Gotta Eat! Bob Evans

Last week I took a quick trip back to the middle east of America, Ohio.  Don't call it the mid-west, instead, shut your mouth and go look at a map.  Ohio is one state from Canada and two from the frigging Atlantic ocean you non-map remembering mofos!  Anywho, when I'm there, I always have a bit of an action item check list of people to see, places to go and establishments to feast at.  One of them is always Bob Evans, an Ohio based, family run restaurant chain that started in Rio Grande in 1946.  Their specialty is hearty, "down on the farm" style dining and their signature sausage products are available in many grocery stores.

Always crowded on a Saturday morning, Bob Evans is a quick and affordable place that is family friendly.  For people not from Ohio or from west of Texas, I would describe it as a cozier IHOP or Denny's since they embrace the whole "country farm" angle.  Sure they serve lunch and dinner but breakfast is why you come here and for me, it's always time for steak and eggs, biscuits and gravy and a side of broccoli for roughage.

I'm sure there's a list of great Ohioans Bobby E is listed on:

Gotta Get: Comic-Con Saturday!

The fateful day is here, preregistration for San Diego Comic-Con International 2014!  What's funny is that Comic-Con's sister show in Anaheim, WonderCon is in April but tickets are not yet available yet here we are on a Saturday morning waiting in an e-queue trying to get tickets for SD in July.  I remember the summer of 2007 when a friend told me Comic-Con tickets were approaching sell out, an issue they'd never faced before.  But the rise of comics in popular culture and the influx of media and movie studios vying for hype began sending crowds of CASUAL FANS to San Diego to see what all the fuss was about.  I believe Saturday sold out that year and since then the 4-day extravaganza of popular arts, previews and cosplay has become a hot item every year with Thursday through Sunday selling out.  SDCC made the conscious choice to cap attendance at around 130,000 instead of just making that greedy cash grab.

For a couple years, SDCC became part of the Hollywood press tour for any big movie coming soon or next summer.  Of course the hype died out when many Comic-Con friendly films crashed at the box office.  Remember 2010?  Scott Pilgrim VS The World shit was EVERYWHERE, they won Con!  And then got slaughtered by Sly Stallone's The Expendables and Julia Roberts' Eat Pray Love at the ticket counters.  When you saturate the main audience, there's really nowhere else to go.  Iron Man helmer Jon Favreau brought 2011's comic book based Cowboys and Aliens to San Diego, hosting a huge premiere for fans but the $160 million hybrid sci-fi western only managed $100 at the U.S. box office.  While many a movie star will visit the Con, a warm welcome is far from a guaranteed hit.  Hopefully this will thin out the herds of randoms walking around aimlessly hoping to see somebody famous instead of actually taking advantage of the show's exhibition floor full of awesome comic and movie swag along with the multitude of panels and events centered around art, painting, writing, filmmaking and so much more.

This year, after several crashed servers and disgruntled would be ticket buyers, SDCC changed their system to make ticket sales randomized instead of first in first out.  So here I am, waiting for the gates to open at 9:00AM PST so I can get a random number and try to throw some money at them.

Good luck and see you in San Diego!

*UPDATE*

After signing into the wait room the process began shortly after 9:00 AM.  I had several friends in line as well since you can buy tickets for 3 people.  A friend of a friend got in after about 30 minutes following an internet outage on the east coast, my tickets secured, I stayed in the room to try and buy for other friends.  After an hour and a half, Preview Night sold out and my friends got in so I carried on about my day.  I believe all tickets set aside for preregistration goers sold out in just around 3 hours.  There is a general public sale coming soon so you'll have another or first go at them.

Stay gold.

Weird(cool) Panels: Captain America - Mind Freak

As I travel into the cold of winter, eagerly awaiting seeing friends, eating biscuits and gravy, chili cheese burritos and digging through my comic book collection, here's an oldie but a goodie of wondrous Weird(cool) proportions:

We've seen the amazing exploits of the living legend time and time again. Well documented observations have compared Captain America to a panther ready to pounce, as intelligent as he is strong and Marvel's best looking hero, a comic book Robert Redford. But Cap's greatest skill isn't something that can be obtained through radioactive spider bites, cosmic ray bombardment or genetic mutation. The trait that sets Captain America above and beyond his contemporaries, detractors and imitators, is his sheer force of will. The will that led him to risking his life for the chance to be able to fight evil as he subjected himself to experiments that ultimately turned the frail weakling into a super human Olympian.  We take you back to 1984. The stage, Battleword. The event, the Secret Wars. Captain America's trusty and thought indestructible shield has been shattered in an all out battle across the mysterious and remote alien planet.

It lies before him like a wounded friend...How many times has it saved his life?...It is forever broken...Unless by force of will...or sheer desire...

It's not Spider-Man that deserves the Amazing moniker.

Workout of the Day: Jawline Monthly

It's always funny to see lists or videos of Gym Fails or photos of someone using a machine the "wrong" way.  One example I've seen a lot recently is this one of people lying the wrong way in a Leg Curl Machine.

You're doing it wrong!  Or are you?

Of course, your ankles are meant to be against that pad and you curl up to your butt to strengthen your hamstrings.  So what is that guy doing?  In my estimation, he's working his neck.  His neck?  Yup.  But why would anyone want to train that?  Oh I dunno, because it's on display 99.99% of the time?  For whatever reason, training your public parts like the neck, forearms and calves just isn't as sexy as training your beach parts, i.e. arms and abs which are covered about 99.99% of the time.  Some people might equate a big neck to a no neck and immediately think of football playing meathead but let's be honest, most people aren't going to get a big neck by doing a few light exercises.  Just like you won't get muscles like Arnold's because you lift 3 days a week.  Do you even lift, bro?

At your local gym?  Yeah right!

Instead, having that strong neck and jawline promotes a leaner profile while also fighting the hands of time or sitting at a desk.  Ever get a pain in the neck from sitting too long?  Bet you wouldn't suffer as much if you just trained those muscles holding your head up.  We've all seen photos of ourselves with bad angles and lighting and gasp at that double chin or jowl-ly thickness.  So how do you work these muscles if everyone will look at you strange in the gym for using a Leg Curl machine?  The first three gyms I trained in all had neck machines because they were geared towards football players and bodybuilders.  But go to any chain for the masses like 24 Hour Fitness and you're out of luck.


Things you can do at home or in a gym:

Lay on a bench or your bed with your head hanging off the edge.  Simply curl your chin to your chest and repeat for 15-20 reps.  Turn to your side and try to touch your ear to your shoulder.  Then to your stomach and raise your head up and back.  Easy!

Sit and place the palm of your hands against your chin, reach back and push down while using your hands as resistance.  Then put a hand to your temple and try to turn your head to the front.  Place both hands behind your head and push.  Super simple, right?

Dollar twenty-five, please.

Wrestlers utilize bridges to strengthen their necks for all those slams and hits they take.  Fold up a towel, put it on the floor then place your forehead on it.  Push against the towel, lifting your head and body off the ground, use your hands to push as you won't be that strong yet.  Roll to your back, head against the towel and push your neck and hips up, again, use your hands to give you a lift.  A little harder but you'll work your neck and trap muscles in no time.  Can you believe how effortless this is?

With weights, you see these newfangled leather contraptions to put over your head like a helmet that has a chain attached so you can add weights, what the BLEEP?!  No, grab a towel, fold it up then just grab a plate, 5,10, 25, whatever and lie on a bench or top of a staircase.  Hold the towel and plate against your forehead and just curl up.  Flip to your stomach and hold the towel/plate against the back of your head and repeat.  Wow, this is so not complicated it's almost stupid not to do!

Throw in some shrugs and dumbbell upright rows to work your traps, the muscles at the base of your neck and shoulders.  Chewing gum always helps too, you always saw guys like Arnold, Dolph Lundgren and Van Damme working their jowls in the gym and on set with some of the chewy stuff.

Jawline Monthly founders Dolph and Arnold

Busted (broke) Again: DMX

Here's an interesting bit of news for ya, George Zimmerman:  the overeager Neighborhood Watch guy who picked a fight, got beat up then shot and killed a teenager, is potentially fighting again, this time in the ring against rapper turned actor turned inmate turned awesome crazy guy DMX.  Something about Zimmerman wanting to box to get in shape led to him wanting to fight a celebrity and there's a guy who books celebrity boxing matches and after reviewing 15,000 would be opponents, DMX emerged as the contender.  I have no clue where this grudge match will take place but I for one, would love to see it.  Something tells me the crowd is going to be a bit hostile or completely non-existent.

Time to get Ruff because Talk is Cheap, mother BLEEP-er!  Hopefully X can get former co-stars Steven Seagal and Jet Li to train him.  Remember, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva credited Seagal with showing him how to do a front kick that knocked out Vitor Belfort.


*UPDATE*
The promoter has called the fight off after massive backlash on social media and a Change.org petition.  I'm guessing there were some death threats and security issues in there too.  I was devastated by the news because I wanted to see DMX put the hurt on that guy but probably would have gotten stabbed or shot in the parking lot...

Smooth:

Mr. Majestic: Kirk Douglas

"Kirk would be the first person to tell you he's a very difficult man. And I would be the second."
      - Burt Lancaster on friend and frequent co-star Kirk Douglas

Leading men, professional rivals and closest of friends Douglas and Lancaster starred together in some 7 feature films.  My favorites being John Sturges' 1957 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral where they play odd couple gunslinger and sheriff buddies Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp battling cattle barons and cleaning up Tombstone.  Then there's John Frankenheimer's 1964 Seven Days In May where Douglas plays Colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey, aide to Lancaster's General James Mattoon Scott who is planning to overthrow the weak willed President and install himself as leader.  When Jiggs accidentally uncovers the plot, he must convince skeptical military leaders, politicians and the President himself in order to stop his one time friend and personal hero.

Van Dammage: Peace or Piece?

I was in a club on Sunset and a guy came to me who represented the business side of Steven.  

He says: "I want to tell you something.  Steven wants to make peace with you."  

I said:  "A piece of what?"

     Jean-Claude Van Damme

While establishing themselves as the heirs to Arnold and Stallone's action movie kingdom, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were anything but friends.  Van Damme has always been complimentary of the Aikido master, claiming to be envious of Seagal's strong face and cool mystique.  In 1991, Seagal went on Arsenio Hall's late night show and more or less said he thought JCVD was a fraud.  A couple years later, Joel Silver wanted to cast hero Seagal opposite villain Van Damme in Demolition Man, a futuristic action thriller.  Van Damme turned down the role as he didn't want to lose to Seagal.  That film was later produced starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes and is fucking great.  Be well and go watch it.

By 1997, with Van Damme's ego and cocaine habit at an all time high, it was no more mister nice guy.  At a party at Sylvester Stallone's house in Miami, Van Damme challenged Seagal to a fight and went outside to wait for him.  Seagal brushed it off then fled to a club.  Van Damme followed and again issued the challenge.  Seagal again came up with an excuse and declined.  In Stallone's opinion, Van Damme would have wiped the floor with Seagal. 

Cut to 2008's JCVD where mockumentary Van Damme is losing parts to Steven Seagal because the supposed former CIA agent agrees to cut off his ponytail.  During Expendables II promotion in 2012, Van Damme was still being asked about Steven Seagal.  As always, Van Damme claims to love his work but thinks he should lose some weight and get back into the game.  When asked about the near showdown of that evening in 1997, Van Damme chalks it up to being a crazy guy at the time and that he lost because Seagal stayed inside and ate a nice dinner while Van Damme waited outside and didn't get to eat.

In his own (French) words:

Snow Screen: Jack Ryan Saturday

A few weeks ago, I took in the reboot of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, Shadow Recruit.  It was a serviceable enough action/political/spy thriller in this post Bourne and Bond age with a modern setting and straightforward story.  Chris Pine as the young Ryan is believable as an educated college student who joins the Marines following the 9/11 attacks, gets injured, rehabs and ends up working for the C.I.A. as a financial analyst.  Kenneth Branagh pulls double duty, showing up as the quiet yet menacing Russian villain looking to destabilize the U.S. economy while ably directing the bits of action interspersed with Ryan's budding romance with future wife Cathy (Keira Knightly), his induction into the world of covert ops with mentor Harper (Kevin Costner) and making the transition from analyst to field operative. 

Shadow Recruit is the 5th film based on prolific military/tech fiction author Tom Clancy's work but the first not to be based on one of his novels.  Friends and fellow viewers that evening were disappointed in the latest chapter; feeling the story was too simplistic and suffered from the sometimes awkward scenes between Pine and Knightly.  Looks like Pine will join past Jack Ryans Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck in the "one and done" club but their entries were much more well received than his.  Recruit hasn't kicked up much business at the box office and failed to appeal to younger audiences.

Thanks to Netflix, today became Jack Ryan Saturday as I plopped down for some The Hunt For Red October action, a movie I own on VHS but never actually got around to watching.  In John McTiernan's entry, Ryan is played by Alec Baldwin as a sauve looking yet nervous analyst and author whose knowledge is called upon regarding a near legendary Soviet Union submarine Captain, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery aka Ramirez from Highlander!), who might be defecting or on the verge of starting a nuclear war.  Whereas Shadow showed Ryan's history as a Marine, the past is only given a line of dialog in October to chilling effect.  Baldwin's Ryan is far from an action hero and comes off as a bit of a bumbler who is thrown into the situation due to his knowledge of the subject and is deemed expendable enough to go forth and find out if he's correct. 

October has some real thrills and tense moments throughout which is no small feat considering it's about a bunch of guys talking in submarines and offices during The Cold War.  A stellar cast includes Courtney B. Vance, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Richard Jordon and Sam Neil who give the Soviets and the Americans depth and personality.

Two years later, Paramount released Patriot Games based on Clancy's novel that finds Jack Ryan in England for a lecture and stopping an IRA assassination attempt.  After killing one of the assailants, Ryan goes up against a faction headed by the revenge seeking brother of the man he killed.  This time around though, Harrison Ford steps into the role.  In a bit of shady behind the scenes Hollywood dealing, it's said that Paramount owed Ford a lot of money for a movie that fell apart and offered him the sequel to Red October as a way to resolve some of the debt while placing a well known, bankable movie star into an established role currently held by talented but less recognizable actor Alec Baldwin.  When Baldwin heard all of this second hand, he refused to play ball with the back stabbing studio and went off to do a play instead.

In Games, Ryan is the main attraction as October cast the spotlight on Connery's defecting ship commander.  Since Ford is a few years older than Baldwin, the character is now a retired C.I.A. analyst turned professor.  Given Ford's pedigree as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, his turn as Ryan is more physical  than Baldwin's but is still not an action hero in the vein of cinema contemporaries like John McClane or Martin Riggs.  There's some simple rough and tumble goings on but at the end of the day, it's his brains and time behind a desk doing research that nets him the juicy leads.  While not as compelling as October, Patriot is a fine example of a for adults thriller that deals with current events and the nuts and bolts of clandestine government operations while keeping a foot in reality with the simple paradigm of how does one keep their family safe once exposed to a public threat.

It's a shame that Shadow Recruit didn't find an audience as it's always good to try and give movie goers a bit of excitement peppered with geopolitics, current events and good ol' American spy stuff.  For now, looks like Jack Ryan will take another hiatus and we'll have to settle for super soldiers on the run and depressed secret agents blowing shit up.

I'm Hot! I'm Big! I Watch a lot of Movies

"All of my heroes are self made:  Rocky, Scarface, all the guys from the Godfather, they all started out with nothing and built their way to perfection."

Pow!  What's up internets?  Everybody kicking ass in 2014?  Yeah you are, hopefully you've decided to better yourself through education and physical training in a bid to always be ready, Jack Burton style.  Remember to make yourself different sets of goals for the short term and long term.  Start with broad strokes then move into refined and specific goals to keep you focused.  Writing things down always helps as do some general timelines.  Be a doer!

Greatest day of my life:

Gotta Drank! Barney's Beanery

Barney's in West Hollywood has been a joint I've frequented often ever since moving to Los Angeles.  It's been the site of many a happy hour, a total shit show birthday party where my intent to have 2 shots and a Strongbow turned into 8 shots and a Strongbow...to seeing Neal McDonough (Band of Brothers, Walking Tall) playing pool with some friends in the middle of the day to a bachelor party before Point Break, Live!  and recently a large scale going away/reunion lunch.  The place is full of history and now I realize part of it is mine.  They've got a solid Happy Hour during the week with half off appetizers and cheap pints.  Their menu is huge and encompasses all facets of bar grub fried and filling.  They've also got an assortment of games in the back so you and your friends can play some shuffle board, foosball and Street Fighter with Marvel characters.

View In Peace: James "Jim" Jacks and Hard Target

Earlier this week, the death of movie producer James "Jim" Jacks quietly hit the news and interwebs in the form of a few brief articles and a couple detailed write ups from friends and collaborators like Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles.  His name might not strike the household familiarity of say a Jerry Bruckheimer or to a lesser extent Joel Silver but Jacks amassed a list of timeless classics like Jean-Claude Van Damme as a greasy mulleted samurai in Hard Target, the action ensemble western classic Tombstone, Richard Linklater's seminal Dazed and Confused, Kevin Smith's maligned but awesome Mallrats, Benecio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones' Rambo update The Hunted and his most successful work, 1999's The Mummy.  The Mummy was followed by two hit sequels and a successful spin off, The Scorpion King; which has had now spawned 3 direct to video sequels (the latest featuring Michael Biehn!).

A former wall street analyst who turned to screenwriting before working acquisitions at Universal and segueing into producing, Jacks is said to have been a hardcore movie lover.  1993 was a banner year for him as Hard Target, Dazed and Confused and Tombstone all hit theaters across the country.  Each holds it's own place in my and cinema's lore as they have all transcended generations and still resonate 20 years on.  Even though each title is held in high regard, at least two of them never matched the original intent of Jacks and his partners in celluloid.

By the early 90's, Jean-Claude Van Damme was the still the hot, young guy coming up the action ladder following Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger while competing with fellow new to the scene martial artist, Steven Seagal.  After a string of successful, low budget karate movies, 1992's Universal Soldier was his first decent budget, more mainstream action affair that had a talented director and studio support.  The flick performed well around the world and JCVD tried his hand at further broadening his audience with Nowhere To Run, a modern day Shane where VD protects a mother and her kids from evil land owners.  With nary a roundhouse kick or full split to be seen, Nowhere To Run might have fulfilled the Belgian's desire to try something different but audiences did not turn out and grosses were less than his previous 3 films.

Hard Target was the beginning of Van Damme's real push into the big leagues (it was also my second R-rated movie in a theater).  Universal saw his potential and figured with the right support, he could break into the $50-60 million grosses and join Arnold and Sly at the top of the mountain.  Former Navy Seal Chuck Pfarrer's (Navy Seals!) script is the story of Chance Boudreaux, a Merchant Marine struggling to make a living who helps out a young lawyer searching for her missing father.  Turns out her dad was a Vietnam veteran who agreed to be the subject of a twisted game that finds rich hunters paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to track and kill their fellow man.  Lance Henriksen and Arnold Vosloo turn up as the dastardly duo behind the sick scheme and it's up to Van Damme, the chick from Drop Zone (Yancy Butler) and mother fucking Wilford Brimley to stop them.

I'm not sure whose idea it was to go after noted Hong Kong director John Woo but the mayhem maestro behind The Killer signed on for his first American feature after Jacks and Universal set their sights on him.  Van Damme gave his stamp of approval but unfortunately, the $18 million production would be awash with problems from Van Damme being given far reaching creative control to Woo's unfamiliarity with the English language and American filmmaking process.  See, in Hong Kong, movies shoot for a while, stop and assess then continue on.  You can't do that kind of thing in America as studios need product to fill their slate so Woo was stranded without his team, working in a language not his own and a nervous studio watching over his shoulder.  Universal enlisted Evil Dead and Darkman director Sam Raimi to the production, ready to take over if Woo fell behind.  Even though Raimi was in awe of Woo and didn't think he would be able to bring anything better to the project.

After re-shooting the final confrontation between Van Damme and Henriksen, editing the picture would find the Muscles From Brussels presenting his own version along with Woo's cut that had to be trimmed down to avoid an NC-17 rating.  Jacks supported Woo's version as they didn't want a typical "Van Damme movie".  Test screenings were horrendous but finally on August 20th of 1993, Hard Target hit theaters, opening to $10 million on it's way to a $32 million total.  The tally was higher than Nowhere to Run but less than Universal Soldier.  Critics would deem it Van Damme's best but Woo's worst.  As it stands, Hard Target is a well made and violent action picture that does it's best to mesh Woo's human drama mixed with balletic gun violence and Van Damme's high kicking super heroics.  You get way too much slow motion, lots of close ups, bad puns, shoot'em ups, kick'em ups, jack rabbits slapping bears, horses, snake smacking, Mardi Gras, Lance Henriksen being set on fire, mama's taking chances and Ted Raimi saying "I ain't got no change, man!".

Post mortem, Van Damme would dismiss Hard Target for having a bad script and too much "John Woo bullshit" but having some good action and making him look strong.  Woo would remain political and say they did the best they could with what they had and didn't close the door on working with Van Damme again.  It never happened.  Van Damme would go on to his biggest hit, Timecop, before turning down a huge deal with Universal and sliding into a career funk filled with drug problems and messy divorces.  Woo would go on to find success after success, working with John Travolta, Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise on Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission Impossible II before returning to Chinese cinema following the poorly received Windtalkers and Paycheck.

Come back next time as we check out Jacks' work on a fellow, troubled production: Tombstone.  Until then, enjoy Van Damme beating up some thugs after having some tragic gumbo.

Train in Peace: Andy Hug

Woke up this morning with a hankering to do some shadow boxing and jump roping as cardio.  They say working out on an empty stomach first thing in the morning helps you burn fat as your blood sugar is constant and low from sleep so the body turns to fat stores for energy.  From Dolph Lundgren swimming or walking to Jean-Claude Van Damme cycling to The Rock Elliptical machine-ing it, empty stomach morning cardio has plenty of success stories.

To begin, I opted for shadow boxing via one Bas Rutten, a tough yet hilarious Kickboxer turned MMA champion from the Netherlands.  I'm not sure when he released his workout series but I've had mine since the mid 2000's.  It contains four separate workouts:  Boxing, Thai Boxing, All-Around Fighting and All-Around Workout.  I remember doing these years ago when I had a full workout space complete with punching bags and they were very hard but a great workout.  If you've never had your shirt completely soaked through with sweat, try these bad boys sometime.  If you do the full workout, it's only about 30 minutes but you will be wiped out.

Warming up with 50 jumping jacks and 50 mountain climbers, I jumped into 2-minute rounds of Boxing and completed 6 of the 10 as I wanted to save some energy for jump rope as well.  The tapes also provide 3 minute rounds when you're ready.  Then it was time to jump rope so I put on some Youtube clips of Andy Hug, the Swiss Kyokushin karate champion turned K-1 kickboxer Grand Prix winner who sadly died at 35 from leukemia.  Hug was always in great shape: muscular, proportioned and cut to pieces.  There were plenty of matches, workout montages and greatest hits (literally) on Youtube to keep me occupied and motivated while skipping rope in my living room.

Again, I went for 2 minute rounds jumping in sets of 50 until time was up.  You can jump rope a million different ways and they say it's 3 times the workout of running.  So if you jump rope for 10 minutes, it's like a 30 minute jog since you're always moving and using your calves, quads, core, arms and shoulders throughout.  To spice things up, I started some rounds with a set of jumping backwards and in another I threw in intervals at 20 seconds working and 10 of rest.  In between rounds I did some ab work with reverse crunches, twists and the good ol' ab wheel.  6 rounds of that and I was feeling light and tight, ready to face a day of lounging.

One of my favorite matches of Hug's was against Stan "The Man" Longinidis, a computer programmer turned Kickboxing champion from Australia.  I had heard of The Man because he broke the leg of American champion and Van Damme co-star in Kickboxer, Dennis Alexio.  Longinidis utilized a Muy Thai style that relied on vicious low kicks and the two came out fast and furious, winging high velocity kicks and punches at each other before almost falling out of the ring.  Hug would win by Knockout after softening Longinidis up with a cracking head kick followed up by a perfect left straight right down the middle that laid The Man flat out on the canvas.

Train in Peace, oss!