After Dice ended it's 6 episode run on Showtime, I was still hankering for the Andrew Dice Clay fix so I picked up his recent autobiography The Filthy Truth and polished it off in just a few weeks. Co-written by David Ritz, it's not overly long and generally pretty entertaining. Dice came to prominence in the late 80's and early 90's with his vulgar, angry and sex filled opinions on life. The book dives into his childhood and family growing up in New York, being a natural drummer, getting into trouble and honing a showbiz persona that at first was an act where he'd go from goofy Jerry Lewis to slicked back cool guy John Travolta in Grease. Ending up in Los Angeles and crafting his Dice Man character for over 10 years, Clay's comedy would be branded the kind of thing you think but never say. But putting it out there worked wonders for Clay as his albums went Platinum, he was the first comic to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row and was signed to a three picture deal with Fox studios among other achievements.
Along the way, Dice discusses his professional ups and downs, trying to stick to his guns, how his manager father might not have had his son's best interests in mind after the money started coming in, brushes with the mafia and oh so many sex stories, most of them about blowjobs or pleasuring women. Dice mentions the likes of Mickey Rourke and Sylvester Stallone as two 80's allies, even working out with Stallone's long time trainer for years. There's a funny yet ridiculous story about super producer Joel Silver calling Dice in for an emergency meeting in regards to The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and berating the comic for not taking the movie seriously as he was caught eating pizza. Silver would not make a film with a fat star so Dice went on some Hollywood cleanse before filming started.
Of course what goes up, must come down and Dice's career hit the skids after being labeled a misogynist and homophobic while his personal life crumbled with failed marriages and a near death experience. But always the fighter, and what's old is new again, Dice managed to parlay a guest stint on Entourage into a new comedy special, the book, a Woody Allen movie appearance, the Showtime series and working for Martin Scorsese. Keep it coming, Dice Man. Oh!
Remember how I told you Carl Weathers is awesome? So it's good to see him popping up so much in recent days. In November, would be surprise award flick Creed garnered plenty of positive buzz, critical accolades and boffo box office. Not bad for the 7th movie of a franchise that started 40 years ago. The film utilized deceased Apollo to give us a new generation of screen lead with Michael B. Jordan's Adonis Johnson aka Creed. Weathers showed up at the premiere looking dapper and fit as usual, rubbing elbows and making fists with Stallone and Jordan. There's rumors that a sequel would employ Weathers in flashback scenes akin to The Godfather II. The same month, Weathers and fellow 80's icon Mickey Rourke co-starred in Nissan's The Delivery, an online short film showing off a new cargo van in a send up of action flicks and The Expendables that's garnered over a million views on YouTube alone. This past Thursday the 14th, Weathers turned 68 years young as we head into the premiere of Colony, Carlton Cuse's (Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., Nash Bridges, Lost) new show starring Josh Holloway about a future split up into factions of authorities and rebels. Weathers will guest star in multiple episodes as a cop of some type I believe. Happy birthday, Carl, keep it coming!
Welcome back to Oscar Overlooked, our peek at underrated performances. Today, it's Dammaged Goods inspiration Jean-Claude Van Damme in 2008's lauded but ultimately overlooked JCVD. After making a name for himself in action-karate movies in the 80's and 90's, Van Damme's career slid from number one movies at the box office to direct to video fare after years of marital and substance abuse woes. While Sylvester Stallone would wait out the changing landscape storm and return with Rocky Balboa, Steven Seagal went for the paychecks and cranked out 3 DTV flicks a year and Arnold went on to govern the state of California. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Van Damme started making the conscious effort to act. Having always been the most sensitive of the swole up cinematic heroes, Van Damme attempted to challenge himself in films like Replicant where he plays a serial killer and a childlike clone, In Hell as a prisoner losing his humanity, Wake of Death as a vengeful gangster out for revenge and Until Death where he starts out as an addicted, horrible human being who's also a cop given a second chance at redemption after being shot in the head. It all culminated in 2008's mockumentary, JCVD.
In the film, Van Damme plays himself, or at least a version of himself. One that used to be famous and is now slumming in DTV fare made in Eastern Europe. He's broke, losing custody of his daughter, considered a joke, a loser losing roles to Steven Seagal who promises who cut his trademark ponytail. Going home to his native Belgium, the Muscles from Brussels gets caught up in a robbery and the local police think the former star has lost his mind and taken hostages. It's a funny, surreal and somber look at the life of a celebrity trying to find himself. Mabrouk El Merchri crafts a dream like dramedy that showcases a tired and weary Jean-Claude Van Damme who trashes his public image. Playing out mostly in French, it's a showcase for Van Damme to laugh, cry and fight, breaking down the 4th wall and inviting viewers to look at his life through non-judgmental eyes. The two notable scenes come at the beginning and towards the end in two long takes; one an action scene the other a monologue of JCVD talking to the audience about his life. While the film as a whole might not be award worthy, Van Damme's beyond honest performance is.
JCVD garnered positive reviews, mainly aimed at Van Damme's meta infused execution. Time Magazine declared the performance to be Oscar worthy while the Chlotrudis and Toronto Film Critics Association nominated him for Best Actor and Performance. Praise from Hollywood came from the likes of Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage to heart throb Robert Pattinson to future Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn. The film was released in the U.S. to middling business as Jean-Claude was scheduled to promote the film at screenings, on talk shows and in interviews but canceled last minute to take care of a sick dog. At the same time, fellow 80's and 90's icon Mickey Rourke was back on the scene with The Wrestler, an overrated redemption piece about an aging entertainer trying to make it in life. Stallone had already done it better 2 years before in Rocky Balboa but former actor and not action star Rourke playing a loser clawing back to the top resonated with the Academy resulting in a Best Actor nomination in 2009 and "welcomed back" to Hollywood after years of talking shit on the business. Rourke hit the award circuit, hard, showing up at events, roundtable interviews, in print, on TV, etc. talking about his painful childhood, not being prepared for Hollywood and all kinds of blah blah blah and crying for the public. Rourke would not win Best Actor that year but his career was rejuvenated, briefly, with roles in big budget fare Iron Man 2, The Expendables and the Immortals. By 2012, the party was over and Rourke was back to Direct to Video fare like The Courier and Java Heat. In 2014, he partook in a Russian boxing match and defeated an opponent paid to lose.
If Van Damme had done the same thing: promoted the film, granted interviews, introduced screenings and cried to reporters, I'm sure he could have given Rourke, Richard Jenkins, Frank Langella and Brad Pitt a run for their award money. Hollywood loves a comeback story but the Academy doesn't like to give credit to genre movies or anything that would make them seem less classy. So a guy known for kicking people in the face, doing the splits and showing his butt was probably never an option. Van Damme chimed in on the subject himself, stating that he would never get an Oscar due to his affiliation with the action film and being pre-categorized by critics. At first regretting not promoting the film, Van Damme claims he was repaid by God as the sick dog lived, he bagged the villain role in Expendables 2 and he's been a part of giant commercial campaigns for the likes of Volvo and Budweiser, managing to stay in the public eye much longer than Rourke without even trying. Or crying.
Encore has it going on. While staying in the Disneyland resort, one morning and two channels had the following movies playing: Legend, King Arthur and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. The latter is a forgotten gem of 90's Craption. The story of two lifelong friends, Harley Davidson, a biker and petty crook and Marlboro, a former professional rodeo rider and general rabble-rouser played by Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson. The duo reconnect in their hometown of Burbank, CA where the local airport has now gone international and their favorite watering hole is about to get gobbled up in the beautification process unless they can come up with $2.5 million smackeroos. Harley recruits Marlboro and their old high school gang to pull a quick armored truck job but things go bad when there's no money to be found. Instead, they've just hijacked a shipment of Crystal Dream, the newest, most destructive drug on the street. Now with a posse of heavily armed and seemingly indestructible goons on their tail, Harley and Marlboro hit the trail before returning home and taking care of business.
Remember, me categorizing this as Craption isn't an insult, it's a compliment. Why? Because while critics and audiences didn't sing the films praises back in 1991, I discovered it and enjoy the heck out of it. How many other future set, sci-fi tinged action westerns with a sense of humor can you name from the 90's? Not many. But seriously, if you can, send them my way because I love that shit. Harley wasn't even a slapdash, direct to video effort, this was a big budget studio picture starring two hot commodities. Mickey Rourke had established himself as a great on screen presence but still hadn't headlined a successful film and was becoming more known for his off-screen antics and asshole attitude. Don Johnson was coming off his run on the hugely popular and trend setting show Miami Vice but hadn't had much luck making the jump to features. With a healthy $20 million plus budget, Harley was reined by capable director Simon Wincer of Lonsome Dove, Quigley Down Under and later The Phantom fame.
As it stands, Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man is a fun flick. It's ludicrous and exciting, ridiculous and entertaining. You've got fisticuffs, gun fights, merciless bystander death, guys jumping over the wreckage of a sliding flaming bike, female nudity in the first minutes, a motorcycle riding montage set to Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive, airplane graveyards and professional wrestler Big John Studd throwing Rourke out of a window into a car among much more. Rourke was paid his highest salary to date for the film, bringing in something like $2.7 million but of course, in Rourke fashion, trashed the film and said he only did it for the money. In the film, his effortless cool is put to good use and Don Michael Paul's script gives him some quirky traits like being a horrible cook and not being able to hit shit with a gun. Johnson gets a few more laughs as the downtrodden, former cowboy about to lose his woman. He's dragged into each mess by Harley and lets his friend know what he thinks of each harebrained plan while trying to show Harley guns are meant to be shot, not thrown. Marlboro's gags include prepping many a phrase with "My old man told me, before he left this shitty world" and constantly repairing his crumbling cowboy boots with duct tape. Later we find out the boots were given to him by his father on the day of his first professional rodeo appearance.
Along for the ride is a spectacular supporting cast from the era including Tom Sizemore, Daniel Baldwin, Tia Carrere, Chelsea Field (Masters of the Universe!) and Vanessa Williams while Branscombe Richmond, Sven-Ole Thorsen and Kelly Hu pop up for a hot minute. The filmmakers do a credible job of attempting to instill some character and drama beats between the absurd action sequences that are all done for real in the pre-CGI age and we get big explosions, motorcycles racing around the streets of Los Angeles, a jump from the roof of a Vegas hotel into the pool below, etc. Harley is made out to be a sensitive loaner as he pines over the woman that left him without a word while Marlboro's nomadic lifestyle and "I am what I am" philosophy just isn't enough for his once a month girlfriend and true love.
While Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man has lived on as a futuristic, macho action western thanks to cable and video, upon it's theatrical release in late August of 1991, it opened at # 7 with a paltry gross of $2.2 million on it's way to a wimpy $7.4 million total. That would put it behind other 1991 actioners like Stone Cold, The Perfect Weapon, Van Damme's Lionheart and Double Impact. Rourke would take a hiatus from acting to embark on a short lived boxing career while Johnson would return to headline another popular TV series, Nash Bridges, after subsequent film roles did little to raise his profile. Director Simon Wincer would find solace in television as well, directing 6 episodes of George Lucas' Young Indiana Jones series and striking box office gold with boy meets whale hit Free Willy.
Until next time, keep squeezing, not jerking, those triggers and remember: it's better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool. See you at the video store...that no longer exist...
