BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies

Subject: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:07 PM

I'd never seen a single one of these, and I got to wondering about them, so I watched a couple on Youtube. I've now seen "Hard Target", "Lionheart", and another one about an escaped convict who helps a woman save her farm from a rich developer...can't remember what it was called. They seem to be mostly just an excuse for watching a lot of people get beaten up very savagely, but Van Damme himself is a reasonably likeable seeming guy in most of them...sort of a poor man's Arnold Schwarzenneger. His acting range is somewhat limited...but not godawful. He usually plays a rather sympathetic character with a well-developed sense of honor. He is capable of dodging at least as many bullets as Sylvester Stallone, and his pistol NEVER runs out of ammo! Chongo's been looking for a gun like that for ages.

I gather that his movies were never very big moneymakers at the box office?

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:12 PM

Oh, he's very courteous and thoughtful toward women too, and that always helps. ;-) Quite the gentleman, in fact. I think we need more role models along this line.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:13 PM

His expressions run the gamut...from A to B.

He always looks like a parody of himself.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 10:19 PM

True. You could say that of John Wayne too. And Arnold Schwarzenneger. And Charles Bronson. But not Clint Eastwood. Clint's got something extra.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,999
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 11:01 PM

Jean-Claude Van Damme--born in 1960, The Muscles from Brussels became a dynamite karate guy. He's fought in semi and full contact bouts and he's represented his country in karate matches.

His work is great--that is, the fight scenes are well set up--his acting, look, it's a karate movie!

I've seen four or five of his flicks, and although I wouldn't watch them in a theatre at $10 a pop, if they come up on tv and I watch it wherever I happen to be I kinda enjoy them for the fight scenes. Deep art? No. Good fighting skills--yeah, you bet.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 11 - 11:05 PM

Yeah, I am well impressed by his fighting moves. No question about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 02:03 AM

He can certainly thump people and I have found his flicks reasonably entertaining but far from unmissable when they have appeared on TV.
My girlfriend tells me that she read somewhere that a lot of stunt men avoid working with him, because he has injured a few. A lot of crap gets written in magazines, so I hope it is not true.
I think that the American actors Steven Segal, Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were all former martial arts people, who made entertaining films. It must help with the publicity, but it makes more sense to make martial arts films with dancers rather than real martial arts people. A real fight is usually short and ugly. Many laymen would not even understand the result, because the weapons - fists, heels of hands, elbows, knees etc would move very fast over a distance of the minimum number of centimetres. In a film you want something much longer and more aesthetically satisfying. It is also important that the audience sees everything clearly to understand it. That is what dancers are good at and it makes more sense to use them - like David Carradine or Choo Keng (now known better as "Michelle Yeoh").

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 10:35 AM

...it makes more sense to make martial arts films with dancers rather than real martial arts people...

Prime proof of that thesis: Summer Glau in "Serenity" and in the "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV series. She started out as a ballerina. Of course, I'm biased, because she makes me a little weak in the knees anyway...

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 10:47 AM

True. You could say that of John Wayne too....

Not quite- John Wayne not only looked like a parody of himself, he WAS one- as was Ronald Reagan.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Becca72
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 10:57 AM

"I gather that his movies were never very big moneymakers at the box office? "

I don't know how much $$$ his movies brought in, but 20-25 years ago he was a fairly big name and had a couple movies a year. Now, mind you, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than watch any of them...

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: gnu
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 11:35 AM

Don't use all the pins.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Becca72
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 12:27 PM

Gnu, for you I'll share. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: olddude
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 01:56 PM

He fighting skills are very good. His techniques are well executed. I enjoyed many of his movies. It is clear to me that his training was all in Taekwondo a Korean based martial art form (I got my first black belt in it) ... In reality it is not a very good self defense form of the martial arts. High kicks leave one very exposed and off balance.   The best is a really obscure form of martial arts called Kuntao .. that is strictly combat and not a sport form and something I will never again teach to anyone. TaeKwondo matches are wonderful to watch (safety punch and safety kick gear is required in tournament competition. I had an instructor that could smash and apple in mid air with a back wheel kick before it hit the ground. Fun to watch. It is clear he is very skilled at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: olddude
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 02:46 PM

another one that always blew my mind is Tai Chi ... did you ever see the old guys practicing in the park with the graceful (very very slow movements) That style is incredible .. almost mystical in nature. I had an oriental friend who was a master at Tai Chi .. We would spar and practice for hours and no matter what move I place on him he had a counter for it .. It was like a chess game with him always 5 moves ahead. We would spar to a total stalemate every time and I was a master at Kuntae at the time. neither of us could get the advantage on the other .. incredible beautiful art form and great form of exercise for the mind and body. Thinking of yoga, do tai chi instead for sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 03:28 PM

My son Geof is an Akido and Judo practitioner. Judo is very competitive. But I think I find Akido the more effective of the skills I have seen. That means I haven't seen many used but of what I have Akido seems the most effective. That may be why I like to watch Steven Segal fight. He makes no effort to make it look pretty. Just efficient. My understanding is he has some serious chops as an Akido instructor.

When I want to watch pretty fighting I watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Also very entertaining.

My favorite Van Damme film is Time Cop.

D

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: olddude
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 04:23 PM

I like time cop also very much ... I think it was his best movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Mar 11 - 11:41 PM

ok..now you're becoming familiar with the best and worst of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies..

..all very enjoyable, no matter how bad, for so many different reasons..

You might want to check out "JCVD" (2008)

Mr VD's surprisingly sublime 'post modernist' 'Art-House' comedy masterpiece

where he plays a character named JCVD,
an ageing movie action hero who's career is in serious decline..

"Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States."

"Washed-up, fighting bankruptcy and caught in the midst of a desperate struggle to win his daughter back from the jaws of a bitter custody battle, Van Damme unwittingly becomes embroiled in a dangerous bank robbery led by a gang of armed and violent criminals.
Trapped inside, Van Damme is framed for the robbery and the murder of innocent hostages. Now he must win the approval of the crowd as well as the trust of the police if he is to survive this deadly heist!

With a killer mix of action, murder, mayhem and no shortage of laughs JCVD delivers with the impact of a roundhouse kick to the face! Van Damme is back and this time he's taking no prisoners!"

seriously.. it's excellent !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 12:44 AM

olddude, I think Tai Chi is a marvelous discipline. It's very good for creating balance and flexibility. The movements always seem to be curving motions and one naturally flows into the next. If speeded up, they work superbly as self-defence moves.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Skivee
Date: 08 Mar 11 - 08:35 PM

As a decidedly rotund ex-martial artist, I can appreciate the skill JCVD demonstrates in his films.
That being said, every time this favorite son of Brussels sprouts up on my TV screen, I find that I must ap-cha-gi the channel selector to another offering of the cable-waves.
This is an immediate reaction. There is no Belgian waffling.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Becca72
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 09:28 AM

LOL, Skivee!!

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 10:30 AM

I think the appeal of martial arts films is the appeal of Westerns and all the other fantasy stuff we like. The good guys win and the bad guys get walloped. In real life violence is always ugly and sickening - even on the very rare occasions when the bad guy loses. In films it looks both justified and expedient.
Perhaps the most honest film of recent years which I have seen is "The Constant Gardener", about a diplomat who discovers that a drug company (which has also murdered his wife) has been conducting illegal drug trials in an impoverished African country. In that film the Quixotic hero is defeated and crushed without trace - as he probably would be in real life. The film is closer to the real world than anything I have watched for a long time, but you do not want to watch a film like that for entertainment every week!

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: olddude
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 12:49 PM

Alan is pretty much right on .. reality and movies are always two different things. Ever notice in every movie the good guy gets 1000 rounds from a machine gun blasted at him and never gets nicked. Yet he will pull out his pistol and knock off the bad guy. In reality he would have been cut in half

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: DonMeixner
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:04 PM

Bad guys are called bad because they are bad. Bad attitude, bad clothes, bad teeth, bad shots. Simple.

D

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:05 PM

if you notice, one of the constant narrative devices in most JCVD movies
is that Mr VD always takes a serious near death beating from the villains;
but though still badly bruised cut and limping,
our hero triumphantly high kicks 7 shades of brown stuff out all the bad guys by the end of the movie...

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:11 PM

I would bet that more people watched the opening salvos and the bombings of Iraq back in the early 1980s than have ever watched any martial arts film. People love death and destruction, imo, 'slongs it ain't themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:35 PM

Yes, they do. Some people. Probably a large majority of the population...but not everyone. A fair number of women, perhaps a majority of them, do not like watching violence, death, and destruction.

999, there's a very interesting book you might read sometime that explains (in one part) why so many people enjoy watching violent films so much. It's called "The Power of Now". Check it out if you get a chance and tell me what you think about it.

I might add that I enjoy watching such films now and then. Periodically I get a yen to watch stuff like that, so I'm not suggesting I'm "above it all" or anything like that. ;-) But I do wonder what it is in me that wants to watch stuff like that...and why?

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: olddude
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 01:52 PM

I got a theory LH .. maybe it is like I said. I learned all the violence - martial arts, shooting handguns, sharp edge weapons etc ... so i would never have to use any of it and be the most peaceful. Maybe the appeal is I watch this so I never have to be in such a situation .. Or maybe it is just the guy things we all have and like action movies and nothing so deep meaning ... good question

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 02:10 PM

Well, I think there are a number of reasons for it, both in terms of cultural influence on us as we're growing up, and in terms of various psychological and emotional needs we have. I recommend to you also to read "The Power of Now". It's a really fascinating book that makes a lot of things very clear in terms of how people think and why they think the way they do.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 02:45 PM

There are films which show violence as being genuinely horrific and cruel. A couple, which spring to mind, are "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers". In the former, Omaha Beach is made to look as horrible as it really was - a far cry from the earlier film "The Longest Day". The masterly episode of Band of Brothers, which showed the defence of Bastoigne through the eyes of a medical orderly, really brought across the suffering.
At the other end of the scale, I was watching a DVD of the opening minutes of "The Crimson Pirate" starring Burt Lancaster, a few nights ago. You watch a film like that for a completely different experience. The pirates take a ship of the line in the opening minutes with hardly any bloodshed. In reality, the damage done by blades and musket balls - let alone cannons - would have been ghastly. Yet we go along with the innate silliness of it all and it can all be thoroughly charming.
Well choreographed fight scenes make wonderful entertainment. However, like most of the other people here with that sort of training, if I were ever under threat in real life, my only consideration would be survival by any means. That would certainly not be pretty to watch.
Your book sounds interesting LH - although I am unlikely to find it here in Germany. There is an interesting essay by Roland Barthes on the appeal of professional wrestling, which you would probably enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 02:51 PM

I think you will find "The Power of Now" in Germany, alanabit...both in English, and in German translation. It has sold a lot of copies in Europe. The author is a German who grew up in the UK. His name is Eckhart Tolle.

The really sad thing about war is that it sets people at each other's throats who under any other circumstances could have been the best of friends.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 03:44 PM

I shall have to keep an eye open for it then LH.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: gnu
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 03:49 PM

Simple reason for the "interest". It's not rocket science. People want to kick the ass of the bully that transgressed them and this medium allows them to experience that in a vicarious manner even if in fantasy.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,Skivee
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 06:22 PM

I'd rather watch a good film about marital arts than one about martial arts

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Mar 11 - 06:37 PM

gnu - So in other words, they are carrying inner pain from past experience, and they want to discharge it by vicariously seeing pain inflicted on someone else who serves as a symbol of whoever hurt them? Yes! I would agree with that. Almost everyone carries such inner pain out of their past. But might there not be better ways of letting go of it?

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 11:14 AM

ooooh.. excruciating inner pain..???

hmmmm.. that brings us nicely up to date with JCVD's latest acting epic..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdHocrK59bo&feature=player_embedded

makes me shudder to imagine how much that hurts...

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 11:45 AM

Somebody once said that men/boys just like to watch things BLOW UP.

My own notion is that the male sex reacts to - and maybe longs for - the moments when things are elemental with no shades of grey, when the issue of survival concentrates the focus to an absolute pin point. I think that is the message men tend to take from such situations, whether from war or from fighting off an attacker.

Women, not so much. It makes us sick to our stomachs. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 11:58 AM

I think you are right up to a point Ebbie. My Mum used to like films in which the "good" cowboy wallopped the wrong guy and she enjoyed films which showed "justified" violence, as long as it was not too graphically depicted. She was a nurse, so she must have known what the results of real violence looked like. She enjoyed the fantasy that the good guy always won and the bad guys got their deserts. She was never keen on any sort of moral ambiguity, so the films of her day were generally just right for her. I also find this sort of violence entertaining in films, whereas in real life, I have always detested it - even when the "bad" guy got thumped (which was rarely).

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 12:19 PM

That's because women are (generally speaking) wiser than men, Ebbie. In my opinion. There are some women who go in for the violent stuff on film, but they are in a minority. Yes, boys absolutely LOVE to watch things "blow up real good". ;-) They like the excitement factor.

I would also say that while I might find a violent film entertaining (depending on whether there's someone or something in it that I can empathize with)....I sure as hell don't find violence in real life entertaining, same as alanabit. I try hard to avoid violence in real life.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 03:14 PM

Reminds me of a video series that a (male) friend of mine brought me. It was James Michener's Centennial series, a saga of the early American west.

I watched it to the seond N of the series and then decided that the bits of history (whether factual or fictional) wasn't worth it because of the periodic - and wholly predictable - scenes of violence. I never did finish the series.

That may be a major difference between the typical male and the typical female: to my mind, the female wants the story and character development while the male won't hold still for too much of that, instead, he wants bloodracing moments of mayhem.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 04:10 PM

As it happens, I rather dislike gratuitous violence in films. In this sense, I will define "gratuitous" as meaning that the director uses it, because he (or she) can think of no other way of holding the viewer's attention. I am sick to death of car chases, shoot outs and explosions when they are the main substance of a film rather than a good story.
In some films graphic violence is unavoidable - as in Schindler's List or The Pianist. Without it, the danger faced by the main characters would be depicted inadequately. I have seen enough explosions and cliff top fights now though. Stunts are no substitute for a really dramatic climax. "Twelve Angry Men" has a superb climax, without needing a punch up, an explosion or a car chase.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: fat B****rd
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 04:17 PM

All things considered I'd rather watch people doing it on film than do it myself for real.It's a pity more folks don't leave it there. Even at my age violence on film -fist fights in particular - is still an alter ego thing.
Yours timidly, Charlie

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 05:10 PM

"the female wants the story and character development while the male won't hold still for too much of that"

Hey, c'mon! I want the story and the character development. Without 'em, you ain't got much there worth watching. And I'm a male. I also enjoy a certain amount of suspense and drama in a story, and that would be where some violence can come in, but how much violence is the question? It gets way overdone in most modern films.

Think back to a great Humphrey Bogart film like "Key Largo". Gangsters...the constant possibility of violence...that's suspenseful. But how much actual violence was in that movie? A very minimul amount by today's standards, and it was all that was needed to make the story work. That's good movie-making. We live in a pretty decadent society now, and the movie-makers keep trying to shock an increasingly jaded audience by filling a film with exaggerated action scenes showing unreal episodes of bloody violence. I don't call that good movie-making, but the younger (male) audience now has been conditioned to expect it. Subtlety and suspense are becoming a lost art, it's all spectacle and shock thrill now. I call that decadence. Matter of fact, that is what has happened in mainstream pop music as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 05:38 PM

Dang! Screwed up the html codes again!

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 07:22 PM

Note that I said :"That may be a major difference between the typical male and the typical female..."

Not too many have called you a typical male, I dare say, Little Hawk. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 11 - 07:42 PM

Ah, yes...I see. ;-) Nope, only a disgruntled girlfriend or two has called me a "typical male"...in some trivial moment of relationship stress...and they didn't really mean it. As George Bush might have said, "There are outside words and inside words. An inside word popped out that time!"

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: ranger1
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 07:34 PM

Well, I love watching things blow up and violent action movies and I'm female. J-boy prefers storyline and character development and documentaries. I also like videogames where I get to blow things up. There's something extremely cathartic about it after a bad day at work...

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 09:26 PM

Cool. ;-) Nothin' wrong with a little fantasy now and then.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 08:50 AM

I don't like mindless violence but I do get satisfaction in seeing a nasty character get his or her just desserts. It does not necessarily have to mean blowing someone up. A good storyline is important to me rather than shoot-ups and even better when the movie isn't dragged out for over two or three hours or more. It's nothing to do with being female I don't think, the last thing I would want to watch is some over sentimental fluffy chick flick. That is as equally unappealling as Jean-Claude Van Damme as far as I am concerned.

If I want unreal fantasy I tend to stick with Zombie movies they are hilarious even if it wasn't intended.

Subject: RE: BS: Jean-Claude Van Damme movies
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Jun 11 - 02:49 PM

All Canadian Fans of Van Damme need to see this one.

Hockey fans too. Van Damme Beating up a Penguin mascot at the Stanley Cup Finals. What could be better than that?