Jean-Claude Van Damme: A Career Retrospective

Sumthin' for the ladies

I have two major hobbies: drinking cheap beer and watching shitty movies; two things that go together like waffles and happiness.  I’ve discussed cheap beer at length, but barely scratched the testosterone fueled surface of the wide world of shitty action movies.  To that end I will now be adding Jean-Claude Van Damme movie reviews to this blog in addition to the usual bottomshelf beer nonsense.  Why Van  Damme you ask?

I know it's shopped, but still...

Well asshole, you got some fucking nerve questioning the motives of a sophisticated writer like myself.  For the record Jean-Claude isn’t my favorite actor, but he’s certainly an actor, at least in the sense that people pay him to “act” in movies.  I’ve seen him act in more movies that any other actor in the world, beginning with the Street Fighter movie, a film I remember seeing in the theater multiple times.  I also saw Double Team in the theater and enjoyed it.  Both of those facts should give you some idea of what my tastes were like in Junior High.  I was a little late to the party but just in time to catch the tail-end of “Van-Damme fever.”  In college I turned those early positive memories into really positive memories by re-examining the career of Van Damme around the same time I took up drinking and making fun of shitty movies as a full time hobby.

Kylie Minogue as Cammy in the Street Fighter movie

And holy cow Van Damme made a lot of shitty movies.  In point of fact, I’d be hard pressed to say he ever made a good movie (in the classical meaning of the word “good.”)  Still there was something that separated Van Damme from the Dolph Lundgrens, Michael Dudikoffs, and Steven Seagals of the world.  Part of it was certainly Jean-Claude’s endearing(?) pancake batter thick accent, not to mention his mullet, and the weird knot thing growing on his head.  Part of it was his success in spite of all that stuff and his aforementioned acting ability.  I mean, a guy that had few talents beyond doing the splits and kicking people in the face was at one time worthy of a somewhat-complimentary-Simpsons joke and a guest spot on the Super Bowl episode of Friends.  A scant two years later, “the Muscles from Brussles” was making direct-to-video turdfests.  Intriguing to say the least.

The good ol' days when movies looked like shit

To answer that riddle I think it’s important to start at the beginning and work our way forward.  I won’t always be going in strict chronological order lest I get bottled-necked trying to acquire some out of print piece of shit movie, but I’ll be mixing these reviews in with my regular blog posts.  I’ll still be drinking, hell I wouldn’t recommend watching the Van Damme career library without a few drinks, or a massive amount of cocaine (to take a page out of the Van Damme playbook.)

Every time I see some dude in a Scarface t-shirt I think, "that guy is really cool, I wonder if he is also sexually obsessed with his own sister?"  

Next time: We examine Mr. Van Damme/Vandam’s early and uncredited work.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews

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I don’t know if you know this about me, but I like to drink, a lot.  I’ll drink just about anything that gets you drunk, but my drink of choice is American Beer.

About 7 years ago

Since I was about 17 to the present I have never gone more than a week without a beer.  I rarely get drunk anymore (takes too long) but I love to drink.  Now, I like a tasty Guinness as much as the next man.  My favorite beer is the Dog Fish Head 60 minute IPA, but I’m no snob.  Anyway, who’s got that kind of money?  Shelling out 10 bucks a six pack?  You can only have one beer a day at that price.  I like beer as much as anyone, probably more than just about everyone.  To that end I drink a lot of American beer.

24 cans, 24 years.  My 24th birthday.

Sonny Crockett

 If you look around on the web you’ll find lots of websites reviewing, wine, scotch, and fancy pants beers.  You don’t find a lot of reviews of American macrobrews: Budweiser, Coors Light, Blatz, Special Export, or Schlitz.  The ones that you do find on websites like beeradvocate.com typically break down like this:

“Pours out a crystal-clear golden macro lager yellow - you know, the classic piss beer color. Actually has some head retention on the top, very effervescent with lots of active carbonation… Smell is so clean it reminds me of fabric softener, and I swear I am get a floral whiffs. That smell has to be coming from somewhere else. Anyway, smells interesting for such a beer. Taste is somewhat clear and crisp too, and dry…I always have wondered, why in the world would anyone kreusen an adjunct lager? Why polish a turd”? –Star80 review of Old Style on beeradvocate.com

A few years ago, double fisting.

Keep in mind the guy gave the beer a B- so presumably he likes Old Style.  I mean, what the fuck?  The High Life Guy would flip his lid if he heard shit like that.  I decided to add a new feature to my blog and start reviewing American beers.  This includes just about everything that costs about as much as a case of Bud or less. The bottom shelf is usually where I buy my beer from, so special attention will be paid to the extremely cheap beers.  30 packs and malt liquor will be included, and paid special attention to.  I won’t like everything, in fact I’ll hate a good deal of what I end up drinking but that’s the way it goes sometimes.  You gotta suffer for your art.

Suffering for art, or just drunk?

Showering in America

Few things in life are as refreshing as a nice shower at the end of a long day.  When your fingernails are all stuffed under with nameless black shit and the little lines in your fingerprints are all full of brown dust, a good soak in the shower cleans all that shit off and it relaxes the muscles.  

This dude needs a shower

Showers are not only a place to get clean at the end of the workday.  They can be a spot of great adventure.  One time in college I got home drunk and went the bathroom to relieve myself.  When I walked in I heard someone in the shower and I said, “who’s showering?” thinking it one of the guys on my floor.  Had that been the case I would’ve said something like, “ hey…ugh..whadidyoudotonight?”  And they’d have told me about some crazy party.  Instead I heard some girl say she was staying in one of the dorm rooms with some guy. 

I then hatched my brilliant scheme: If I went and took a shower in the other stall I could see her naked when she got out and reached for her towel. Genius right?  Well I know what some of you people are thinking but honestly she was showering in the men’s bathroom.  The women’s room was about 20 feet away, and if she was in there I agree that it would be pervy and weird to sneak in there.

So I grab my towel and get in the shower, and no sooner do I get in when I hear a pretty girl ask, “are you that guy that asked who was in the shower?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

That was pretty much the end of the conversation, but then she got out and I totally saw her naked.  Then I threw up all the whiskey I drank in the shower drain.  Then I watched Training Day and ate popcorn.  It was the kind of night the Black Eyed Peas sing about.

A similar scenario from the 1982 classic Porky's