Timecop at the Khyber

myspace.com/timecoptechnoband

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

JCVD Week is winding down here on The Clog, so we thought it’d be appropriate to widen our admittedly inner-looking view of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s influence on the modern world by examining his role in shaping the creation of local art. We touched base with Philly techno superstars Timecop — they’re named itself after the seminal 1994 JCVD film (#8 on the Essential JCVD) — to learn how the man/myth/legend has influenced their careers thus far.

City Paper: What was the thought process behind naming your band Timecop? Were any other JCVD movies in the running?

Timecop: We smoked alot of peyote and tried to channel our collective band spirit animal. Instead of an animal, JCVD showed up in our tent and started kicking some major ass. Before leaving, he said, “TIMECOP WILL BE THE NAME OF YOUR MUSICAL ENDEAVOR.” It was either that or the movie where he is training underwater.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

This is a tad on the old side, but only proves that JCVD is so face-meltingly badass, that all the badassery cannot be contained within the actual running time of the film, which opens TONIGHT at Ritz at the Bourse.

Movie blog Row Three looks at the modified movie logo — you know, the beginning of movies when the Universal earth or the Paramount mountains are tweaked to reflect the movie they’re about to show (Row Three gives a bunch of examples. My fave is from before the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera, where the bros take over for Leo the Lion).

While JCVD’s production company Gaumont doesn’t have the same iconic imagery as, say, MGM they still felt the need to up the ass kicking quotient.

Here’s the original, lame Gaumont opening:

… and here’s what you’ll see at JCVD, which comes generally recommended by our critics.

h/t Jessie Bikel

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

Check out our critic Shaun Brady’s review of JCVD. He likes it!

RECOMMENDED

Full-time action heroes, at least those without ambitions to govern populous states, usually seem the least likely types for self-reflection. The devolution from superstardom to direct-to-video obscurity seems a necessary trajectory, earned via fickle audiences and limited abilities. JCVD doesn’t refute that proposition so much as climb inside it, offering a Jean-Claude Van Damme both resigned to and trapped by expectations — which the actual JCVD continually confounds in this meta-confessional. Unlike other recent examples of actors sending themselves up — Bruce Campbell’s washed-up, resentful B-movie hack in My Name is Bruce, or Bruce Willis’ belligerent, pompous leading man in What Just Happened — Van Damme plays it mostly straight, portraying the actor as character rather than a caricature meant to parody Hollywood. Those years of interchangeable action flicks are in one fell swoop transformed from video store clutter to backstory for this weatherbeaten soul. The bravura, single-take action sequence that opens the film climaxes not with the usual act of heroism but with the star complaining to his director that, at 47, he can’t handle such protracted exertion. Throughout the film, Van Damme exposes his flaws, the harsh grey imagery etching every line deep into his face, his shockingly fine performance marked by fatigue rather than muscularity. —Shaun Brady

And he’s not the only one. CP contributing editor Sam Adams, with a decidedly lukewarm review, still praises Van Damme, writing in the LA Times:

Taking a moment away from his hostage crisis, Van Damme addresses the camera directly in what is surely the longest monologue of his career. As the shot lifts him up and away from the set, he takes stock of his life, the dreams that were realized and then dissipated, and he begins to cry with such depth of feeling that the line between one Van Damme and the other vanishes. It might be the most impressive stunt of his career.

And fellow CP film critic Cindy Fuchs gave the film a nine out of 10 rating, writing at PopMatters:

Mabrouk El Mechri’s movie nimbly avoids categorization, admitting and tweaking its most obvious label in its title. While it is indeed the latest low-budget action film starring Van Damme, it is also a meditation on precisely that sort of production, the branding of a star and a concept, the exploitation that drives every level of the movie industry but becomes overwhelmingly visible in this crudest of genres.

Good thing these guys liked JCVD. It would have been super embarrassing if we spent an entire week honoring a shitty movie. Naw, who are we kidding? It still would have been awesome.

JCVD, Mon Amour

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

Much like The Clog, many other media outlets are covering Jean-Claude Van Damme’s return to legitimate cinema, only they do it way worse. Except for Newsweek’s Sarah Ball, who captures JCVD’s heart in a few short questions.

There‘s a monologue in the film about being a washed-up action star. Did you improvise that?
I like structure—like driving: go past the school on the street, stay on the right side, no hitting the car, go in right, you’ll see a big church, stop and take a left, and you’ll have it. By doing this I’m giving a structure of life, a path of light, and showing what happens between me and me, which is something very beautiful.

Beautiful? Why?
I really opened myself up in “JCVD.” I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am, or the woman you are.

OK —
It was like being naked—I would love to be naked in front of you.

Well, I —
Not being naked being naked. I say such things in Hong Kong and they thought I was being a crazy Frenchman. Being naked of protection.

So you ‘ ve no regrets at all?
Believe me—I’ve done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don’t regret the crazy stuff. So are you in New York?

Yes, I am.
And are you 27, or 32?

I‘m 22.
Oh, f–––. That is very young. Will you come to the premiere?

I don‘t know. When is it?
I don’t know. You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?

Uh —
You can come find me, I will be the one with the very broad shoulders, dark hair and a simple suit. We can have some champagne, you and me.

I like he at first he tries to play off his naked comment as a metaphor and then is like, “Screw this, I’m just going to blatantly hit on you. In print.”

But Sarah, don’t fight it. Try as you might, you can’t resist the Van Damme.

h/t Huffington Post

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

Thanks to all the Clog readers who gave the JCVD DVD JCVDVD giveaway quiz I posted earlier this afternoon the old college try. I’m not sure if I was unclear about the criteria for entering, but you were supposed to e-mail me the answers, not leave them as blog comments.

No matter, though: Reader Lindsey Proulx was the very first to contact me, e-mail or comment, with all five questions right. Your glorious DVD is in the mail, Lindsey!

Questions and answers after the jump.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

I’ve got a three-film Jean-Claude Van Damme collector’s set — it features Kickboxer (#2 on the Essential JCVD List), Universal Soldier (#5) and Replicant — and I want to give it to you.

All you have to do is answer five JCVD-related trivia questions.

Some are easy, some are tough.

The first Clog reader to e-mail drew.lazor[at]citypaper[dot]net (subject line: JCVDVD) with five correct answers WINS.

Questions after the jump!

UPDATE: We have our winner. Check out the answers HERE.

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Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

I like it when people refer to JCVD as the “Mussels from Brussels” instead of the “Muscles from Brussels.” Belgians are obsessed with mussels so it kinda works.

Just for good measure, here’s one of our dude dancing to Chromeo:

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

Cannon Films

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

This past Sunday night, right before we kicked off all this JCVD Week madness, I was flipping channels at a friend’s house and came across Bloodsport (top position on yesterday’s Essential JCVD list) on the Vs. Network. Lovely, but pure serendipity, I thought to myself.

Last night, as I was groggily tube surfing before bed, I stumbled across a 2 a.m. showing of Desert Heat — the very same JCVD vehicle that Rodney Anonymous broke down for y’all last night — on USA. I stayed up and watched it.

I’m told The Quest (#9 on the Essential JCVD List) was playing on an Encore channel last night, as well.

This is meant to be.

These fortuitous omens bring us to a JCVD-related question that JCVD Week co-editor Molly Eichel and I have discussed at length:

Who would win in a fight between Chong Li (top), the villain from Bloodsport, and Tong Po (bottom), the villain from Kickboxer?

There is a myriad of factors to consider here.

Let’s start with the obvious: Chong Li is ripped and definitely has a brute strength advantage over his Muay Thai-practicing opponent. Tong Po, however, has a notable height and reach advantage, and I’ve fielded speculation that Chong Li would have trouble defending against his brutal knee and elbow strikes. They both have definite nasty streaks, as any good JCVD baddie should, so I see no advantage in terms of morale. I’d put them even as far as toughness goes, as well. People punch Chong Li like 45 times in his face and he just smiles. Tong Po literally eats glass.

So who’s it gonna be, JCVD fans? Let us know in the comments. Highlight reels for both fake fighters after the jump. (Note: In the first video, skip to 3:17 to actually see this physical matchup — actor Michel Qissi, who plays Tong Po, had a role as an unnamed punching bag in Bloodsport. Chong Li kicks a bone out of his leg with ease. Just don’t let this sway your decision, as Qissi was not Tong Po at this time.)

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During the Clog’s posting earlier today of the essential works of Jean-Claude Van Damme, we somehow managed to omit what many critics (translation: my friend Doc and myself) consider not only to be Herr Van Damme greatest cinematic achievement, but also quite possibly the greatest movie ever made: Desert Heat (aka Inferno on many basic cable channels). 

If you’ve never witnessed the awesome grandeur that is Desert Heat (aka Inferno) then you’ve also never been truly loved. Here are four reasons why you must rent this masterpiece sometime in the next 12 minutes:

1. It’s a remake of an Akira Kurosawa movie. Total absence of feces; Desert Heat (aka Inferno) is a remake of 1961’s Yojimbo (itself a remake of Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine), and one of the rare examples of a remake being better than the original. (Admit it; although his command of the English language is vastly superior, Toshirô Mifune is no JCVD.)

2. More special guest stars than an episode of the Love Boat. Desert Heat’s (aka Inferno’s) stellar cast is rounded out by the like of Pat Morita (Arnold from Happy Days), Larry Drake (Benny from L.A. Law), Danny Trejo (Machete from Planet Terror) and the late Sir John Gielgud as the ghost of Malcolm X.

3. Tasteful Nudity. In a theme that Woody Allen would explore (rip off?) nearly a decade later in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, JCVD is joined by versatile (and flexible) thespians Jaime Pressly and some-other-blond-actress-whose-name-I-could-not-find-on-IMDB.com as they survey the depths of human sensuality (and western footwear).

4. Safety First. By releasing Desert Heat (aka The Greatest Story Ever Told) directly to video, the producers ensured that no one would be trampled to death in the rush to catch it on the big screen.

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest, JCVD, comes out this Friday. We’re celebrating the Muscles from Brussels all this week on The Clog.

Open up your Netflix queue — Jean-Claude Van Damme is about to change your life.

Ten JCVD films you need to watch (with impassioned reasons why/plenty of video) after the jump.

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Welcome to the official start of Jean-Claude Van Damme Week — JCVD Week henceforth — here on The Clog. The Muscles from Brussels stole our hearts in his first starring vehicle Bloodsport and has continued to charm us since. There’s a Jean-Claude altar set up in the corner of the City Paper conference room that we pray to on a regular basis. We simply love him that much. So when we heard that JCVD was making a movie about JCVD — called JCVD!!!! — we lost our shit. Here’s why:

And then it started getting good reviews. Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir called Van Damme’s performance “miraculous” and it’s holding strong with an 83 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. JCVD opens in Philly on Friday, Nov. 21, and in anticipation of this glorious event, we here plan on bombarding you with the best in splits, crotch-grabs, ass shots and oh-so-charmingly broken Belgian English. So check back throughout the week for essential JCVD moments, cage matches between JCVD villains, awesome things JCVD says and much, much more. It will — how you say? ah, yes — kick ass.