Ask Me a Question: Universal Soldier w/DOLPH LUNDGREN

WOW.  What a night.  My brain hasn't quite computed everything yet but I'm told Dolph Night was a rousing success, we had a great enthusiastic crowd and the D-Man was awesome.  I'll put up a full post later but thank you to everyone who showed up last night.  The American Cinematheque, BeyondFest, Humans From Earth and Dammaged Goods all worked together like a movie bro Expendables to make for one hell of a night.  Now let's rewind.  The night started off running around getting things set, anticipating Dolph and producer Craig Baumgarten's arrival.  I had posted up outside in the courtyard where several Dammaged Goods, StalloneZone, VanDammeFan and plain ol' action fans introduced themselves and I handed them a custom shirt for the night.  Later inside, I look up and one of the guys who got a shirt said, "he's here!" and there was Dolph, in all his muscular, suave and cool guy glory.  He, Craig and their party actually arrived early so we whisked them away to chat about the evening and I got to hear some stories about Carolco, the production and original director Andrew Davis' script that was ultimately rejected.

Dolph, fan, custom shirt!

Then it was time.  Grant and Geoff from the Egyptian Theatre and Humans From Earth gave us a lowdown of what's coming up, that the first HFE podcasts are up and then it was my turn.  I welcomed the crowd and told them how my first movie in theaters was 1987's Masters of the Universe starring none other than Dolph Lundgren and that I'd been a lifelong fan ever since.  So it was a pleasure and kind of bewildering to be in a giant, beautiful, historic theatre about to watch him on the big screen.  As a thank you, I had prizes but you had to earn them!  Up for grabs were an original 1992 Universal Soldier button, a VHS signed by Dolph and Craig and a custom shirt for the night.  I was really sweating it if my questions would be too hard but the audience knew that Dolph did Kyokoshin karate, Sgt. Andrew Scott's designation was GR-13 and that Roland Emmerich directed the movie.  Then Dolph and Craig came up to say hello to the audience and I asked them what first memories came back to them when they heard Unisol was being screened.  Craig elaborated on the Andrew Davis debacle while Dolph regaled the audience with the story of threatening to knock Jean-Claude Van Damme out on their first day.

More later...