Mr. Majestic: Steve McQueen

"He would say, you're twisting my melon, man, you're twisting my melon.  You're getting me all mixed up...he used to say to me.  He talked so hip I never knew what he was saying half the time."

     - The Thomas Crown Affair director Norman Jewison on Steve McQueen, the King of Cool

Workout of the Day: Catching Up

After a random day of eating and an evening involving a pint or two, I woke up feeling little flat and a lot lazy.  My energy was low from not eating much the day before but I wanted to kick some endorphins and get a good morning pump before a busy day.  I challenged myself to get in two sessions before and after work and accomplished them both.

At 6:00AM I got in the following at home:

Deadlift/Shoulder Press/Reeves Squat/Barbell Curl/Parallel Dip/1-Leg Squat/Barbell Row/Calf Raises/Side Raises/1-Arm Preacher Curls

10 exercises that worked my legs, back, calves, biceps, shoulders and triceps.  Nothing crazy but just enough to get me going.  I repeated the circuit twice then finished off with 5 quick bouts of 300 rope skips.  Sometimes it's easier to count and sometimes it's just easier to watch a clock countdown.  I recommend setting a timer for 2-3 minutes and either jumping for 30 seconds or blocks of 50 jumps until time runs out.  My heart was really racing after the first couple sets.

At 6:00PM I popped in some DDP Yoga and completed his Diamond Dozen list of 13 key moves before trying out the Fat Burner workout.  Hoo boy, for a 25 minute segment that includes warming up, working out and cooling down, I was dripping a sweat.  Counting to 3 was never so hard.  It's all about breathing, controlling your body and using dynamic tension.  Afterwards I felt very clear headed and relaxed.

That's two totally different workouts done in the privacy of my own home on my own time.  No driving to the gym, no waiting around for equipment or weights, no dealing with bozos.  At home, weights are a little more involved as you have to invest in some basic equipment and give yourself room while yoga only requires a mat along with a TV and DVD player.

Count it out!

Gotta Drank! SmithHouse

Located across from the Century City Mall and a stone's throw away from the Nakatomi Plaza aka Fox Studios is SmithHouse, a vast, wood trimmed bar and restaurant.  They even have their own valet service that charges a pretty reasonable $3 since street parking can be hard to come by or if you're not walking over from Fox in your office uniform of blue button up shirt tucked into dark slacks.  Their draft list is immense and includes Strongbow so I can partake in drinking from a pint glass.  Happy Hour is pretty solid with $1 off drafts, $5 well drinks and $5-6 appetizers.  It had been a while since I visited the joint and it was pretty empty on a Monday night.  Can't remember if they had barbeque on the menu then but they sure as shit have it now!  Scarfed down a brisket sandwich while wishing one of my two Californian hetero life mates off on a European Vacation. 

I hear cars in France run better on bread:

My First Million: Jean-Claude Van Damme & Universal Soldier

Following the success of 1988's Bloodsport, Jean-Claude Van Damme was in high demand.  Tom Pollack, then head of Universal studios, called JCVD wanting to work with him.  Unfortunately, the young Muscles From Brussels had signed multiple contracts with smaller independent studios, using snippets from the unreleased Bloodsport as his calling card.  Now that he was hot, everybody came looking; starting with the man behind the melee, Cannon Film's Menahem Golan.  Golan had JC locked into a low paying contract that paid him $25,000 for Bloodsport, then $50,000 and $75,000 for two more pictures that ended up being 1989's Cyborg and 1990's Death Warrant.  Each of these low budget actioners would gross 10 times their production costs, thus making Van Damme a safe investment.

By the time Van Damme got out of his low paying contracts, it was time for a step up.  Along with Bloodsport co-writer and now trusted friend and director Sheldon Lettich, the two developed Double Impact, the tale of reunited twins who team up to exact revenge on the mobsters who killed their parents.  Produced in name only by Academy Award winner Michael Douglas (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and long time associate Moshe Diamont, Double Impact would be a bigger and classier Van Damme affair that showed a different side of the karate guy.  The budget?  Roughly $15 million.  A far cry from the $1-3 million that Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Cyborg, Death Warrant and Lionheart each cost.  Released by Columbia Pictures in August of 1991, Double Impact would become Van Damme's highest grosser yet, raking in $30 million at the U.S. box office.  His fee?  $600,000.

Around the same time, Mario Kassar of Carolco had previously paid Sylvester Stallone $16 million for 1988's Rambo III and just handed over a slightly used private airplane worth $14 million to Arnold Schwarzenegger for 1991's Terminator 2:  Judgment Day.  Sly and Arnie were already the undisputed kings of action cinema which meant challengers to the crown were inevitable.  Kassar sent the script for Crystal Knights, an action romp about reanimated dead soldiers that had stalled out under Andrew Davis (Steven Seagal's Under Siege) to Van Damme with an offer worth a cool $1 million.  Kassar also recruited Hollywood and real life tough guy Dolph Lundgren to the play the villain.  Lundgren had made a splash opposite Stallone in 1985's mega hit Rocky IV but struggled after with enjoyable duds like 1987's Masters of the Universe, 1988's Red Scorpion, 1989's I Come In Peace and 1991's Showdown In Little Tokyo.

Fresh from Germany director Roland Emmerich was hired to take the reigns as he had just walked away from helming Stallone in the still yet to be made Isobar.  Kassar only gave Emmerich one caveat, make the "mini-Terminator" for $20 million.  Working with friend and co-writer Dean Devlin, the two rewrote the script, renamed it Universal Soldier and headed to Nevada and Arizona to shoot the film.  For Van Damme, it was a chance at the big time.  A studio picture with a talented director, ample resources and known co-stars could elevate him beyond the low budget, video market karate pictures he was known for. 

The story of two soldiers who kill each other in Vietnam and come back in the present day part of a government program as elite yet blank, zombie-esque killing machines; Universal Soldier stands as one of the great action flick examples of the 90's.  It's big, loud, violent, fast and funny.  Big machines, big guns, big guys, big action, big fights and big explosions, it's all there.  While it may play as a knock off of Robocop and Terminator to some, Emmerich and crew deliver a film with it's own vision, scope and attitude that highlighted Van Damme and Dolph's attributes while putting them in an actual "movie" where they're part of the attraction instead of the only thing on display.  Van Damme plays Luc Deveraux as simple, innocent and childlike while also utilizing his karate prowess to beat up a room full of thugs and slug it out in the rain against Dolph.  Lundgren goes for it as the psycho Sgt. Andrew Scott and plays a wonderfully sinister and dark humored antagonist complete with human ear necklace.  It's an 80's and 90's action fan's dream come true as familiar faces like Simon Rhee (Best of the Best), Tiny Lister (No Holds Barred) and Ralf Moeller (Cyborg, Best of the Best 2) pop up to blow shit up.

Released in July of 1992, Universal Soldier would mark Van Damme's first $10 million opening on it's way to a $36 million total and continuing his filmography trend of performing better than his last picture.  Overseas the flick excelled and Unisol also became VD's first $100 million grosser.  In an essence, it really was a "mini-Terminator" as Arnie and James Cameron had roughly 5 times the money to spend on T2 and earned roughly 5 times as much.  Van Damme's next picture netted him over $3 million on his way to a career high (and start of decline) of $7 million for 1994's Street Fighter.  But that, is another story...

You're discharged, sarge!

Van Dammage: Background

"The kick, the this, the that, the mother, the revenge, the brother, come back to the U.S.A. I win the fight, right?  No, but (points to self) well paid."
     Jean-Claude Van Damme

Snow Screen: The Legend of Hercules

Before 300:  Rise of an Empire, before Hercules:  The Thracian Wars, we get 2014's second wide release, The Legend of Hercules, from Summit Entertainment and Millennium Films.  Starring Kellan Lutz of the Twilight Saga, Scott Adkins of The Expendables II (and 4 time Jean-Claude Van Damme co-star) and Liam McIntyre from television's Spartacus:  Blood and Sand and directed by Renny Harlin of Deep Blue Sea and Die Hard II fame.  TV writer Daniel Giat gets his first big screen credit with the help of 2011's Conan the Barbarian scribe Sean Hood.

The short and simple story opens with Adkins' King Slayer Amphitryon latest hostile takeover of yet another Greek city.  His wife and queen Alcmene disapproves of his blood lust and prays to Zeus for someone to stop him.  In her bed that night, thunder rolls as she writhes and is given the seed of a god.  Son Hercules is born with no idea who his real father is and grows into tan and muscled Lutz (who has really white teeth).  When it's announced his love Hebe (Gaia Weiss) is to marry older brother Iphicles (Liam Garrison), The Herc protests and is quickly sent to Egypt with a squad of soldiers led by Captain Sotiris (McIntyre), where they're set up and nearly killed by a band of ruthless mercenaries headed by Tarak (Jonathan Schaech of That Thing You Do! and Road House 2).  Sold into slavery, the duo quickly make a name for themselves in the pit fighting circuit and find their way back to Greece for a chance to avenge their fallen comrades and get the girl.  Finding out you're a demi-god, lion wrestling, jump punches, slow motion flips, circular Dolly shots,  ripped pecs, chiseled abs, sword clashing, He-Man referencing, full moons, thunder whips and single shoulder pad action shenanigans ensue. 

From the look of the trailers, I was expecting a schlocktastic good time from a capable but aging director hungry for a big movie comeback starring a young pretty face whose physique would fill in for acting.  Neither of those expectations were quite met as The Legend of Hercules isn't completely enjoyable but is totally watchable.  From the surprisingly solid 3D (flying arrows, rain, dander) that gave a sense of depth to the impressive set design to the straight forward but not self serious tone to frequent, kind of exciting action scenes (bogged down by random slow motion), Hercules is a lot more polished and sturdy than you'd expect.  Lutz's performance doesn't get too deep but he does fine with what's asked of him.  Adkins furrows his brow and sneers through his performance while McIntyre gets to play sympathetic and heroic as Herc's right hand man.

Clocking in around 90 minutes, the story moves so quickly from beat to beat and action scene to action scene that the flick is never given a chance to breathe so there is very little dramatic tension to all the goings on.  As it stands, The Legend of Hercules finds itself in the middle of the heap of mythic action movies as it's not as fake looking and drawn out as 300 or as morbid and draining as Immortals.  The film lacks the scope and fun of Clash of the Titans, the crude epic-ness of 1982's Conan the Barbarian and the straight bad-good cheese of Kull the Conqueror.  But it's still a lot easier to watch than Millennium's own 2011 rendition of Conan which put me to sleep.

Still the Man: Michael Bay (aka How to Speak in Public)

You might have heard about CES, the Consumer Electronic Show, going on in Las Vegas this week.  All of your top technology brands and manufacturers trot out their latest gadgets, sometimes hocked by celebrities.  Samsung brought along multi-billion dollar director Michael Bay to discuss their new curved television.  While the outspoken helmer of Bad Boys, The Rock, Transformers and Pain & Gain has never been shy to voice his opinion, he experienced a bizarre, awkward and downright embarrassing moment on stage.



Apparently the teleprompter malfunctioned, leaving the noted control freak on his own.  After a brief attempt to "wing it", Bay excused himself and quickly walked off stage.  Later, in a blog post on his official site, Bay said he got overexcited, skipped the intro, then the prompter failed and he walked off citing live speaking wasn't his thing.

While it's quite surprising to see such an outspoken and seemingly confident man stammer over his own movies and technology, it was hardly the "meltdown" people are labeling it.  Who knows what the circumstances were, maybe he just flew in from working on Transformers 4, maybe he didn't have a chance to review everything on the TV he should have or maybe he just got stage fright.  They say Glossophobia aka the fear of public speaking is the number one fear among humans.  At least according to surveys circa 1977, 1993 and 2009 as well as Russell Crowe in American Gangster.

I'm sure this will add fuel to the fire to all those passionately negative fans in the world who blame Bay for anything that ever goes wrong in movies.  For some reason, making slick, cool, fun, star filled entertainment just doesn't garner him respect, even if he's raked in the billions for studios and never made an unwatchable flick (Transformers II got close though...).  To me, he's still the man.  Why?  Because he's a doer!

I've never had a problem speaking in public or in front of crowds and have been commended on it in the past.  What's the secret?  Confidence.  Not cockiness, not arrogance, but confidence.  You can see through "swag" in a heartbeat.  A poseur is a poseur is a poseur.  Like any conversation, if you don't have anything meaningful to say but just want to be involved so people know you're alive then nothing positive can really happen if you're put in front of a crowd.  What's the most important issue?  Knowing your subject.  Once you know your subject you have a sturdy base to design a presentation.  Having a point is also very important.  What are you trying to convey?  What do you want people to take away?  Being excited for the subject helps too, I once sat in on an Microsoft Excel training session which should have been dry and sleep inducing but the instructor loved Excel so much, you couldn't help but be a little happier about learning.  Positive energy meeting neutral energy is better than negative energy meeting it's neutral or negative counterpart.

Slow down.  Don't be in a rush.  Think about what you're doing, make yourself notes and give yourself moments to regroup.  You won't lose an audience in the time it takes to sip some water.  Lastly, think of someone you admire.  In college, I thought of Tyler Durden, you know, Brad Pitt in Fight Club?  He was just the coolest guy in the world, nothing got to him.  That's the sort of mindset one must enter when being faced with a crowd of strangers.  Lock eyes with them.  Engage them.  You must have done something right if you're the one standing up in front.  Remember, You are the prize.  But if you don't believe that, nobody else will.

How you can not like a guy like Michael Bay, who gave us this, is beyond me.  "Tell your mama!"

Weird(cool) Panels: Bear Kick!

Don't know how or why but I'm currently reading a 1987 run of Marvel's Captain America comics simultaneously with Image Comics' 1994's solo series Backlash.  I'll dig into each later but basically starting in Captain America # 332, the government tries to impart stricter regulations on Steve Rogers aka Cap's activities and want to make him more of a political tool.  Steve refuses and gives up the moniker, costume and shield then disappears to find himself.  Months later in issue # 336, sporting a sweet beard, Steve comes across super powered eco-terrorist Brother Nature who sic's a bear after him.  How does ol' Stevie defend himself?  By karate kicking that Ursus humongous in the mouth! 


Oss!  Bear kick!

Meanwhile, in the good ol' 90's where everything is splash pages, hot dudes, hot chicks, action on every page, straps and pouches on every costume and everybody looks like they're flying even when they can't fly, is mother fudging Backlash.  There's a lot to go through with his background but just know he's got mean fists, a smart mouth and some nifty powers that include turning into mist and psychic energy whips that come out of his wrists.  Was randomly searching the internet and found this awesome image of him after witnessing Cap kick that bear earlier in the evening.


Kiai!  Jump bear kick!

Coincidence?  Maybe.  Destiny?  More likely. 

Master Cast: The Right Stuff

Every now and again, you watch a movie with an amazing ensemble cast filled with up and coming actors who are just a few years from stardom and recognition.  From 1960's The Magnificent Seven to 1983's The Outsiders to 90's flicks like Dazed and Confused and School Ties, you'd be hard pressed to try and wrangle the then mostly unknown casts five years after their seminal establishing work.

Today we're going to look at 1983's The Right Stuff, which I picked up for a buck from my latest adventure at a Blockbuster closeout sale.  Based on the true story of the group of college educated test pilots turned astronauts of the Mercury 7 program to put a man into space; Stuff was written and directed by Phillip Kaufman, who helped give us The Outlaw Josey Wales, Raiders of the Lost Ark and mother fudging Rising Sun with Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Mako, Harvey Keitel, Ray Wise, Tia Carrere, Steve Buscemei  and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa!  Guess he still has the touch...

Let's look at the cast of now familiar faces, Oscar winners, voice actors and TV dads:

Sam Shepard - Oscar nominee and playwright, appeared in Steel Magnolias, The Pelican Brief, Black Hawk Down, The Notebook and Safe House.  Seems to be cast opposite Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer and Denzel Washington frequently.

Scott Glenn - The Original Man on Fire, The Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft, Training Day and The Bourne Ultimatum.  Up next is Endangered, a thriller about a rampaging bear with a killer, low-watt cast featuring Thomas Jane, Billy Bob Thornton, James Marsden and Piper Perabo.

Ed Harris - Multiple Oscar and Saturn nominee, director and all around intense method guy.  The Abyss, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Rock, A History of Violence, Pain & Gain (!) and Gravity.

Dennis Quaid - Saturn, Golden Globe and Blockbuster award nominee seen in Enemy Mine, Wyatt Earp, DragonHeart, Any Given Sunday, The Rookie and G.I. Joe:  The Rise of Cobra.

Fred Ward - Earl from Tremors and Remo Williams in Remo Williams:  The Adventure Begins!

Lance Henriksen - While he didn't get much love in Stuff, he still managed to claw his way into genre fame with roles in Aliens, Hard Target, Disney's animated Tarzan and TV's Millennium.

Jeff Goldblum - Super young and playing the idiot but redeemed in The Fly, Jurassic Park, Independence Day and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Harry Shearer - The voice of Kent Brockman and dozens more on The Simpsons since 1989, The Shear has also popped up in human form in This Is Spinal Tap, Wayne's World 2 and Godzilla.

William Russ - Yup, the dad from Boy Meets World pops up as a greedy test pilot early on.

We could go on and on with some of the secondary characters but hey, keep it moving.

Snow Screen: Lone Survivor

Playing in limited release for Academy Award consideration this week is Peter Berg's Lone Survivor, the film adaptation of real life Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's harrowing, near death encounter with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  Part of a four man team dropped off in the mountains on the hunt for a merciless terrorist leader, Luttrell's team makes a humanitarian decision when they come across a group of goat herders and let them go.  When their communication system fails, the four are trapped on the mountain with an army of Taliban soldiers on their tails.

The movie opens with real footage of SEALs in training before moving into the narrative where we meet our team of Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and their commander played by Eric Bana.  Their status as the world's foremost highly trained badasses is counter balanced with bits of personality and non-military issue discussion like wedding gifts and interior design.  For these guys, tracking down a known murderer in hostile territory is just part of the job.

From the start, Survivor goes semi-docudrama as we're just along for the ride in their violent and tragic quest to evade capture and stay alive.  Berg, an actor turned director who gave us 2002's fun, new age action movie The Rundown and 2012's unfairly maligned good time Battleship, does an excellent job of making the SEALs appear to be ordinary guys with an extraordinary job.  The action is simple and realistic whereas a scene of falling down a hill in The Rundown is played to cringe worthy and comedic effect, the same type of scenario in Survivor comes off as bone crunching and ultra painful.  I thought the flick lost some steam after it's big middle sequence and found myself wishing there was a timer on the side of the screen to show me where we were in the 2 hour run time.

Performances are solid across the board with Kitsch's calm, by the book leader and Foster's usual intense, realist portrayals being particularly noticeable.  It was nice to see Bana back on the big screen even if his role isn't overly meaty.  Like Battleship, Entourage's Jerry Ferrara pops up as a communications guy.  The end credits show us the real SEAL team members the movie is based on which comes off more as a true to life love letter to our brave men and women of the armed services rather than your typical, amped up, Hollywood action flick.

End of Watch(ing): Blockbuster Video

Growing up, Blockbuster was always the most expensive video store in town.  Independent stores might not have offered the same selection and quantity but they got the job done.  A neighboring Hollywood Video closed in 2005 and I still have many of the dirt cheap VHS' from their closeout sale.  When they started getting hammered by Netflix, BB unveiled their own mail in rental service with the added perk of being able to trade in mailers at a store for another flick.  There were many a walks to Blockbuster and Little Caesar's on Sundays when I lived in Glendale, California.  But now, I don't live in Glendale and thanks to streaming and Redbox, former titan Blockbuster is closing ALL of it's U.S. stores.

The first closing Blockbuster I ever visited was in Seattle, Washington in about 2009.  That day, I walked out of the store with 5 movies and 2 boxes of candy for $7.00.  This past weekend I walked out of my last Blockbuster closing sale and came out with 25 movies for $35.00.

View flicks in peace, everyone.

Van Dammage: Web Sites

"What the fuck do we care about Nu Image?!  I'm talking about the internet and the entire world, and you go back to this film. It is just a film."
       Jean-Claude Van Damme