Van Dammage: Arnold Belt

"He makes sense when he talks.  He doesn't talk with complicated words, he's direct.  You look into his eyes, they are good.  He will never try to hurt you or take advantage of you.  He's too busy and too rich, he has his own focus, his own mission.  He's not looking at how your arms are so big and the way you dress.  He's above all that.  I like him a lot."

Jean-Claude Van Damme on Arnold Schwarzenegger

When Jean-Claude Van Damme's movie career first started picking up steam, he was immediately compared to the established Austrian Oak.  It was easy to see why of course as Arnold was king of the action film along with Sylvester Stallone.  But with a European heritage and background in bodybuilding, surface comparisons were easy to make between The Muscles From Brussels and The Schwarz.  I'm not sure if the two interacted much on the 1986 Mexico set of Predator when JCVD was playing the original creature before dropping out.  Jesse Ventura gives Van Damme a shout out in one of his books, saying he was impressed with the young martial artist and thought he had a promising career ahead.  After JC left Predator and the suit was redesigned, the two would meet again on the set of Red Heat where Van Damme was unknowingly sitting in star Schwarzenegger's chair.  Cut to the Hoover Dam location of Universal Soldier in 1991 where by now Van Damme was a million dollar leading man opposite Dolph Lundgren in his first big budget studio effort and Arnie showed up with former bodybuilding champion/best friend Franco Columbu to wish co-star Ralf Moeller a happy birthday.  Apple juice and cigars flowing, the duo continued to build their rapport and when producers of Arnold's big budget summer release The Last Action Hero were looking for stars to cameo, Jean-Claude Van Damme answered the call and received a quick, speaking part while Chevy Chase, Damon Wayons, Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick among others were silently seen.

While the two stars might share vague similarities in the sense they're both European white guys who lift weights and do action movies, the likenesses more or less stop there.  Van Damme was always flattered to receive the comparison but knew he was his own man with his own plan.  Besides, it's better to be compared to a king than a pauper, right?  Whereas Arnold broke into the mainstream with his mix of hyper masculine physique, looming presence and boisterous sense of humor, Van Damme always played it a bit quieter and a bit more sensitive.  Arnold's first signature roles showcased him as unstoppable barbarians and cybernetic killing machines in Conan and The Terminator while Van Damme burst into the scene playing a mentor honoring karate fighter and revenge seeking kickboxer in Bloodsport and well, Kickboxer.  As Arnold was usually meting out violence with a sword or sub-machine gun in hand, JCVD was busy kicking people in the face and doing the splits.  Whereas Arnold had a square, muscular jaw and a physique that was difficult to hide, Van Damme's smaller stature and baby face made him less menacing and more apt to aspire to be a romantic, dramatic and comedic leading man.  As Van Damme's profile grew, his films became more action oriented than martial arts driven and put him into the same cinematic turf as Arnold and Sly.  While we never saw Van Damme mow down a field of baddies with a machine gun or win a war, hybrid action/martial arts flicks like Timecop, Hard Target and the pure action, Die Hard style Sudden Death attempted to bring him into the full mainstream to unfortunate diminishing results.  As the era of the 80's and 90's action movie came to a close, Arnold was the last man standing who never went Direct to Video and after a few under performers, left the business on a high note with Terminator 3's $433 million dollar worldwide gross.

Today, Arnold's return to film has produced solid flicks like The Last Stand, The Tomb and Sabotage but he's only struck box office gold in small cameos in The Expendables franchise.  Since his last starring role wide release in 1999's Universal Soldier: The Return, Van Damme has kept his filmic output to a minimum compared to DTV factory Steven Seagal and for the most part has challenged himself as an actor in dark and serious efforts like In Hell, Wake of Death and Until Death before playing himself in 2008's meta-mockumentary breakthrough JCVD which earned the Belgian his highest praise to date.  Subsequent branching out included a voiceover role in Kung Fu Panda 2, a return to the big screen as the villain in The Expendables 2, playing dumb in ensemble comedy Welcome to the Jungle and finishing up his directorial effort Full Love/Soldiers/The Eagle Path.

I like Conan:

Gotta Drank! Callender's Grill

If you thought Marie Callender's is known for pies, well, you'd be right but they also have some great Happy Hour specials!  The Miracle Mile location on Wilshire has specials all night and all day Sunday.  $2.00 off all drinks, which includes some tasty Martini's and Mojito's and $6 bites like nachos, sliders and more.  You're also right next door to the La Brea Tar Pits.  Did you know La Brea means The Tar?  So you're saying, The The Tar Tar Pits?  Yup... Anyways, the open grass offers a peaceful reprieve and an instant date night.

For Last Action Hero, the filmmakers moved the Tar Pits to Long Beach for an extended action sequence that begins at a funeral:


http://www.yelp.com/biz/callenders-grill-wilshire-los-angeles

Wake Up With The Greatness

1)  Arise at 6:00AM
2)  Go for a run/workout
3)  Watch selected scenes from Last Action Hero while drinking protein shake

You have now awoken and started your day with The Greatness!

Summer Cinema: Last Action Hero

As if a screening of the newly restored, 50th anniversary, Digital Print of The Great Escape wasn't enough for my chock filled Saturday, I headed east to a midnight screening of 1993's hugely entertaining yet financially disappointing Last Action Hero.  There was a surprisingly long line queued up outside The New Beverly with an interesting mix of attendees who probably remember the flick upon release as well as many who might not even have been born yet.

For the uninitiated, Last Action Hero is the story of young Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien, The Lawnmower Man), a nice yet lonely kid who spends much of his time at a rundown New York City theater run by benevolent operator/usher/projectionist Nick (Robert Prosky, Mrs. Doubtfire).  His favorite on screen hero is Jack Slater; a tough, wise ass Los Angeles cop played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nick offers to screen the latest Slater installment for Danny and provides him a "magic ticket", given to Nick by magician extraordinaire Harry Houdini.

While watching Slater battle thugs on screen, the ticket comes to life and throws Danny into the movie, into the middle of the action of "bad puns, the voice and hard rock".  Danny helps Slater solve the case within the movie all while trying to convince the larger than life hero it's all make believe.  But when evil hitman with interchangeable menacing glass eye, Benedict (Charles Dance, The Golden Child (Please give me the knife...)), gets a hold of the ticket and warps to Danny's reality, the mismatched duo must follow and stop him.  Now Slater deals with the harsh reality of a world where shooting a car in the trunk doesn't make it explode, punching through a car window hurts and staying up all night with a woman can involve only talking.

Watching it for the first time on the big screen with an enthusiastic crowd was the best way to ever see it.  Laughter, cheering and applause roared throughout the duration.  Arnold is hilarious as Slater, the parody of his on screen action hero persona and as a self promoting buffoon in the "real world".  The flick is also filled to the brim with cameos from the likes of Tina Turner, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Danny Devito (as an animated cat), Maria Shriver and the "Muscles From Brussels" himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme!  There was even an actor from the film in attendance (Skeezy, played by Jeffrey Braer). It's simple yet hopeful message of, "the world is what you make of it" and "believe" gives it a nice, family friendly appeal amongst the mania.

Last Action Hero was Arnold at the top of his career following the success of Twins (where he convincingly played a virgin in an Oscar caliber performance), Total Recall (See you at the party, Richter!), Kindergarten Cop (I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to go) and the mega hit, cinema changing Terminator 2:  Judgement Day (Chill out, dickwad).  This was to be his most appealing film yet with action, comedy, humanity, a lower body count, positive message and a PG-13 rating.  A real four quadrant affair that was supposed to play out all summer.  But it didn't...

Young writers Zak Penn and Adam Leff crafted a spoof on the over the top action genre of the 80's.  You know, the movies where the hero is a pumped up soldier or cop with a dark past but cuts through red tape and gets the job done by taking on an army by himself?  Penn and Leff's script was presented to Arnold, who everyone was looking to get into business with.  Interested in the concept but feeling it needed work, the Oak drafted Lethal Weapon writer and co-star in Predator, Shane Black, to do a polish.  Black brought in partner David Arnott and the two tweaked the script to the tune of a cool one million smackers.  Still feeling the script lacked heart, Arnold convinced legendary screenwriter William Goldman to do a pass.

Whereas a comedic or dramatic director might have excelled in the hybrid project, action maestro John McTiernan was hired.  The man behind many of the films that inspired Penn and Leff in the first place.  McTiernan's work on Die Hard, Predator and The Hunt For Red October showed audiences and studio executives that you could make a film with great action and sympathetic characters without having to play dumb.  Last Action Hero was to be Sony's tentpole for the summer of 1993 so an accelerated production schedule saw the film being shot and released in a 9 month window.  The advertising was huge; toys, video games, a Burger King campaign, even an ad on a rocket launched into space.  In the end, all of this synergy and wide appeal would be the undoing of the picture.  As it stands, Last Action Hero is an enjoyable, clever and exciting time at the movies but ultimately confused in its goal and hurried in its execution.

There was also a bigger, unavoidable problem lurking.  A little movie called Jurassic Park ended up being THE movie of the summer and the year.  As T2 had changed the game with it's use of special effects in 1991, JP took things to a new level and birthed two sequels whereas the sequel plans for Last Action Hero were probably put into a shredder after opening weekend.  Even Sylvester Stallone, on a career slide going into the summer of 93, rebounded with his mountain climbing/heist flick, Cliffhanger.  Thus fueling the professional rivalry that would eventually become a beautiful bromance.

Never one to be deterred by failure, Arnold went back to James Cameron and the result was True Lies; an R rated, bombastic, funny and well made piece of summer cinema that was the 3rd highest grossing picture of 1994.  As he is now again, Arnold was back.

Here's Arnold as Hamlet: