecuted those here illegally for “self- smuggling” themselves into the country, a practice federal courts found to be unconstitutional. But it wasn’t Thomas’ anti-immigrant stance that got him disbarred. That happened as a result of his alliance with Arpaio and their fetish for ginning up charges against their critics and enemies, including superior court judges and members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. The panel that disbarred Thomas found that he and his underlings brought false bribery charges against the presiding judge of the Maricopa County criminal court and indicted one supervisor on dozens of counts past the statute of limitations. It also faulted him for filing a federal RICO case against four judges and the entire Board of Supervisors that was “devoid of any legal or factual basis.” A full accounting of Thomas’ many misdeeds in office could fill a small library. Many were not subject to the bar’s sanc- tions. That includes the 2007 illegal arrests of New Times’ former owners, who had revealed the existence of a secret grand jury impaneled to exact revenge for the paper’s unflattering coverage of Arpaio. A lawsuit resulting from that debacle cost taxpayers $3.75 million to settle. The judges and county leaders targeted by Thomas also sued, with settlements and legal fees exceeding $44 million. Not that Thomas feels he did anything wrong. After his disbarment, he held an impromptu rally in Phoenix where he declared himself the victim of a “witch hunt” and compared himself to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. In his Substack debut nearly 12 years later, Thomas blamed his fall on unnamed “leftist crocodiles” who took him down because he was a “threat to the regime.” He wrote that the panel’s “evil and plainly dishonest court ruling” destroyed “a shining legal career and an unprecedented law enforcement record.” Which goes to prove the adage: “You can tell a man from Harvard, but you can’t tell him much.” With the re-election of Donald Trump, of whom Thomas is definitely a fan, Thomas has declared that his Substack need not dwell on politics. He says will commit himself to cultural issues instead. His latest column is a nostalgic rumination on stop-motion TV classics of yore like “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Little Drummer Boy.” A softer, kinder Andrew Thomas may be in the making yet. A poster for “Lake Lavon.” (Courtesy of Internet Movie Database) Second Act from p 10
