film: jcvd
Outtakes, the local annual queer film festival, opens in a couple of weeks so expect my usual write-up in due course. In the meantime, an insta-rec from the other film festival that's on at the moment.
M and I have recently gotten into Jean-Claude Van Damme in a completely (well, 95%) non-ironic way. We originally classed him as just another of the big action stars who mainly went by on muscle, but found out that he was top in the European full-contact competition circuits before he got famous, and that his roots were in Shotokan karate, which rather endeared him to us because we practice Shotokan too (albeit of course at a much lower level and for far fewer years). Like other action stars who actually made a name for themselves in martial arts before they got famous (Jet Li springs first to mind), there's just this sense of them somehow being more worthy than those who don't have that credential. Martial arts aside, tonight we managed to catch a session of JCVD.
JCVD, Mabrouk El Mechri, 96 minutes.
JCVD is an edgy, often funny mix of true life and movie life, craftily directed by a 30-year-old genre fan around the personage widely known as The Muscles from Brussels. Jean Claude Van Damme brings battle-worn charisma and amazing frankness to the eponymous role of an aging, perpetually derided action star. He also brings the addiction issues, the bitter custody battles, the money problems, the lousy roles in straight-to-DVD movies, and the scrambled zen philosophizing that have made him a national joke in his native Belgium. When he’s taken hostage in a hold-up there, all and sundry assume that he’s the perpetrator, finally gone completely psycho. As the media circus amps up, action guy confronts the meaning of life: can he kick his way out of this mess without a script?
Or, as one reviewer puts it, "Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks his own ass." Highly recommended.
M and I have recently gotten into Jean-Claude Van Damme in a completely (well, 95%) non-ironic way. We originally classed him as just another of the big action stars who mainly went by on muscle, but found out that he was top in the European full-contact competition circuits before he got famous, and that his roots were in Shotokan karate, which rather endeared him to us because we practice Shotokan too (albeit of course at a much lower level and for far fewer years). Like other action stars who actually made a name for themselves in martial arts before they got famous (Jet Li springs first to mind), there's just this sense of them somehow being more worthy than those who don't have that credential. Martial arts aside, tonight we managed to catch a session of JCVD.
JCVD, Mabrouk El Mechri, 96 minutes.
JCVD is an edgy, often funny mix of true life and movie life, craftily directed by a 30-year-old genre fan around the personage widely known as The Muscles from Brussels. Jean Claude Van Damme brings battle-worn charisma and amazing frankness to the eponymous role of an aging, perpetually derided action star. He also brings the addiction issues, the bitter custody battles, the money problems, the lousy roles in straight-to-DVD movies, and the scrambled zen philosophizing that have made him a national joke in his native Belgium. When he’s taken hostage in a hold-up there, all and sundry assume that he’s the perpetrator, finally gone completely psycho. As the media circus amps up, action guy confronts the meaning of life: can he kick his way out of this mess without a script?
Or, as one reviewer puts it, "Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks his own ass." Highly recommended.