The sad decline of Jean Claude Van Damme

A brief Sunday update here. This weekend I've mainly been thinking about the death of the eighties action movie. Whatever happened to films like 'Kickboxer' and 'On Deadly Ground'? It seems like all the main action movie stars of that era basically went bat-shit insane at around the mid 90s mark, consigning that type of movie to the scrap heap.

I think the majority of the blame for this can probably be laid at Steven Seagal's feet. His pseudo-spiritual arrogance led him to make a series of atrocious movies where he seemingly refused to obey the costume department and just wore his own clothes. He also got so fat he couldn't do stunts (cue many shots of his feet during chase scenes) and was involved in possibly one of the most bizare news stories ever. Apparently a dead fish was left as a threat on a news reporter's car and Steven Seagal was implicated. A dead fish? As a threat? At least a horse's head in your bed is quite scary. Not many people decapitate horses and it does leave you wondering how they sneaked it into your bedroom. But a fish on your windscreen? What the hell does that prove? Watch out, Steven is a fish killer. He just murders a fish, he'll leave a dead trout on your windscreen, without a second's hesitation. I don't even think this is in any way an illegal act. I also can't imagine that walking around with a stinking fish carcass, just in case you need to 'send a message' makes you a badass. In my head I have a picture of Seagal creeping up to the car in the dead of night, slipping the fish under the windscreen wiper, screaming "RUN!" and the camera then cutting to his feet as he makes a deceptively slow get away.

Anyway enough about Steven, I wanted to highlight Van Damme's equally acrimonious decent into insanity. Jean Claude has always loved dancing. I have picked three videos which symbolise his, and the whole genre's sad decline, expressed solely through his love for dance. First we have him as a young, hip, potential future star. Look at those moves:

Then Van Damme at his peak. Click the link to see this timeless scene from Kickboxer. Finally, the end. Possibly the exact moment in time when it became clear he would never make a Hollywood blockbuster again:



Sad times. FC

The life and times of Nicolas Cage

Coincidence?

I think not.

In the beginning, when it was just Nic Cage, his twin brother and a precocious dream of stardom, no-one could have predicted the level of success that he would go on to achieve. Especially not in the early days when the 'Jessica-Parker-Cage' four-tet could be found pedaling their extreme form of performance art in various parks around Chicago. However, after a particularly vicious argument between the Cage twins, the handsomer and more virile Richard went missing. Never to be seen again. Under the stress of this "disappearance' the crew broke up, with Nic's girlfriend Sarah accusing him of the murder of the much loved Richard.

Sarah Jessica-Parker moved to New York, to the city, to get what Nic could not give her. Sarah's sister was rumoured to have appeared in a straight to video B-movie where the level of her performance got her struck out of the Actor's Guild.

Meanwhile Nic began to carve out a niche for himself in Hollywood. His style was at first uncompromising. He recently confessed in an interview:

“I welcomed the idea of bad reviews because that would mean I was doing something that challenged the critics. I thought I could change acting, which isn’t really my goal anymore. But at that time I was headstrong.”

Despite this repentant tone, evidence suggests that Cage's hunger for bad reviews has yet to subside. Who would have guessed that this man had won an Oscar:



His career reached a nadir in 2008 with Bangkok Dangerous. Re-making a critically acclaimed Thai movie but changing the central character (and therefore the whole plot really), from a deaf mute to a man who could speak and hear, because he wanted some lines. The man has won an Oscar don't you know.

After Bangkok Dangerous bombed he was faced with the daunting reality that no-one was going to fund any more Asian influenced action movies in which he was the star. Undeterred, Cage hatched a radical plan to build a time machine to take him back to a more innocent time, when overweight white men with greasy hair could conceivably be highly paid action movie stars. In the year 2017 he finally succeeded, sending his longer haired and chunkier self back to 1988 under the pseudonym 'Steven Seagal'.

Finally he was free to make as many films dangerously free of any plot or semblance of the craft of acting as he cared. And cared he did. His finest hour was in 'On Deadly Ground' when he beat up a septuagenarian and reformed a racist through a game of extreme slaps, all in the same scene.

Here's the link to the entire scene. Words cannot describe.

Now that both present and future Nic Cage's careers are drying up at the same time we can only hope that 'Steven' will reintroduce himself to his past self and that they can combine to cross that final frontier and make an album of immeasurable beauty.

Basically what I am saying is that Nic Cage needs to stop pretending he cares about cinematography, put on some weight, grow a ponytail, buy a leather jacket and make some abysmally good action films. Just never re-make 'The Wicker Man' again. FC (Bees video courtesy of AC)